Tag Archives: Mammoth Burger

bites, barfblog and food safety need your continued support

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There’s no shortage of food safety news; there is a shortage of evidence-based, incisive approaches that challenge food safety norms and may eventually lead to fewer sick people.

The International Food Safety Network evolved into bites.ksu.edu over the past year as a way of consolidating and making food safety news delivery more efficient. In addition to the web repository, the bites-l electronic newsletter is distributed 2-3 times a day to a dedicated subscriber base of some 10,000 in 60 countries; a list that has been focused and refined by offering continuous, daily food safety news since 1994. barfblog.com – averaging well over 10,000 unique hits a day — along with weekly food safety infosheets (available in multiple languages), and videos, are now prominent food safety resources.

Sponsorship opportunities are now available for bites.ksu.edu, barfblog.com, and the bites-l listserv (as well as the infosheets and videos; how about a movie?).

In addition to the public exposure – why not stick your company logo on the bites-l newsletter that directs electronic readers to your home site or whatever you’re flogging that week — and reaching a desired audience, you can receive custom food safety news and analysis. We’ve also resurrected the food safety risk analysis team – assessment, management and communication – and offer 24/7 availability and insanely rapid turnaround times. If your group has a food safety issue — short-term or long-term — work with us, rather than having us write it up in barfblog.com, book chapters and scholarly papers as another case study of what not to do.

The money is used to support the on-going expenses of the news-gathering and distribution activities, and to develop the next generation of high school, undergraduate and graduate students who will integrate science and communication skills to deliver compelling food safety messages using a variety of media. Research, training and outreach are all connected in our food safety world.

If you have a sponsorship idea, let’s explore it. Feeling altruistic? Click on the groovy new donate button in the upper right corner of bites.ksu.edu. Want to just send a check? Make it out to:

K-State Olathe Innovation Campus, Inc.
18001 W. 106th St., Ste 130
Olathe, KS 66061
913-541-1220
913-541-1488 Fax
tbogina@kstateoic.ksu.edu
http://kstateoic.ksu.edu
and send to the attention of Terri Bogina

Here’s some additional information.

bites.ksu.edu is a unique comprehensive resource hosted at Kansas State University for all those with a personal or professional interest in food safety. We find credible, current, evidence-based information on food safety and make it accessible to domestic and international audiences through multiple media. Sources of food safety information include government regulatory agencies, international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), peer-reviewed scientific publications, academia, recognized experts in the field and other sources as appropriate.

All bites activities emphasize engaging people in dialogue about food-related risks, controls and benefits, from farm-to-fork. bites strives to provide reliable, relevant information in culturally and linguistically appropriate formats to assist people in identifying, understanding and mitigating the causes of foodborne illness.

bites LISTSERV
The bites.ksu.edu listserv is a free web-based mailing list where information about current and emerging food safety issues is provided, gathered from journalistic and scientific sources around the world and condensed into short items or stories that make up the daily postings. The listserv has been issued continuously since 1995 and is distributed daily via e-mail to thousands of individuals worldwide from academia, industry, government, the farm community, journalists and the public at large.
The listserv is designed to:
•    convey timely and current information for direction of research, diagnostic or investigative activities;
•    identify food risk trends and issues for risk management and communication activities; and
•    promote awareness of public concerns in scientific and regulatory circles.
The bites listserv functions as a food safety news aggregator, summarizing available information that can be can be useful for risk managers in proactively anticipating trends and reactively address issues. The bites editor (me – dp) does not say whether a story is right or wrong or somewhere in between, but rather that a specific story is available today for public discussion.

barblog.com
barfblog.com is where Drs. Powell, Chapman, Hubbell and assorted food safety friends offer evidence-based opinions on current food safety issues. Opinions must be evidence-based – with references – reliable, rapid and relevant. The barfblog authors edit each other – viciously.
 

TWITTER
Breaking food safety news items that eventually appear in bites or barfblog are often posted on Twitter (under barfblog or benjaminchapman) for faster public notification.

INFOSHEETS
Food safety infosheets are designed to influence food handler practices by utilizing four attributes culled from education, behavioral science and communication literature:
•    surprising and compelling messages;
•    putting actions and their consequence in context;
•    generating discussion within the target audiences’ environments; and
•    using verbal narrative, or storytelling, as a message delivery device.
Food safety infosheets are based on stories about outbreaks of foodborne illness sourced from the bites listserv. Four criteria are used to select the story: discussion of a foodborne illness outbreak; discussion of background knowledge of a pathogen (including symptoms, etiology and transmission); food handler control practices; and emerging food safety issues. Food safety infosheets also contain evidence-based prescriptive information to prevent or mitigate foodborne illness related to food handling. They are now available in French, Spanish and Portugese.

bites bistro videos
A nod to the youtube generation, but we don’t really know what we’re doing.

