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Should people over 50 heat cold cuts to avoid listeria?

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The risk may be small, but the failures are tragic.

Governments routinely warn that immunocompromised people, including expectant mothers and the elderly, should refrain from certain ready-to-eat refrigerated foods like deli meats and smoked salmon because of the risk of listeriosis.

Elizabeth Weise writes in today’s USA Today that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been saying for at least 11 years now that people over 50 and especially those over 65 should avoid hot dogs, lunch meats, cold cuts and other deli meats unless they are reheated to 165 degrees — "steaming hot" in CDC’s words.

The government also says you shouldn’t keep an open package of sliced deli meat more than five days, all to reduce the risk of infection from a bacteria called listeria. But some question whether the country’s been paying attention.

Barbara Resnick, incoming president of the American Geriatrics Society and a professor of nursing at the University of Maryland, knows of no one over that age who heats deli meats to that level and says she’s never seen a case of listeriosis in a patient.

Neil Gaffney, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service said, "When it comes to food safety, we’re serious: People at risk for listeriosis should not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats or deli meats unless they are reheated until steaming hot. Thoroughly reheating food can help kill any bacteria that might be present. If you cannot reheat these foods, do not eat them."

Mike Doyle, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Georgia said about 85% of listeriosis cases are linked to cold cuts or deli meats, and that today almost all packaged lunch meats contain either added sodium lactate, an acid formed by fermentation, or potassium lactate, fermented from sugar, as antimicrobials. That’s what he looks for when he buys cold cuts.

And based on FSIS risk-assessment data, meats sliced at the store pose a greater risk than meats pre-sliced at federally inspected establishments

Listeria and cold cuts were ranked just last week as the third worst combination of a food and a pathogen in terms of the burden they place on public health, costing $1.1 billion a year in medical costs and lost work days, according to a study by the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogen Institute.

Douglas Powell a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said, "And you can’t see, taste or smell that it’s there.”

CDC also says don’t keep opened packages of lunch meat, or meat sliced at the local deli, for longer than three to five days. That’s another one no one pays attention to, says Kansas’ Powell.

"Anecdotally, lots of people keep cold cuts in their refrigerator far longer than they should. People keep them for one to two weeks. That’s the key message. If you get it from the deli counter, four days max."

What wasn’t included in the story is evidence of listeria-related tragedies in other countries – countries that may not have approved those listeria-restraining additives.

Twenty-three elderly people died in Canada in 2008 after eating listeria-laden cold-cuts from Maple Leaf Foods. Later that year, listeria in soft cheese in Quebec led to 38 hospitalizations, of which 13 were pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Two adults died and there were 13 perinatal deaths.

The New South Wales Food Authority said last month the Authority provides information on listeria to pregnant women to allow them to make an informed food choice regarding the risk and how to minimize it. It is not to say that every piece of deli meat has Listeria on it, but some foods have a higher potential rate of contamination than others, and it is better to avoid them.

The risk of acquiring listeriosis is low. However the consequences for a pregnant woman contracting listeriosis are dire.

While the Authority may be accused of ‘being over the top’, we may also be accused of neglecting pregnant women if we did not provide this information so pregnant women could make informed choices in what they eat.

Over the last 5 years in Australia there have been between 4 and 14 cases of listeriosis diagnosed in pregnant women or their babies each year. These infections have resulted in the deaths of 8 fetuses or newborn babies.

Top 10 things that get lodged in the throat, Australia version

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Warning: avoid chunks of plastic when eating food from take-away containers.

Maybe that’s an additional warning required for those Styrofoam containers or clamshells, popular for leftovers and take-away food.

We developed safe handling labels for take-out food and showed those stickers can help restaurants and food providers distinguish themselves in a competitive marketplace. But now researchers report in the Medical Journal of Australia two separate cases where women accidentally swallowed a large chunk of plastic, which became stuck in their throat and required a trip to hospital to have it removed, after eating food straight out of a take-away container, which had "softened" as a result of their meal being heated up in a microwave oven.

