Tag Archives: Haccp

A meaty Memorial Day – stick it in for safety

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Stories abound about meat.

It’s the Thursday morning before the long-weekend carnivorous orgy known as Memorial Day, so of course there are media accounts of meat: USA Today describes the problems of farmers who rely on small, family-owned slaughterhouses inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the N.Y. Times weighs in about non-O157 Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (note – there are a lot of other STEC than just six).

Others will cover those details.

The run-up to Memorial Day also has another tradition – bad food safety advice, often from N.Y. Times food columnist Mark Bittman, and boring food safety advice, usually from government and all the clones that mindlessly repeat banalities.

I noticed three years ago while travelling by train through France when Bittman wrote,

"… well-done meat is dry and flavorless, which is why burgers should be rare, or at most medium rare. The only sensible solution: Grind your own. You will know the cut, you can see the fat and you have some notion of its quality."

He must have those super space-aged goggles like Scott on Imagination Movers that allow him to see the dangerous bugs.

Yesterday, Bittman penned his annual homage to the burger in all its rare and microbiologically-challenged glory. Play along at home, and see how many instances of microbiological cross-contamination you can spot in the video available here.

And the only way to determine if any food has been safely cooked is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Color or time are lousy indicators of doneness. Or, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture says,

“1 out of every 4 hamburgers turns brown in the middle before it has reached a safe internal temperature. The only way to be sure food is safely cooked is to use a food thermometer to measure the internal temperature.”

And the snappy USDA slogan — It’s Safe to Bite When the Temperature’s Right!

(Exclamation marks should be reserved for the truly exclamatory; let the reader decide; Strunk and White, Elements of Style)

Stick it in.

Language as a barrier in food safety training

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When people ask if I speak other languages, I say, sure, I speak Canadian and American.

But from my WASPy roots I’ve grown to appreciate the role different languages have in making a global citizen. I took the lazy solution and travel with someone who knows languages.

In Dubai, more than 60 per cent of food workers in the capital who took hygiene training courses last year failed them, many because of language barriers.

Sure, most food safety training sucks, trying to make HACCP experts or microbiology geeks out of line cooks, but language can be a huge barrier. That’s why we have food safety infosheets in French, Spanish and Portuguese. We can do a bunch of other languages if someone wants them.

Stephen Pakenham-Walsh, a food-service consultant based in Abu Dhabi said relying on English was “short-sighted” on the part of food tutors.

Indians make up 65 per cent of the food industry workforce. Other Asian nationalities comprise 20 per cent of workers, with Arabs making up 12 per cent. The results indicate that the large majority of workers are not getting effective hygiene training.

HACCP or get out: FDA closes Maryland seafood processor

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Failure to document proper refrigeration, failure to keep fish species separate to avoid cross-contamination, failure to meet sanitation standards or keep records of compliance, and failure to verify that imported fish met FDA standards has led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to shut down Congressional Seafood of Jessup, Md.

Michael Chappell, acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs at FDA, said,

“On numerous occasions, FDA has warned the defendants, both orally and in writing, about their conduct and has emphasized the importance of their compliance with the (Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic) Act.”

Under a consent decree filed Friday, to become compliant with food safety laws, Congressional Seafood must have its HACCP and sanitation plans submitted by an independent expert and approved by FDA.

The FDA complaint accompanying the decree notes that the production of fresh, frozen and ready-to-eat seafood products without adequate HACCP plans poses a significant public health risk because these products are well-known sources Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Clostridium botulinum, Salmonella spp., and other pathogenic microorganisms. Humans who consume food containing these bacteria can suffer serious health consequences.

New hand dryer eco-friendly, food safe

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I’ve waited a whole month for this Saturday to roll around. For weeks, I’ve been rinsing, drying, crushing, and collecting our cans, bottles, and boxes in anticipation. This Saturday is the day the county picks up our recycling. I have to drive my tubs to the library parking lot, but I don’t mind. I’m happy to be counted among those who choose to waste less. This reflects one particular side of my personality.

Another side is evident when I wash my hands: I soap up my palms and fingertips. I get between my fingers and up my wrists. After I rinse away the soap, I dry them thoroughly.