These are the various information products we deliver daily, in addition to research, training and outreach. If you or your group is interested in sponsoring any or all of these food safety activities, please contact me directly.
dp

Dr. Douglas Powell
associate professor, food safety
dept. diagnostic medicine/pathobiology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS
66506
cell: 785-317-0560
fax: 785-532-4039
dpowell@ksu.edu
bites.ksu.edu
barfblog.com
 

Petting zoos and the fair

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The North Carolina State fair is firing up here in Raleigh (the doors open to public on Thursday). I’ve never been to a state fair and am looking forward to participating in this slice of Americana. I’m all over tasting the fair foods like funnel cakes and turkey legs but I’ll probably stay away from the deep fried butter (freeze sticks of butter, cut off 2 tablespoons, put it on a stick, bread it like chicken, and deep fry it).

The fair also brings petting zoo risks. The UK and Vancouver (Canada) have had recent tragic petting zoo stories and over at wormsandgerms Scott Weese detailed some of the things he saw at a recent Ontario event. I’m curious to see what the N.C. State Fair has for risk management tools, and if anyone is using them. 

Laura Hendley, frequent contributor to the foodsafe listserv, wrote a letter to her local paper detailing her praise over what she saw at a Helena (MT) event: 

The Jim Darcy School PTA provided a petting zoo and pony rides at the recent Helena Education Foundation carnival on Sept. 20, at Memorial Park. Located at the exit to the petting zoo were two temporary hand-washing stations set up with potable water jugs filled with warm water, soap, paper towels and catch buckets. There was also hand sanitizer available.

Good stuff, without the tools it’s difficult to practice good hand hygiene.

But just having the tools there might not be enough. Like we’ve seen with norovirus, it’s a good idea to engage the petting zoo target audience (parents and kids) with compelling risk-reduction messages and conduct some sort of evaluation (no matter how crude) to see whether they work.


Pets and Service Dogs in grocery stores; the line must be drawn

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I am constantly annoyed with pet owners that take their little dogs to the store, especially the grocery store. Oregon is too.  The state Department of Agriculture started a public awareness campaign last month reminding Oregonians that it’s illegal for dogs to enter grocery stores – unless it’s a service dog. Stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond and Home Depot aren’t good places to be bringing your pet, but there can be legal consequences in stores and restaurants that serve food.

There have been some arguments made for and against patrons bringing pets to stores. Some say their personal pets are like “children” to them, as if they are another family member, but bringing pets into stores is not a good idea for public safety in a microbiological sense and also a physical sense. I hate tripping over toddlers at Walmart, and I don’t want to add tripping on leashes or small dogs to this problem.

By law, grocery stores must allow service dogs into grocery stores.  According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, business owners may ask if an animal is for service, yet they cannot require a customer to show certification or other proof that an animal is certified. In fact, legitimate service animals aren’t always certified. (For more information on the law, call 1-800-514-0301.) A quick search on Google brought up Service Animal IDs for $30, no verification paperwork needed. This ID doesn’t classify the animal as a service animal, but most people aren’t able to tell the difference between the real thing and phonies. IDs such as this one could allow anyone to bring a pet into a store selling food, and most likely store managers wouldn’t do a thing about it.

Separating the true service dogs from the personal pets makes it hard for those that rely on their service animals for help with a disability.  The ADA defines a service animal as any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. If they meet this definition, animals are considered service animals under the ADA regardless of whether they have been licensed or certified by a state or local government.

Most people think of service dogs as performing functions such as leading the blind and opening doors, but they are also psychiatric service dogs that help people with psychological problems. Unfortunately there is where the lines become very grey. Assistance Dogs International has three categories: guide dogs for the blind and visually impaired, hearing dogs for the deaf and hard of hearing and service dogs for people with disabilities other than those related to vision or hearing. Service dogs may be needed by people with disabilities that are not visible and perform activities such as alerting of oncoming seizures or a variety of psychiatric disabilities. While grocery store owners are allowed to ask if an animal is a service animal or pet, they are not allowed to ask what their disability is (if not visible).

This issue spins round and round. Untrained animals shouldn’t be brought into areas of food. But disabled people need service animals present to help with disabilities. But pets may not be able to be distinguished from service animals, and patrons may abuse the fact that the store owner can’t ask what their disability is. But the store owner has a right to exclude pets from areas with food for sale.

The long and the short of it is, there isn’t a federal regulatory agency that dictates how these animals are certified as service dogs. Even if we did have the regulatory agency, would that ensure resolution of all the service animal disputes? Of course not, just as the existence of the FDA and USDA doesn’t ensure the 100% safety of our food supply.

 

Top 5 Records top ten list of riskiest foods

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I love High Fidelity. The book introduced me to Nick Hornby, the movie introduced me to Jack Black and the soundtrack introduced me to Bruce Springsteen.