Dr Chris Pokorny from Sydney’s Liverpool Hospital, and colleagues, write,

 

"Given that take-away food containers are widely used, these cases highlight the need for care to be taken when heating food in such containers and then consuming directly from them."

The doctors warn the plastic softens during the heating process, and could be sliced through during the act of cutting up a bite-sized portion of food.

The paper also lists those items which most commonly get lodged in the throat, headed by a wad of improperly chewed food (17.1 per cent) then coins (15.6 per cent), fish bones (12.6 per cent), dental prostheses (8.6 per cent) and chicken bones (6 per cent).

On bullshit and section 5 of the Food and Drugs Act (the Canadian one)***

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Ron Doering, the first president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and probably the only one anyone remembers (right, pretty much as shown), writes about food silliness in his regular column for Food in Canada. It’s reprinted below.

In his classic 1986 essay “On Bullshit,” Princeton Uni¬versity professor Harry Frankfurt makes an important distinction between lying and mere “bullshit.” The liar knows and cares about the truth but deliberately sets out to deny or disguise it; the bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth, he is simply trying to impress us or sell us something. The honest man and the liar really care about the facts but the bullshitter isn’t concerned with the facts except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says: “He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them up, or makes them up, to suit his purposes.”

Which brings me to food labelling. It is not well under¬stood that Section 5 of the Food and Drugs Act not only prohib¬its false claims on pre-packaged food labelling, but it also makes it illegal to have statements that are “likely to create an erroneous impression.” The Guide to Food Labelling, which sets out the government’s interpretations of section 5 of the Act, does not expressly refer to bullshit, but it comes close when it explains why it is a criminal of¬fence to make such factual statements: they “infer [sic] a false uniqueness and give an unfair advantage to that food.”

In practice, unless there is a pushy competitor complaint, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not usually take aggressive enforcement against mere bullshit claims. So, for example, even though green tea is the only pre-packaged food that Health Canada allows to make an antioxidant claim, there has been a shameless proliferation of implied claims through the use of a trace amount of green tea, blueberry or acai, or just “blueberry flavour” to give the erroneous impression that the food has anti¬oxidant qualities. The companies don’t really care about the facts (the science on the real value of antioxidants is not that clear anyway), they just want to get away with creating an erroneous impression.

Bullshit on food labels is everywhere. Other tolerated bullshitting claims common today include sea salt (trying to create the impression it is healthier than ordinary salt — it is not), organic (trying to create the impression that the food is safer, more nutritious, more sustainable — it is not), brown eggs (trying to create the impression they are different nutritionally from white eggs — they are not), and non-GMO (trying to create the impression the product is safer — it is not).

While it is not exactly the same as bullshit, the Ameri¬cans have quite a body of jurisprudence on what they call “puffery” in food advertising. As Professor David Hoffman explains in his learned article “The Best Puffery Article Ever,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has concluded that there is no harm in it if rea¬sonable people are not likely to take the statement literally.

Our own Dr. Bill Riedel, re¬tired Health Canada food mi¬crobiologist, writes and blogs regularly on what he calls “truthiness.” He claims, in retirement, to have “found sal¬vation in the academic literature on bullshit.”

For my part, I got into this aspect of Section 5 when the regulator recently threatened to take action against a client when I argued that the enforcement was not war¬ranted because the statement was scientifically true and not intended to give an erroneous impression (the issue was stating the Glycemic Index of the food). The regula¬tor argued back that the scientifically illiterate consumer might nevertheless have an erroneous impression — the test, it says, is not what is implied but inferred. That, I say, is another type of bullshit.

Ronald L. Doering, BA, LL.B, MA, LL.D, is a past president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He practices food law in the Ottawa offices of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, and can be reached at: Ronald.doering@gowlings.com

Food fraud: labels and local mean little

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Last week, a west Australian egg wholesaler was fined $50,000 in federal court for misleading the public by labeling cartons of eggs as "free range" when they knew a substantial proportion of the eggs were not free range.

