I did it years before Johnny Cash (mine is 1980), but just in general (although I did have the Cash pic on my office door — the office I never used except to store stinky hockey equipment for me and Chapman once the lab folks complained).
Doug Powell responds to the support he has received from food safety types (with a few exceptions) since moving to Brisbane in 2011 to support his French professor wife.
Health director-general, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, said in a statement that the latest food poisoning cases took the tally to 61 with two deaths so far.
The Kedah health department conducted a detailed examination of the premises that sold the laksa, and found that it had no relation to reports of contaminated iceberg lettuce gone viral on social media recently, he added.
He said the ministry was still awaiting for the results of food samples sent to the lab, adding that stool samples of patients tested positive for ‘Salmonella spp’.
What I remember from prison 35 years ago was, it was lonely.
There were fights, dramas, scandals, but that was nothing to the continual loneliness.
According to the New Zealand Herald, there will be no trimmings, treats or trifle for the 10,000-odd prisoners behind bars this Christmas.
The Department of Corrections has today released details of the Christmas Day menu for the inmates at its 18 prisons across the country.
Inmates will man the kitchens on the day, preparing 10,000 meals of roast chicken, gravy, roast potatoes, carrots, green peas, two slices of bread and apple pie with custard.
All prison meals are designed and prepared in line with nutrition guidelines recommended by the Ministry of Health.
The main Christmas meal will be provided at lunchtime, with sandwiches given in the evening, Corrections said today.
As with any other day, vegetarian and other special dietary requirements will also be catered for.
It’s difficult to fathom Chapman as an expert of anything, except garbage goals in hockey and bailing his PhD supervisor out of jail (as all graduate students should do).
I also hate being called an expert, but I know some stuff.
Dr. Chapman told Technician Online that, “Practicing good hygiene and having systems in place to verify that foods are cooked go a long way in preventing these sort of outbreaks. On the supplier’s side, systems are needed to make sure that suppliers are managing food safety on farms and the processing companies.”
On the individual’s side, Chapman said there is not much a customer can do to ensure that the food they get from a retailer is safe. Sanitation scores can be checked as a precaution but mostly it just comes down to trust in the retailer.
“The safety and well-being of our guests are always our highest priority,” said an official statement from Chipotle and Customer Service Consultant Olivia Beltran.
Stephanie K. Baer of The Pasadena Star-News wrote a few days ago that Chipotle’s food safety problems are about much more than where the Denver-based food company gets its ingredients, according to inspection data and experts.
Food safety experts say the fact there have been so many foodborne illness outbreaks in such a short period of time — six different outbreaks of E. coli, norovirus and salmonella in six months — it is indicative of a lack of training and oversight of the fast-food chain’s employees.
While there have been no confirmed reports of customers getting sick at Chipotle locations in Los Angeles County, major health hazards that cause foodborne illness are common at the food chain’s locations in the area.
Outbreaks at restaurants are commonly caused by ill employees and unsafe cooking or holding temperatures of perishable food, among other factors. And at Chipotle, where burritos are constructed with precooked and prepared food at a steam table, maintaining safe food temperatures is a recurring problem, according to inspection data and reports.
“There will always be foodborne illnesses, complaints and deficiencies, but what we see here appears to be repeated incidents that are similar in nature and that would suggest a systemic problem within the company that requires further investigation,” said Angelo Bellomo, deputy director for health protection at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
According to Los Angeles County Department of Public Health inspection data, health inspectors observed 126 violations for unsafe hot and cold holding temperatures at Chipotle restaurants — the most common health hazard observed across 84 locations in Los Angeles County — between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2015.
At the Simi Valley Chipotle, a health inspector who visited the location after the August outbreak found a container of beef held at 118 degrees — more than 15 degrees colder than required hot holding temperatures — according to Ventura County Environmental Health Division documents.
Similar food temperature violations were observed at the Boston restaurant where more than 130 people were sickened by norovirus and in Seattle and Portland area restaurants where the largest numbers of E. coli cases have been confirmed, online inspection reports show.
“It’s ridiculous that they can get that wrong so often,” said Doug Powell, a retired food safety professor and the publisher of barfblog.com.
While cooking food to the proper temperatures kills bacteria that is commonly found on raw meat, keeping food at the proper hot or cold temperatures is important to minimize the growth of pathogenic bacteria, like E. coli and salmonella, that may be in the food.
It’s a problem, Powell noted, that restaurants deal with industrywide — inspection data shows unsafe holding temperatures is the most common public health threat in Los Angeles County restaurants — but other prominent food chains seem to have a better handle on the issue.
Los Angeles County health inspectors observed 146 violations for unsafe hot and cold holding temperatures across 350 McDonald’s facilities between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2015 — 20 more than what was found at Chipotle facilities — according to inspection data. However, the problem was less common at McDonald’s, where facility and equipment maintenance were the most common health code violations.
