Tag Archives: safety

Grown in greenhouse or garden, produce must be safe to serve

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Ariz.-based Eurofresh Farms has, according to The Packer, developed a new food safety system, EnviroLock, that requires workers, and anyone entering produce-producing greenhouses, to pass through a sanitation facility before entering, wash and disinfect their hands and forearms, and don color-coded hospital-style scrubs, shoes, hairnets and gloves through the duration of their shift of stay.

That’s because anything that comes into contact with fresh produce has the potential to contaminate, is difficult to wash off, and outbreaks of foodborne illness are disastrous.

In Chicago, the Public School gardens are full of chubby tomatoes, heavy squash and fragrant basil but none of the produce ever finds its way into CPS lunchrooms. Instead, because of rules set by the district and its meal provider, the food is sold or given away.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the policies are in place despite the high obesity rate among Illinois children and experts’ concerns that young people are eating few fresh vegetables.

And that’s the problem with these stories, playing safety off against local and little kids.

Why not teach kids about food safety; instead of complaining that local is magically immune to microorganisms, embrace and market the food safety advantages of local markets – but only if it can be backed up with data.

Put the rhetoric aside and combine microbiologically safe with local – that means answering the same questions the big, controlled access greenhouses have to answer to sell their produce to Walmart and Costco and others: know and test the source of irrigation water, pay attention to the quality of soil amendments, let kids know the importance of handwashing and how dangerous bugs move around.

Big or small, be the bug, and be safe.
 

Is porn industry more responsible than food industry?

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Justin Rohrlich of Minyanville argues the food industry can learn a few things from the adult entertainment industry, which doesn’t wait for a massive outbreak of disease before taking corrective action.

Rather than wait for disaster to strike, then go about shredding documents and deleting emails as the investigators close in, "more than half a dozen pornographers in California’s multibillion-dollar adult entertainment industry have halted production after an actor tested positive for HIV — and more shutdowns were expected," according to the Associated Press.

"From Vivid’s perspective, there was no question that when we heard this, we immediately shut down production and said let’s get the facts and evaluate them before we move forward," Steven Hirsch, the founder of Vivid, one of the largest makers of adult films, said.

Buy local but ignore locavore nonsense

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My friend Ron Doering (left, exactly as shown) and I have exchanged barbs over the years but we can agree on the headline for his latest column: Buy local but ignore the locavores nonsense.

Doering, the first president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the only one whose name I can remember now that the post is awarded to revolving civil servants – one of the last presidents did something with stamps or coins before food safety – practices food law in Ottawa (that’s in Canada) and shares his thoughts in a monthly column for Food in Canada.

Doering was gracious enough to share his regulator insights with my food safety risk analysis class when I was teaching in Guelph (also in Canada) and he touched on all the nuances that food safety critics or outsiders like me seem to miss.

Then we had beers.

Doering writes that buying local makes a good deal of sense when the natural conditions support the seasonal production of good, fresh local food. Who wouldn’t buy our local asparagus in June and fresh sweet corn and tomatoes in August? Canadians have always supported roadside stands of blueberries and local fruits and vegetables; we have always loved our local fish and local summer and autumn farmers’ markets.

What is new is the pretentious elevation of this simple idea by the chattering culinary class to the status of a comprehensive creed, which, they assert, can make a major contribution to a more sustainable food system. Locavores focus on the concept of the food mile to condemn the current system of globalized trade. They dream of a return to an earlier time when the food supply wasn’t controlled by big bad agribusiness.

It’s like hanging out with the mommies at the local park, the ones who would never talk to me except that I have a cute kid, a hipster bicycle trailer and a wedding band so I’m apparently not a threat, and they start telling me all their food pornography and preferences for junior. Am I really a bad parent because I refuse to buy organic?

Doering also writes that with their simplistic focus on food miles, locavores ignore other factors of sustainability. I was in a very chic restaurant in Tucson, Ariz. where the smug chef righteously proclaimed that all his ingredients were locally grown. He was quite offended when I asked him about the environmental and other costs of importing all that fresh water to grow that food in the Arizona desert. And how is it more sustainable to deny developing countries the opportunity to export their tropical fruits and vegetables?