And this is the point where the two collide: When I go to dry my hands (and am not at home where clean cloth towels are available), I always reach for the paper towels over a blow dryer.

I know many trees are felled in the making of single-use paper towels, but blow dryers are disgusting: They collect microbes that may have been aerosolized when the toilet was flushed and then blow them onto your hands.

At least, most blow dryers do. HACCP Australia thinks the Dyson Airblade hand dryer can effectively dry hands without recontamination.

Australia Food News reports that the Dyson Airblade is the first hand dryer to be approved for use in food handling areas. AFN explains,

“Using high velocity sheets of unheated air, hands are dried in just ten seconds while, at the same time, 99.9% of bacteria and mould is removed from the air using HEPA filtration…The dryer, unlike conventional warm air hand dryers, does not blow bacteria back onto freshly washed hands nor use a heating element that can induce bacterial growth.”

As an added ecological bonus, the Dyson Airblade uses up to 80 per cent less energy compared with conventional hand dryers.

“Recently unveiled in Australia, the Dyson Airblade hand dryer has already had local success by receiving a New Product Award at its first public launch. It has now been introduced in food manufacturing areas at Cargill’s, Kellogg’s, Fletcher’s International, KFC, Tabro Meats, Wingham Beef and George Weston Food’s Tip Top bakeries, as well as a number of kitchens at McDonalds Restaurants.”

Until these are available in all the kitchens and public bathrooms I visit (and the data shows up on their microbial safety), I try to strike a balance between food safety and eco-friendliness: I use one paper towel to its fullest (two, if necessary), and avoid grabbing a handful out of assumption that they’ll be needed.

I hate assumptions.
 

Space toilet is plugged

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The Associated Press reports today that one of the international space station’s toilets is out of order. As an often user of a plunger in my house, I know the embarrassment (or pride for some folks) that arises from plugging the commode.

While flight director Brian Smith declined to speculate whether overuse caused the toilet trouble, he was quoted as saying "We don’t yet know the extent of the problem. It may turn out to be of no consequence at all. It could turn out to be significant. It’s too early to tell right now."

The situation might get stickier as the space station guests, crew of the Endevour, are restricted to relieving themselves in their own vehicle. The AP says that the Endevour is parked next to the Japanese porch and can’t eject waste, Cousin Eddie-style, without spraying it all over the porch.

NASA, the food safety equivalent of the always-prepared Boy Scouts (without the funky green uniforms) was a catalyst in the creation of the modern food safety risk reduction system. In the 1960s NASA commissioned Pillsbury to rethink how to address risks in food processing and moved away from the use of end product testing as the only check. The result, hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) was created and seen as the best way to keep astronauts from acquiring foodborne illness and the avoiding awkwardness that would be created by explosive diarrhea in weightlessness.

The toilet repair work reportedly fell to Belgian astronaut/plumber Frank De Winne who wore goggles, gloves and a mask.

Should food safety inspectors get fired if they screw up? Welsh parents say yes

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Ya can’t inspect your way to a safe food supply.

For all those in Canada and America clamoring for more inspectors, please, read the report Bill-Murray-in-Groundhog-Day impersonator Professor Hugh Pennington wrote after the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales, which sickened 160 and killed 5-year-old Mason Jones (right).

The Western Mail reports this morning that the parents of those kids want the inspectors – the environmental health officers who failed to shut down the butcher responsible for the E .coli outbreak – fired.

Julie Price, 44, whose son Garyn, 13, was left fighting for his life after his kidneys failed when he contracted E.coli O157, said:

“At the end of the day, the buck stops with (butcher) Tudor, but these people were in place to protect our children and they didn’t. I would like to see them sacked.”

Jeanette Thomas, 37, from Mountain Ash, whose sons Garyn ,10, and Keiron ,13, both contracted the bug, said,

“These environmental health officers shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it, especially considering what these poor kids have been through."

Pennington’s report noted that the inspectors, could and should have stopped Tudor using a single vacuum-packing machine for raw and cooked meat.

