Tag Archives: Mammoth Burger

Michele Samarya-Timm, guest barfblogger: Seattle has officially washed its hands of the five self-cleaning toilets

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Oh, the news stories that catch the eye of one immersed in public health.  

While we spend most of our time on this blog discussing issues that have to do with what comes after toilet use (handwashing, hopefully),  the toilet facilities themselves occasionally come into the spotlight ….

The Seattle Times recently reported that  Seattle has officially “washed its hands” of their self-cleaning public toilets.  Which leaves visitors to that city without a convenient place to, uh, relieve themselves – as well as leaving them without a convenient place to wash their hands. 

Too bad Seattle did not work toward finding a way to deal with any problems these public toilets may have caused.     Finland found they could reduce/eliminate illicit behavior in their roadside toilets by allowing one to unlock the door by text messaging with a mobile phone.   The toilets have been secured, and a sign outside explains that the user just sends the word "open" (in Finish) to a short code and the door will be unlocked remotely. The company managing the service will keep a short-term record of all users’ phone numbers, simply so that if the toilet is then damaged by criminals, they can be traced by the police.   

And across the globe, even now, more than 600 cities have automatic public toilets — Singapore alone has 750, London 678, and Athens 500.    And there are traditional facilities across the globe as well. 

So what’s a tourist in Seattle – or elsewhere — to do? Do you ask a stranger for directions?  Advocate for conveniently located facilities?   Or map out toilet and handsink locations before you ever leave the comfort of home?   How about all three:

•    Visiting England?  The Public Toilets-Gut Trust recently began a campaign,  Can’t Wait, Won’t Wait: Public Toilet provision in the UK to educate stakeholders on need to retain or provide adequate public toilets:  

•    How about those travels down under?  Australia’s National Continence Management Strategy Project readily publishes locations of rest rooms on their searchable public toilet map:   www.toiletmap.gov.au

•    Traveling wherever the world will take you?  The Bathroom Diaries www.thebathroomdiaries.com lists, describes and rates toilet facilities in cities throughout the world. Whether you stay close to home or are planning a trip, say, to China, Turkey or Florida, you can print out a list of public facilities in the cities you plan to visit.  One can also enter search terms such as “soap” “changing table” or “don’t eat poop.”

•    Do you ever find yourself desperately looking for a clean toilet in the city? MizPee purports to find the closest, cleanest toilets in your area and sends the information to your cell phone. One can add and review rest rooms, and check their toilet paper ratings. 

•    Then there’s Diaroggle which helps one locate public toilets from a mobile phone. In addition to location, the website includes user ratings for cleanliness, the rules of gaining entrance, and occasionally even pictures snapped by users to show how good or bad the porcelain sanctuary is.  According to the site, this is  “ for the discerning, on-the-go defecator who is brave enough to use a public bathroom, but still demands a hygienic and private bathroom experience.”

In Seattle or elsewhere, we all can map our comfort breaks along with our travel itineraries.  What a wonderful resource for a discerning on-the-go handwasher.

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Michéle Samarya-Timm is a Health Educator for the Franklin Township Health Department in New Jersey. 

Barfing on the BARF diet

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A raw diet for pets is quite a controversial subject.  Processed pet foods are processed with heat, making vitamins and nutrients less available compared to raw diets.  Raw diets are also generally free from additives and preservatives found in traditional pet foods.

However, raw diets cost more money per day and require more time and labor in order to prepare the meal.  There is also a risk of contamination with bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli with raw pet food diets.  A study conducted by Joffe found that 30 percent of dogs on raw food diets had salmonella in their stool.  "Dogs eating raw chicken will secrete salmonella into the environment," explains Joffe. "It can cause everything from mild flu-like problems to life-threatening illnesses."

The most popular version of the raw diet is called the BARF diet, short for Bones And Raw Food or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.  BARF diets are composed mainly of raw meat and vegetables.  Most veterinarians are not happy about these diets because there is no guarantee that the pet is receiving a properly balanced and nutritionally complete meal, and there is also the problem of bacterial contamination.

The Canadian Veterinarian Medical Association doesn’t recommend feeding pets raw food, and neither does the American Veterinary Medial Association.

If pet owners are looking for an alternative to store bought pet food, the optimal word according to the CMVA is "cooked." Make sure to use recipes that call for cooked meats. A healthy recipe includes cooked meat, such as hamburger or chicken, with potato or rice and a mineral supplement.  Proper cooking practices, such as using a meat thermometer and handwashing, are also essential to ensure the safety of the meal.
 