Last month, two Arizona residents plead guilty to 13 felony offenses for their roles in purchasing and then re-selling farm-raised Asian catfish and Lake Victoria perch falsely labeled as grouper, sole or snapper; selling foreign farm-raised shrimp falsely labeled as U.S. wild caught shrimp and selling shrimp that falsely claimed to be larger and more expensive than they actually were; and for buying fish they knew had been illegally imported into the United States. Some of the fish tested positive for malachite green and Enrofloxin, both of which are considered health hazards and banned from U.S. food products.

Last fall, the Washington Post reported expensive sheep’s milk cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow’s milk, a jar of "Sturgeon caviar" was Mississippi paddlefish, and some honey is diluted with sugar beets or corn syrup, but still market as 100 percent pure at a premium price.

Last year, an NBCLA undercover investigation revealed that some farmers at southern California markets are making false claims and flat-out lies about the produce they’re selling.

NBCLA’s investigation began this summer, when we bought produce at farmers markets across the LA area, and then made surprise visits to farms where we were told the produce was being grown.

We found farms full of weeds, or dry dirt, instead of rows of the vegetables that were being sold at the markets. In fact, farmers markets are closely regulated by state law. Farmers who sell at these markets are supposed to sell produce they’ve grown themselves, and they can’t make false claims about their produce.

We did find plenty of vendors doing just that, like Underwood Farms, which sells produce at 14 markets, all grown on a family farm in Moorpark.

But our investigation also uncovered vendors who are selling stuff they didn’t grow, like Frutos Farms, which sells at seven different farmers markets in LA and Orange counties.

Frutos Farm’s state permit to sell produce at farmers markets says their farm is in Cypress.

NBCLA asked owner Jesse Frutos, "Everything you sell at farmers markets is grown in your Cypress field?"

Jesse responded, "Correct…everything."

But when NBCLA made a surprise visit to the Cypress field listed on its permit, Frutos couldn’t show us most of the produce he was selling, such as celery, garlic, and avocados.

So NBCLA asked, "Do you grow avocados here?"

"Avocados? No, not here on the lot. … That I’ll be honest. That stuff came from somewhere else," Frutos said.

Somewhere else? NBCLA’s undercover cameras followed Jesse’s trucks on farmers market days, and saw him going to the big wholesale produce warehouses in downtown LA.

We saw him loading up his truck, with boxes of produce from big commercial farms as far away as Mexico. He bought many of the types of items we saw him selling at the farmers markets.

After documenting this, NBCLA asked Jesse, "You are selling some things at farmers markets that you didn’t grow, that you got at wholesale produce markets?"

Jesse admitted, "Yes."

By the end of our investigation, we found vendors who make false claims selling at more than two dozen farmers markets.

Food fraud has been around a long time.

A recent paper in the British Food Journal reinforces the idea despite scientific sophistication, rules to control food fraud are only as good as the enforcement that backs them up.

In the egg case, Justice Tony North found the conduct involved a high level of dishonesty and was very difficult to detect because once the eggs were in the cartons it was impossible to determine if they were free range or not.

As today’s society grapples with how best to validate that food is indeed what it says it is — and safe — and as the huskers and buskers emerge with cure-alls, I turn to the words of Madeleine Ferrières a professor of social history at the University of Avignon, France, in Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears, first published in French in 2002, but translated into English in 2006:

"All human beings before us questioned the contents of their plates. … And we are often too blinded by this amnesia to view our present food situation clearly. This amnesia is very convenient. It allows us to reinvent the past and construct a complaisant, retrospective mythology."

View more videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com.

Ex-workers confirm date-changing on BC Superstore meat; required to use smell-test; feds say consumers are on their own

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After an investigation revealed a B.C. grocery store changing the best-before date on fish, former Superstore employees have come forward to claim that it wasn’t the first time this happened.

CTV News reports that former Langley Superstore employee Sylvia Taylor claims that changing best-before dates isn’t something new for the grocery chain. She worked in the deli department during the 1990s.