Enjoy that coffee this morning from your backyard coffee tree.
 

Food porn: some worry how to best photograph food to meet trends; people want it sloppy

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the popularity of cooking shows, the eat-local movement and the growth of casual-dining restaurants are reshaping consumers’ views of what makes food look appealing. Where making food look perfect was once a primary task of food stylists and photographers, the new challenge is making messy food look appetizing.

Alison Attenborough, a New York-based food stylist who specializes in editorial work for clients, says, "People are interested in small butchers, artisan producers, farmer’s markets—a more handmade look."

At a recent Food & Wine photo shoot, Ms. Attenborough was making recipes by celebrity chef Tyler Florence for the magazine’s October issue. She carefully assembled a cheeseburger so that the bacon and red onions would look like they were erupting from the bun. With a heat gun, she melted the cheese to make a corner of the slice dribble down. For a scallop appetizer, Ms. Attenborough intentionally left one fleck of parsley on the table, as if the cook had just finished applying the garnish and hadn’t bothered to clean up.

Whether for editorial or advertising purposes, the point of making natural food look appealing is to get people to buy the product, go out to eat or make a recipe.

Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, says the effectiveness of the natural trend lies in its ability to invite the viewer in. "It might enable us more to put ourselves in the picture," he says.

Do you feel lucky? Some food good long past expiration date

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A new survey sponsored by ShelfLifeAdvice.com, a food storage reference website that estimates U.S. consumers unnecessarily discard billions of dollars of food a year, found that three in four U.S. consumers believe certain foods are unsafe to eat after the date on the packaging has passed.

But, according to Andy Miller of msnbc.com, experts say that if most foods are stored properly, they can be safe for days after the ‘use by’ date.

Ira Allen, a Food and Drug Administration spokesman, said the food date does not equate to safety, adding,

“If something is past its date, and stored properly, often it’s OK."

Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety, said foods that can last far beyond an expiration date with proper storage include flour, sugar, rice and cake mixes, adding.

“There’s no reason that dry goods wouldn’t be safe except if it becomes wet.’’
 

More food prep means more food safety basics; lunch ladies going gourmet

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I was always more of a brown-bagger when it came to lunch. The high school cafeteria food was gross – although I did have a penchant for their ham and cheese melts on some sort of white wallpaper bun – but cost was the primary factor. Why would anyone pay for stuff that could be made at home for nothing when parental-types bought the food.

That was in Canada. The U.S. school lunch program is a little different.

And now the lunch ladies are developing their culinary skills to go along with the demand for so-called healthier foods.

Dawn Cordova, a longtime school cafeteria worker attending Denver Public Schools’ first "scratch cooking" training this summer, told Associated Press,

"It’s more work to cook from scratch, no doubt."

Cordova and about 40 other Denver lunch ladies spent three weeks mastering knife skills, baking and chopping fruits and vegetables for some of the school district’s first salad bars.

Denver is among countless school systems in at least 24 states working to revive proper cooking techniques in its food service staff.

The city issued its 600 or so cafeteria employees white chefs’ coats and hats and plans to have all its kitchen staff trained in basic knife skills within three years.

Well-known area chefs visit for primers on food safety, chopping technique and making healthy food more appetizing to young diners (hint: kids prefer veggies cut into funky shapes, not boring carrot sticks).

Chefs say that schools embraced processed food so completely that many newer cafeterias lack the basics of a production kitchen, such as produce sinks, oven hoods or enough cold storage to keep meat and produce fresh.

No mention of microbial food safety, but with all the extra kitchen prep, the risk potential increases, especially with cross-contamination. Here’s hoping they master the basics unlike the TV cooks who routinely serve up microbiological disasters.

Diamond China in Las Vegas closed by health types

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KNTV 13 Action News in Las Vegas continues its weekly dirty dining segment, this time focusing on Diamond China on Sahara near Valley View, which received 57 demerits in a recent inspection, and was closed by the Southern Nevada Health District.