When football and food safety collide

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I love it when two of my favorite things, football and food safety, intersect.  Last year it was pigeon poop in stadiums.  This year it’s about changing culture.   USA Today published a profile of 4 new NFL head coaches and one spoke specifically about changing the losing culture of a team.

Mike Smith of the Atlanta Falcons said:  "When you change the culture, you have to change people’s behaviors. And when you change behaviors, you change their habits."

I think this philosophy should be the same in fields, packing sheds, processing facilities, retail stores and kitchens:  Leadership that values food safety should have a goal of changing the culture of an organization, resulting in behavior and habit changes on on the front-lines.  And the organization doesn’t have to be complicated or large, it could be an independent restaurant with 4 staff members or a church dinner committee with 20 volunteers.

Places I want to eat at or buy food from should be able to say that handling and producing food safely is what we do.  Just like Smith wants his team to have a shared belief that winning is what they do.

Poop on Mushrooms? Sara Snow on Jon and Kate Plus 8

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While I was working with the TV on this afternoon, I heard Sara Snow, Television host and Green Goddess, telling Kate Gosselin of Jon and Kate Plus 8 that mushrooms should not be washed. Kate, who is raising her family on organic food believing it will make her young twins and sextuplets healthier and stronger, was clearly put off by Sara’s advice. She said the family doesn’t normally eat mushrooms, but she was willing to follow directions. Sara told her to just wipe off the mushrooms with a damp paper towel.

While the stir fry cooked, the dialog was enlightening:

Sara to Kate: “In my opinion, if there’s a little bit of dirt left on there, it’s fine. It’s not gonna hurt anyone.”

Kate to camera: “She taught me how to clean them, which was a little disturbing to me.”

Jon in Kate’s ear: “Fungi!”

Kate to Jon: “There was dirt on them. Active dirt. And she said you don’t wash mushrooms.”

Jon to Kate: “It’s not dirt.”

Kate: “I know that.”

Jon grins: “Poopadoop.”

Kate: “I know. You see. That’s why he doesn’t eat them, he claims.”

Kate to Sara: “I don’t know if I like to eat dirt, Sara.”

Kate to camera: “I was essentially merely just wiping the poop off of them and that concerned me that I didn’t get every last speck.”

Sara responds to Kate: “I let all sorts of things fall into my food and I’m not worried about it.”


Is Sara crazy? Is Kate right? Sara concludes, “By the time it all cooks down you won’t even notice it’s there. I’ll cover it up nicely.”

That’s the point, really. If you’re cooking your mushrooms, you can kill the nasty microbiological matter. But would you pop them in your mouth raw? Neither Sara nor Kate visibly ran to the sink to wash with soap and water after touching the Poopadoop Mushrooms. In the next scene everyone was heading to the table to eat.

The Mazurs and Food Safety

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I like to think of myself as being quite conscious of food safety, but I have learned so much since starting my work with the International Food Safety Network six months ago.  Not only do I think more about washing my hands and cleaning food properly, I’ve told my family members about it as well.

My mom has become a regular reader of BarfBlog and we’ve also discussed a few of the articles at the dinner table.  When we’re out doing things and we see someone doing something unsafe with food (like picking food up off the floor and eating it) one of our favorite things to do is say, “Doug wouldn’t like that.”

It turns out that there are a few things in the lives of the Mazurs that “Doug wouldn’t like.”  A prime example is one of our favorite restaurants on the East side of Wichita.  They serve traditional Indian food, buffet style.  The restaurant is family owned, and as far as I know they have a relatively clean restaurant up to code according to the city.  But during my interview for my job with Doug, we discussed this restaurant and I distinctly remember him telling me it wasn’t a good idea to eat at a buffet.  The food sits out for hours and so many people go up and contaminate it, even with a sneeze guard.

He’s right, buffet style is a food safety nightmare , but unfortunately it hasn’t stopped our family from eating there once every two weeks.  I have yet to get sick from the buffet, so I continue to play the game of Russian roulette with the possible pathogens in the Indian food.  Each time we sit down at that restaurant we all say, “Doug sure wouldn’t approve of this.