"Part of our duties, as directed by our manager, was to check our meat packages in the display cases for their best-before dates. If they were expired, we were to pull the meats, open up the packages, smell them, and if they smelled okay, we re-wrapped them and put a new best-before date, extending usually by about five days. When we were told to change the best-before dates, I stopped buying any meat products from the Real Canadian Superstore."

Jason Paxton claims he had a similar experience when he worked in the seafood department at the Duncan Superstore.

"Every time the meat was re-packed, the best-before date was changed. The majority of it we could wash off, re-package it and get a couple of more days out of it."

Paxton says he has since told his friends not to shop at Superstore.

Ken Randa of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says there are no laws against changing the best-before dates on packaged food, adding,

"If they change the best-before date, there may not be anything wrong with it, and maybe no legislative issue with us. Ultimately, they have to answer to you, the consumer.”

Superstore says employee are not allowed to change best-before dates and are required to sign a policy stating as much when they’re hired. The store says they’re also required to review and re-sign on a regular basis.

Uh-huh.
 

Grocery store caught giving fish new best-before date in BC

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CTV News reports that during an early morning undercover visit to the Real Canadian Superstore at 3000 Lougheed Highway in Coquitlam, British Columbia (that’s in Canada) a CTV News camera captured footage of an employee in the fish section selecting salmon steaks from the display and putting them behind the counter, where she wrapped them in new plastic.

But the fish didn’t just get a new wrapper — it also received a new label. Minutes earlier, the salmon had been displayed with a best-before date of Dec. 5, but when it was re-wrapped, the new best-before date was Dec. 9.

On Dec. 8 — one day before the new best-before date — CTV News took the salmon to Kevin Allen (left, exactly as shown, on a different network), a microbiologist at the University of B.C. The verdict was already clear.

"That meat is unquestionably spoiled. The smell is quite strong and rather unpleasant," he said.

Allen warns that what the store has done could allow dangerous pathogens more time to grow.

"As a consumer and a food microbiologist, this isn’t what we want to see," he said. "Without doubt, at this point, in my opinion, this is meat that shouldn’t be consumed."

Superstore declined an interview, but issued a statement explaining their policy is: "that when modification to packaging is required the original best-before dates are maintained. We have reinforced this policy with the pertinent store…. We apologize if there is any concern on the part of our customers."

Other grocery stores in Metro Vancouver told CTV News they don’t re-wrap food or change the best-before date.

A video is available at http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110104/bc_fishy_fish_110104/20110104?hub=BritishColumbiaHome
but it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.

Communication: the basics are sometime the best

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With all the fancy iPhone apps and text notifications and Intertube what-have-youse, sometimes the basics work better.

CBC News reports fishermen in P.E.I. (that’s in Canada) say government emails and web postings don’t compare to flags in the water when it comes to warning them about high bacteria levels in shellfish.

The shellfishery in Charlottetown Harbour was closed on several occasions this summer when heavy rains caused the sewer system to overflow, creating high bacteria levels. Fishermen complained they weren’t getting adequate warning of the closures, which would enable them to harvest oysters and mussels ahead of the storm.

As Hurricane Earl made its way toward the Maritimes last month, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency emailed people in the shellfish industry. It warned the storm could bring heavy rains and lead to closures.

John White, a policy officer with CFIA, told CBC News this was the last time such a warning would be issued. CFIA is opting for posting a notice on its website telling the industry that fishers are responsible for checking the forecast.

The P.E.I. Shellfish Association suggests putting yellow warning flags in the water when there’s a possible closure and a red one when the fishery is shut down.

Just like a red or yellow or green sign on a restaurant. Because who wants to check a web site when you just want to grab a meal?
 

Iowa Senator says market should punish egg violators; hard to tell eggs apart at retail

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I can get dolphin-free tuna and animal-friendly beef and table eggs raised under all kinds of conditions, but how can I avoid eggs from salmonella offenders? There’s so much reselling and rebranding at retail that the brand name is often meaningless.