Okay, I knew about the Boss before, but the soundtrack indirectly led me to discover Thunder Road (which has helped me forget Dancing in the Dark).

The High fidelity-esque, Top 5 Records Rob Gordon-style, Center for Science in the Public Interest released a list of the top ten "riskiest" foods.

I place riskiest in dick fingers not because I want to be a dick, but because I don’t think that’s the right word. The list has been generated through data collected from CDC outbreak listings, state health departments and other various sources. The list should be called "The top 10 foods that are in dishes with foods regulated by the FDA, at some point, which have caused the most microbial foodborne illness outbreaks". But that title is too long.

CSPI is better than anyone else at pulling this stuff together and has an outbreak database that I use all the time. The missing bit of information which is not captured in the list (but is alluded to a bit in the report) and is needed to put the info into context is where did the contamination occur or where was the risk reduction step missed. What is the attributed source?

Source alone doesn’t matter, food alone doesn’t matter but putting those two data sources together allows for a concentration on where risk reduction efforts are needed.

Potatoes are the food on the list I have the most problem with. And it’s not because I have a soft spot for Idaho or Prince Edward Island. It’s because the outbreaks that place potatoes on the list are associated with potato dishes. It just happens that potato salad is consumed a lot, is prepared alongside other foods that carry risks by foodhandlers who might suck at hygiene. Potato dishes (mainly because of the additon of other foods) also create a great medium for pathogens. Potatoes aren’t on this list because potatoes are a particularly risky food.

The report says that over 40% of the included potato outbreaks were linked to foodservice or processing. 60% come from elsewhere (which probably includes community dinners, festivals, and in-the-home). Should I not eat potatoes, or should I not eat potato dishes? What about potato chips? 

That information matters when it comes to dedicating resources to address the risky foods. It’s not a potato problem, it’s not an FDA regulated-food problem. Food safety is a farm-to-fork, almost every food, food handling problem.

Gratuitous food porn shot of the day, hockey edition

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Hockey in Raleigh is back. After a somewhat surprising playoff run in the spring, the Carolina Hurricanes took the ice last night at the RBC Center to open the 2009-10 season vs. the top-ranked Philadelphia Flyers.

The ‘Canes lost 2-0, in part because of a futile powerplay (0-for-8).

I took my dad to the game (right, self-pic, exactly as shown) and we debated getting a bbq sandwich after the first period but the price tag was a bit steep ($7).

My dad asked me "So, how do you think they are doing, food safety-wise".

I told him that it’s tough to say, anytime you eat you put trust in a food handler somewhere and hopefully they know somthing about risks and risk reduction. I watched for a couple of minutes and snapped the below pic of the bbq (below left, food porn shot, exactly as shown).

While sitting around today and watching some college football I started to think a bit more about my dad’s question and dug up some inspection reports. I couldn’t find the Carolina BBQ stand in question but was able to browse through 20 or so other RBC Center sites from the past couple of years. Temperature abuse, especially hot-holding seemed to be a common violation.

The bbq looked and smelled good, and judging by the lineups, was moved out of the pans to patrons’ sandwiches pretty fast. But who knows at what temperature, and how long it was held before we came by. I hope that someone did.

The Zoonoses Diaries: Caught at Cat town

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 Vet school doesn’t leave much time for extracurricular activities (especially during second year classes), but I try my best to stay relatively well rounded throughout these four years of academic boot camp. One of my favorite weekend activities is Cat town, a tailgating area near the football stadium here at K-State. (Doug talked about it yesterday)  Each home football game has a different Vet med-associated club volunteer to help serve food at Cat town, and yesterday’s game against Tennessee Tech was CVMF’s day (Christian Veterinary Medical Fellowship).  As a CVMF member, I helped to set up and serve lunch to the tailgaters. In typical vet student fashion, some brought their pets to the event. One of my classmates has two beautiful black-capped caiques that are always a big hit at Vet med events, and we had them strategically placed at the t-shirt selling booth to attract people to support the second year class.

Now to defend myself, when serving I wore my food-serving plastic gloves in aseptic fashion. I didn’t touch my face with my fingers or sneeze into my hands. I wish there would’ve been hand sanitizer available before I put my gloves on, because serving food hygienically involves a combination of good hand washing and regular glove changes.  We only had one server touching food directly (handing out burger buns) and everyone else used a utensil such as a spoon, knife or tongs to serve food along with gloves. During the slower parts of the afternoon, I would take breaks to chat with people and often drift over to see the birds, Monty and Apple (right). They are very charming little creatures, so I took full advantage of holding them and kissing them (glove-free).  