The butcher was HACCP-trained, inspected and in the business for 30 years, but apparently didn’t know or care about cross-contamination between raw and cooked product. Neither did the imspectors.
 

HACCP increases customer satisfaction

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The Eye of Dubai reports that the Tawam Hospital in Abu Dhabi has increased patient satisfaction by implementing a HACCP plan.

Were patients, staff, and guests previously dissatisfied with their foodborne illnesses, I wonder?

 The CEO of the hospital, Mr. Michael E. Heindel, was quoted as saying,

“By implementing food safety audits and ensuring that staff at Tawam adhere to food safety standards and procedures we have been able to increase patient satisfaction and meet the [requirements for HACCP certification].”

The article, titled Taste and quality of hospital food on the rise, mentions several other improvements in the service of food at Tawam Hospital and seems to credit all of them to the HACCP plan.

It appears the culture of food safety stirring at the hospital has raised enthusiasm for improved quality of service overall.

To that, I say, “Hooray for HACCP.”
 

They call me…Tater Salad.

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Mmm…nothing starts off the semester like a well-charred burger and a heaping pile of tater salad. But like Ron White, this tater salad should not be out in pub-lic.
I was recently a guest at a “welcome back” picnic along with about fifty other students. A few of the dozen or so faculty in attendance grilled up a box full of beef patties and tossed them in a pile for us all to assemble and consume in traditional picnic fashion. I looked them over, picked a luke warm specimen out of the bunch and threw it on a bun with ketchup. But was it done? It certainly looked done, but charred as it may appear, color is no indicator of doneness.
The star of the show, however, was really the five tubs of Kroger brand Mustard Potato Salad lying open on the adjacent table. “Poop Salad" as it was recently dubbed by a ColumbusING blogger from Columbus, Ohio, where E. coli O157:H7 was found in the salads during a routine safety check.  This was after the product was distributed and sold, of course. (That’s just the way these things work.) So Kroger did the socially responsible thing and issued a recall in attempt to remove the possibly tainted salad out of the refrigerators of innocent people and dispose of it properly.
So how does a recall happen? The information goes out: newspapers are picking up the story, TV news crews are spreading the word, satellites in outer space are linking up… but people are sitting around eating recalled potato salad like there’s just a little guy in a booth tapping Morse code and sad little beepings just can’t keep up.
It’s sad that it seems so true. Somebody out there is not keeping up. But who? During the recent  Castleberry chili recall people were still eating the stuff, not knowing there could be a botulism toxin inside, weeks after the recall was announced.
How do we get people to care about the safety of the food they eat? “I was tainted on a production line (possibly),” the tater salad cries. “You threw me…in-to pub-lic.” But the public isn’t paying any attention.

Casey Wilkinson is an undergrad research student at iFSN, and she loves her mom’s tater salad.

I thought it was football?

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The bi-annual congress of the South African Association for Food Science and Technology in Durban was told on Wednesday that many of South Africa’s food manufacturers are failing to meet basic hygiene standards with the management often scrambling to ensure a spotless factory only when standard certification inspections are imminent.

And with the 2010 soccer World Cup just around the corner, it is high time that local food producers improved food safety levels in their factories to avert possible food poisoning disasters.

Rolf Uys, Manager of AIB International, was cited as saying that 45 percent of the factories his company had inspected over the past year had not met basic international food safety requirements, and 70 percent had less than desirable levels of food safety standards, adding,

"Some of the things I have seen this year were live insect activity in seven out of 10 silos inspected; cat droppings in a warehouse; urine in a fruit juice container; slime and psocids (tiny insects ) in water feed; the same buckets used for waste product and cleaning; and rodents blissfully living in warehouse wall panels.

"Factories are being cleaned once every three years just in time for the audit inspection. There is good preparation for the audit, but the attention is not on an entrenched food safety programme. … There is an attitude in the factory of ‘we’ll clean when we feel like it because the legislation is only providing a guideline’, and of ‘let’s see what we can get away with.’ A lot of factories are saying ‘we’ll just take our chances’ and dish out vouchers to customers who complain, but this is not working any more."

If this is what the auditors are willing to say publicly, wonder what they really find?