Iowa Senator Chuck “Chuck” Grassley told Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register today that the government probably can’t shut down egg-beater Jack DeCoster short of finding criminal activity, but, “the marketplace is making the determination if the law doesn’t. Probably in this case the company may be hurt in the marketplace to the extent to which people are going to look and not buy eggs that have the word W-R-I-G-H-T on it,” referring to the name of Jack DeCoster’s Galt-based company, Wright County Egg.

Brasher notes though that DeCoster eggs have been packaged under a variety of names, including supermarket brands and the names of competing egg producers such as Sparboe Farms, who used Wright County Egg to augment their supplies.

Grassley also called on the Senate Democratic leadership to pass a food-safety bill that would increase the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of other segments of the food industry, including fruit and vegetable production.
 

Marketing microbial food safety at retail is the only way to provide consumer choice and hold producers accountable

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I told a state-sponsored jazz radio station yesterday (NPR) and a few dozen other media outlets yesterday that as someone who shops a lot for groceries, I’d be really interested in eggs that were verified through some kind of testing to be salmonella-free. Or reduced levels. Anything but the marketing crap that currently dominates the nation’s grocery shelves.

People are clamoring for local, natural, sustainable eggs in the wake of a 500 million egg recall that has sickened about 1,000 Americans with salmonella, yet there is absolutely no evidence that other eggs have lower levels of salmonella.

Buying preferences may help some folks feel superior, but salmonella happens – and it happens a lot. So why is there not a single retailer who will demand salmonella testing and market those results at retail?

As a consumer, I’m helpless in my choices for reduced-salmonella eggs, unless I buy pasteurized eggs, and even they are not fail-safe. I spend a lot of money at the grocery store feeding the herd of children I seem to have accumulated – why can’t someone give me some microbiological data on which to make a purchasing decision? Having more government inspectors does nothing to assuage my food safety doubts.

Marketing food safety at retail has the additional benefit of enhancing a food safety culture within an organization – if we’re boasting about this stuff I guess we really better wash our hands and keep the poop out of food. Maintaining a food safety culture means that operators and staff know the risks associated with the products or meals they produce, know why managing the risks is important, and effectively manage those risks in a demonstrable way. In an organization with a good food safety culture, individuals are expected to enact practices that represent the shared value system and point out where others may fail. By using a variety of tools, consequences and incentives, businesses can demonstrate to their staff and customers that they are aware of current food safety issues, that they can learn from others’ mistakes, and that food safety is important within the organization.

In the egg fiasco, no one is stepping up and saying, we know about salmonella, this is how we go above and beyond the minimal requirements of government, and this is why you should buy my eggs.

What’s in a label? Is chicken injected with salt and water ‘all-natural’

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Food is 21st century snake oil.

And shopping for food can be so confusing.

Natural, organic, local, antioxidants, welfare-friendly, whole wheat made predominantly with white flour, hormone-free, hucksterism of whatever kind.

Juliana Barbassa of Associated Press reports today that a disagreement among poultry producers about whether chicken injected with salt, water and other ingredients can be promoted as "natural" has prompted federal officials to consider changing labeling guidelines.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture had maintained that if chicken wasn’t flavored artificially or preserved with chemicals, it could carry the word "natural" on the package.

But the agency agreed to take another look at its policy after some producers, politicians and health advocates noted that about one-third of chicken sold in the U.S. was injected with additives that could represent up to 15 percent of the meat’s weight, doubling or tripling its sodium content. Some argue that could mislead or potentially harm consumers who must limit their salt intake.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service plans to issue new proposed rules this fall.

Perdue, the nation’s third largest poultry producer, is among those pushing for a change. The company has joined a group called the Truthful Labeling Coalition, which has hired a lobbyist and launched an advertising campaign.

The two largest chicken processors, Pilgrim’s Pride and Tyson Foods, are among those that affix "natural" labels to chicken injected with extra salt and water.

A buyer perusing the chicken counter at a San Francisco supermarket agreed.

Muembo Muanza, 30, said he read the label and considered the price but never thought to check the salt content when buying fresh chicken.

"If it says natural, I expect it to be all natural – nothing but chicken," he said.

I’d be more interested if food-types would start marketing based on microbial food safety.