Lo and behold, who shows up to Cat town but my food-safety boss Doug Powell. He eyes my classmate and I suspiciously as we hold the birds on our fingers and give them kisses on the beak, all while enjoying burgers and cake (pretty much doing everything the CDC recommends avoiding).  Amy and Sorenne got an especially close look at the birds. In the background Doug said, “Keep that Salmonella factory away from my baby.” There’s the Doug I know, always thinking about the potential pathogens.

Later in the afternoon I chatted with my classmate about her food safety practices with the birds. She goes on to tell me that she frequently consumes food around her birds, and has never had any sickness in the past that could be related to the birds. While feeding the birds potatoes salad from her own fork, she tells me that she may have gotten Salmonella from them in the past, but she’s been around them so much that her body may have developed a tolerance to the bacterium. She has never has them tested to see if they carry Salmonella in their feces, though most birds do.

I’m thankful that my classmate has never had any sickness related to her birds, but that may not be the case for the rest of the nation. The young, elderly and other immunocompromised individuals are most likely to contract a zoonotic disease when handling pets. Practicing good food safety habits such as washing your hands thoroughly and cooking your meat to the proper temperature can help reduce the risk of food borne disease. Also, don’t kiss animals to allow them to lick your face, especially not in front of your boss.

First years and foodborne illness

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Julie, my youngest sister, started her first year at Fanshawe College in London (Ontario) this fall. Like many first years she’s staying in residence, and like many first years she’s having a great drunken time – likely followed by painful mornings hovered over the toilet.

Although many a pukey morning could be attributed to alcohol overconsumption, Courier-Journal reports ways to avoid foodborne illness while living in dorms (or residence halls).

Food-related illnesses, such as E. coli and salmonella infection, can creep into a dorm — or any setting where people gather. But students aren’t always alert to the risks…

The article identifies a few problem areas for this demographic.

Eating pizza that’s been left out all night: In general, perishable food shouldn’t be left out more than two hours at room temperature or no more than one hour in 90-degree weather, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But as Doug explains, there are exceptions,

“If it’s the kind of pizza that most people usually get, which is like cardboard and completely dry, it’s probably going to be all right. But when in doubt, throw it out.”

Relying solely on a food’s color or smell to tell whether it’s safe to eat:

“If something smells gross, toss it,” said Doug Powell.

But while your nose and eyes may lead you right sometimes, they’re not foolproof. For example, that hamburger or chicken you just cooked may look done, but you won’t know for sure whether it’s safe to eat unless you stick a food thermometer in it to check the temperature. You can pick one up at the nearest big-box store.

Your tongue can mislead you, too. A product can be contaminated with bacteria, such as salmonella, without tasting or looking odd.

That’s Julie, right, with the college staple food pizza.

Gettin’ shiggy wit it: Increase of shigella-linked illnesses in St. Louis

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STLtoday reports tonight that there appears to be an Shigella outbreak going on linked to child care centers in St. Louis. Shigellosis is characterized by fever, cramps and may result in bloody diarrhea, but most recover within a week without treatment.

There have been 67 cases of shigellosis from July 1 through Monday, compared to nine cases for all of 2008, according to the St. Louis City Department of Health.

Health officials said four day care centers and one school clustered in south St. Louis city reported illnesses. Officials did not offer other specifics except to say that children ages 4 and younger are most commonly infected.

City health officials sent the shigellosis alert to day cares and schools, where the shigella bacteria is typically spread when people don’t wash their hands properly after using the bathroom or changing diapers. It can also be spread through contact with food. Shigella bacteria can remain in feces for several weeks.

 

Petting zoo and farm visit risks: 12 children hospitalized in UK

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Every year a few outbreaks of pathogenic E. coli are traced to children visiting animal sites (and usually linked to touching, petting or feeding the ruminants). Earlier this year an outbreak occurred at the Western Stock show in Denver (see below infosheet, download it here).

UKPA reports today that 36 children are ill and 12 are hospitalized after visiting Godstone Farm in Surrey.

The farm is popular as it boasts a large range of animals which children can pet and feed. During the peak of the school holidays it receives up to 2,000 visitors a day.
The outbreak is believed to have started on August 8.
Dr Angela Iversen, director of the Surrey and Sussex Health Protection Unit, said: "This is a large outbreak of this infection.
"The farm owners are co-operating fully and we are working closely with them and with colleagues across health and local authorities to investigate the source. Our advice is that the farm should remain closed to visitors while this work goes on."

Kids and petting animals, without lots of precautions,including compelling messages for handwashing and sanitation, don’t mix.

Fat Duck outbreak redux — food safety infosheet version

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This week’s food safety infosheet, directed at foodservice staff is attached here. The infosheet focuses on an outbreak at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant which happened earlier this year. While norovirus illnesses were initially linked to patrons who ate shell???sh, health authorities believe that ill staff members handling other food also contributed to the length and scope of the outbreak.

Michelin Stars don’t mean anything when it comes to food safety culture.

Download the Fat Duck food safety infosheet here.