Topeka, KS: Poop in Lake Shawnee

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Lake Shawnee in Topeka, Kansas recently had a code brown: poop in the lake.  Lakes with swimming areas should have a safe policy in place, but two year lifeguard Gray Botswell was told to go into the water and retrieve the fecal matter with his bare hands.  When he refused, he was asked to go home and not to return. Girlfriend Kristen Whithorn who has been a lifeguard at the lake for four years also walked off the job after she was told that she couldn’t speak to media about her boyfriend’s incident.

It sounds like there was no proper policy in place, so the guys in charge decided that the lifeguards would just have to take care of the problem.  However, removing fecal matter with bare hands isn’t ideal. It’s much better to try to protect the hands somehow or to fish out the poop with a scoop.

The director of parks and recs for Shawnee County, John Knight, says that a new policy is in place for lifeguards at Lake Shawnee if poop is found in the lake again.  The lake water has been tested for E. coli but results have not been released.

Public beaches on the coast are often tested for fecal coliforms and E. coli.  Both are indicator organisms of the presence of harmful bacteria in the water.  If the levels of bacteria are too high, the swimming area may be closed for a period of time.  But the same system does not exist for many lakes with swimming areas.

When swimming in lakes, oceans or rivers, children should not drink the water they are swimming in.  There is the possibility of human fecal matter and also wildlife fecal matter in the water.

Setting Boundaries: Pets and your newborn baby

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My ex mother-in-law once told me that if I had a baby I would have to get rid of my cats. I replied, “No cats, no baby.” My step-brother’s cats mysteriously disappeared once his firstborn was old enough to crawl. Doug and I have two cats and two dogs and no intention of giving them up or sending them outdoors once the baby arrives. Sure, there’s dog hair all over the floors and it’s going to be a hassle learning to manage new and old responsibilities – and much more difficult to keep pet hair out of the baby’s mouth once she’s mobile. But we committed to the pets long ago and have been working on teaching them their order in the home.

The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, recommends that the dogs not even be allowed near the baby’s belongings at first to teach them that Baby is Alpha. Let them sniff at a distance until they know their place. When the dogs go for a walk, it should be behind the stroller, and they shouldn’t get unsupervised visitation, if they are allowed at all, in the baby’s room. It’s all about setting boundaries.

The Worms and Germs Blog by Doug’s ex-hockey buddy Scott Weese (he’s still a buddy but no hockey for Doug in Manhattan) recommends in “Old pet, new baby…new problems?” that we visit our veterinarian and the humane society to get advice on introducing the dogs and cats to the baby. Scott provides relevant downloadable pamphlets from the Calgary Humane Society in his blog post.
We want all four pets and the three of us to survive the transition without nips, scratches, or territory marking. We get enough of that from our friends and colleagues.

Produce leadership: memories of convenience?

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The produce industry in the U.S. deserves better leadership. Or at least better writers.

At least that’s my take-home message after reading the screed by Bryan Silbermann, president of the Produce Marketing Association, Newark, Del., and Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Produce Association, Washington, D.C., who are preaching the it’s-time-to-change message at least 10 years too late.

The title itself — We can’t go back, so let’s charge straight ahead — suggests a memory of convenience or a preference of forgetfulness.

“Our industry’s key focus now should be to exert as much control as possible over our destiny moving forward. We are, after all, in the best position to lead the task at hand.”

Amy, my French literature wife says,

“When a trauma occurs such as the one that just took place in the produce industry with the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, people generally take one of two paths, according to psychoanalytic theory. They either dwell in the past, in the time before the rupture occurred, and pretend that the past was perfect, or they focus solely on the future. In either case, they ignore the painful present and the immediate working out of the trauma at hand.”

I’m not so literate. More literal. Literally, shouldn’t the produce industry have taken control of their destiny after any of the 20-some outbreaks in leafy greens or the 12 outbreaks in tomatoes since 1990? What about after all the other outbreaks in fresh produce?

Casey Jacob, Benjamin Chapman and I have a chapter in a book coming out later this year. It goes something like this:

From the October, 1996, E. coli O157:H7 in Odwalla fresh juice outbreak to the Sept. 2006 E. coli O157 in spinach outbreak,

“almost 500 outbreaks of foodborne illness involving fresh produce were documented, publicized and led to some changes within the industry. … (But) at what point did sufficient evidence exist to compel the fresh produce industry to embrace the kind of change the sector has heralded since 2007? And at what point will future evidence be deemed sufficient to initiate change within an industry? …

“A decade of evidence existed highlighting problems with fresh produce, warning letters were written, yet little was seemingly accomplished. The real challenge for food safety professionals, is to garner support for safe food practices in the absence of an outbreak, to create a culture that values microbiologically safe food, from farm-to-fork, at all times, and not just in the glare of the media spotlight.”