Pictures taken by the Health District show raw meat thawing next to scallops and mixing juices. Beef was also found thawing with fish. Raw duck was found hanging next to and touching what inspectors call a dirty shelf.
Inspectors say a worker prepared chicken and never washed his hands before moving on to cut some fish. Dirty dishes filled the hand sink making it unusable.
The report says, "Servers, cook prep, cook never washed hands at all during inspection."

Diamond China reopened with an A rating after it was inspected again.

Diamond China has been open for 13 years. This is third time it has been shut down since opening.

Has ‘food safety culture’ jumped the shark?

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The first thing Bob Dudley, the new chief executive of embattled oil giant BP, vowed to do was "change the culture" of how the company tackles safety issues after the Gulf of Mexico disaster and promised to "make sure this does not happen again."

Same thing after Bhopal and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Me and Chapman and Frank Yiannas and Chris Griffith have been pushing the concept of food safety culture for years as an enhancement to inspection, regulation and training.

Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. It’s when one food service or farm or retail employee says to another, dude, wash your hands, without being told by the boss or the inspector.

But now that safety culture is being touted by BP, the concept may have jumped the shark.

Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise. The phrase was originally used to denote the point in a television program’s history where the plot spins off into absurd story lines or unlikely characterizations. These changes were often the result of efforts to revive interest in a show whose audience had begun to decline, usually through the employment of different actors, writers or producers.

The phrase jump the shark refers to the climactic scene in "Hollywood," a three-part episode opening the fifth season of the American TV series Happy Days in September 1977. In this story, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his leather jacket, jumps over a confined shark on water skis, answering a challenge to demonstrate his bravery. The series continued for nearly seven years after that, with a number of changes in cast and situations.
 

Backyard butchers in Sydney

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An investigation into suspected illegal meat manufacturers in Sydney has uncovered a range of products from dodgy backyard butchers.

Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan says the NSW Food Authority found 29 of the 80 meat products assessed were produced by unlicensed operators, adding,

"In some cases, these unregulated products are then sold to the public through small retail outlets, delis, restaurants, cafes and weekend farmers’ markets.”

The crackdown resulted in the issue of a number of enforcement actions, including 27 penalty notices, five improvement notices, four prohibition orders and ten warning letters.
 

Faith-based food safety: States ease food safety rules for homemade goods

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The most astute point comes at the end of an AP wire story this morning about how various states are letting anyone sell anything food-wise.

Ken Ruegsegger of New Glarus, Wis., bottles about 20 kinds of pickled fruits and vegetables such as peppers and carrots. He already invested in a commercial kitchen that meets licensing requirements and is charging $4 to $7 for his products to try to make back the money.

Unlicensed competitors can now make the same product in uninspected kitchens and sell it for half the price, he said.

"That could cost me thousands of dollars per year," he said. "And I’m inspected four times a year. These people could be making it in their kitchens with cats walking around. It’s not fair."

Why should people who play by the rules suddenly be penalized by letting anyone who makes some claim to local, natural or organic sell whatever they want for political expediency.

The story says that at Wisconsin farmers markets, vendors no longer need licenses to sell pickles, jams and other canned foods, while small farmers in Maine can sell slaughtered chickens without worrying about inspections.

Federal and state laws require that most food sold to the public be made in licensed facilities open to government inspectors. But as more people become interested in buying local food, a few states have created exemptions for amateur chefs who sell homemade goods at farmers markets and on small farms.

Robert Harrington, director of the Casper-Natrona County Health Department in Casper, Wyo., said,

"The two major failures in food production are temperature control and personal hygiene. If someone says they shouldn’t have to follow regulations because they’re making food in their home, I’d say, ‘Why is your home so safe that it doesn’t need that level of oversight and control?"

I’ll still go to the biggest supermarket I can find. And when I do shop at the market, vendors can expect a lot of microbiologically-based questions.