“To really get to the heart of this matter they really have to focus on the culture within individual stores and that’s hard with 1,900 outlets,” Powell said. “They have to focus on the things that really make people sick because bacteria don’t care or viruses don’t care if your food is GMO-free or natural.”
Yet despite these obvious flaws, people still go to Chipotle, much like my wife still professes in me.
The Washington Post reports that despite outbreaks of food-borne illness, die-hard Chipotle fans stand by their chain
For burrito brigade, it’s a matter of risk vs. reward
Anne and Jeff Owens love Chipotle. They love it so much that they went there on their wedding day four years ago— she, radiant in her strapless wedding gown and a veiled fascinator in her hair, and he, in his tuxedo and teal vest — to order burritos and pose for photos. They love it so much that the Blacksburg, Va., couple goes back each Aug. 13, their anniversary, to re-create those photos, with their now 3-year-old daughter in tow. They love it so much that even now — even with Chipotle Mexican Grill linked to hundreds of cases of illness because of E. coli, salmonella and norovirus — they still go at least once a week.
“We’re totally willing to throw up a little for tradition,” Anne says. She laughs, then pauses. “That’s probably gross,” she says. “That’s so gross!” But even if their anniversary had come during the height of the outbreak, she adds, “we totally would have gone.”
“Sorry but I still love chipotle. And you have to take risks when it comes to love,” tweeted @calisalafia. “since I continue to eat chipotle knowing the risk i guess you could say i would die for chipotle,” @GNVZT tweeted.
“Sometimes, something gets some sort of odd cult following, and it builds upon itself,” says Anne Owens, who knows of other Chipotle devotees through blogs that round up pictures of fan photos. “We’re among this strange underbelly of Chipotle-obsessed weirdos, and we love our kind. I feel like that doesn’t happen for McDonald’s.”
Her friends have tried to get her to stop eating at the restaurant.
That won’t work. Provide information, let people decide for themselves.
And here’s another lost cause, Johnny Cash, who today in 1968, played a show, which was recorded for his forthcoming live album at Folsom Prison.
It’s one of those things that has long been rumored but difficult to prove: do health inspectors go easy on ethnic food service places?
I was in the little Chinatown portion of Brisbane the other day, with about 40 restaurants crammed into a small strip mall; as a food safety observer, I saw all 
sorts of things that wouldn’t pass inspection.
One of my health type colleagues says he’s heard similar rumors, but it’s difficult to validate. He says, look at inspection history, oh, and that politics definitely gets in the way. We all should be thankful for health types who give political influence the Johnny Cash salute.
In Seattle, kirotv.com reports that King County Health inspectors find some nasty things while looking for health code violations –like frozen chicken feet thawing in a filthy mop sink, raw chicken stored in a bucket underneath a dishwashing area or shrimp in a bin on a moldy floor. But a source inside the Health Department tells KIRO 7 some of these violations are going unpunished.
A veteran King County Health Inspector, who didn’t want to be identified for fear of retaliation, said inspectors are often told to be “less strict” when inspecting some ethnic restaurants.
“There are a lot of decisions that are being made for political reasons, instead of public health reasons,” the anonymous source said.
Lay off that whiskey, and let that cocaine be.
That’s how the 1927 song made famous by Johnny Cash goes, but maybe add the 
line, if you’re going to do cocaine, try not to do it with animal drugs.
KTLA in Los Angeles reports doctors are warning cocaine users about product cut with levamisole, used for deworming livestock.
The warning follows reports of several patients developing serious skin reactions after smoking or snorting cocaine believed to be contaminated with the veterinary drug.
The report, published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, said six patients developed purple-colored patches of necrotic skin on their ears, nose, cheeks and other parts of their body and, in some instances, suffered permanent scarring after they had used cocaine.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, up to 70% of cocaine in the U.S. is contaminated with levamisole, which is cheap and widely available.
In the expanding category of really bad food safety advice is this entry from Simply Recipes:
There are two basic methods to test for how done your meat is while you are cooking it – use a meat thermometer, or press on the meat with your finger tips. The problem with the meat thermometer approach is that when you poke a hole into the meat with a thermometer, it can let juices escape, juices that you would rather have stay in the meat. For this reason, most experienced cooks rely on a "finger test" method, especially on steaks (whole roasts are better tested with a thermometer).
For example, the story explains that to test for raw: Open the palm of your hand. Relax the hand. Take the index finger of your other hand and push on the fleshy area between the thumb and the base of the palm. Make sure your hand is relaxed. This is what raw meat feels like.
There’s more. This is what Johnny Cash and I think (below). Stick it in. Use a thermometer.
Thanks to another barfblog.com reader for the tip.