The produce leaders also write in their letter that, now, after all these fresh fruit and vegetable outbreaks,

“Working together with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state departments of agriculture and foreign governments, there must be extensive industry training and education, to help every employee at every company understand the role they play in creating a food safety culture.”

Wow, sounds like something I’d write. Except I’d throw in an evaluation component to see if the training and education actually work. But I see no evidence the industry wants to undertake such work.

I take that back. Lots of individual growers, and I’ve had the privilege of working with several, want to do the basic work and whatever they can to ensure a safe harvest. They want to know if their people know how to wash the shit off of their hands, and how to keep the shit out of fields of fresh produce.

The associations, the industry leaders, have apparently given up, and now “support fair but mandatory produce food safety rules.” They want government to do their job.

Jamie Oliver: Slaughtering chickens to raise awareness about slaughtering chickens

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I’ve never been much of a fan of cooking shows.  The chefs talk, they cook, they even sometimes teach poor food safety.  Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has taken the typical format of a cooking show and added an extra twist; audience members witness the killing of the chicken used in the meal.  Animal rights groups and poultry farmers are outraged over his new television show “Jamie’s Fowl Dinners.”

The show serves up a giant dose of shock and awe as chicks are gassed to death and an adult chicken is killed for the meal.  Yet throughout the show Oliver insists that he is trying to raise awareness about how chickens are treated in the poultry industry.

"I don’t think it’s sensational to show people the reality of how chickens live and die at the moment. It may be upsetting for some people but that’s how things are. And if seeing some of the practices helps to change the shopping habits of just 5 per cent of people watching, then it will be worth it.”

Channel 4 factual entertainment boss Andrew Mackenzie said: "Jamie’s simple message, in quite an overt way, will be: ‘If you know what happens to a chicken before arriving on your plate, would you change the way you think about chicken? Would you still eat it?’"

Oliver had criticized Sainbury’s supermarket over its involvement on his show and has since apologized for it.  It appears that his main goal to is encourage people to purchase free-range and organic chicken raised in less intensive facilities.  However I found that most of the program depicting the slaughter of chickens seems to push people towards vegetarianism rather than purchasing their chickens from another source.  You be the judge.

A food safety audit does not ensure safe food

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I’m not a fan of third-party food safety audits. Sure, there’s lots of good people out there, especially the ones who can coach and assist, but straight audits of food producing facilities – beginning on the farm and through to the fork – can be fraught with inadequacies.

And too often, it’s about the paycheck, not the food safety (and that comes from years of working with farmers and others and watching various auditors show up and not knowing too much).

Crain’s Detroit Business has a story about the expanding empire of NSF International’s testing and certification services, which expects sales to increase 29 percent, to $155 million this year.

NSF CEO Kevan Lawlor says that as companies develop more global supply chains, there’s an increased risk of health and safety issues.

Which could also be an argument for developing an internal capacity to assess suppliers and internal operations.

Chapman has written that,

“Farmers and processors need to demonstrate to consumers they are aware of microbial risks and are taking serious steps to reduce that risk, day-in, day-out, even in the absence of an outbreak. Regulatory or even third party-audits are largely meaningless. Audits are snapshots, and auditors look for easily viewed visual mistakes and do little to look at what a farmer or staff member does. Just like restaurant inspections audits are not a good indicator of likelihood of an outbreak. Farmers need food safety resources 24/7 to help guide their production practices, and they need those best practices continually reinforced; an annual audit is hopelessly insufficient, especially since outbreaks keep happening from processors that are audited. Inspection scores for farms, like those for restaurants are subject to inspector inconsistencies and are not predictive of the likelihood of an outbreak (Cruz et al., 2001; Jones et al., 2004).”

Or as I’ve written and stressed for years,

“certified/verified/HACCPified/inspected/audited don’t means that much unless there is a culture of food safety present farm-to-fork, 24/7.”

How many NSF-audited farms or facilities have subsequently been involved in outbreaks of foodborne illness? How many farms or facilities audited by other third-party operators have been involved in outbreaks of foodborne illness?