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Food Safety Talk 63: The Great One

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds. The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University. Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.1405348895819

Don and Ben have Skype issues but this time it was actually Don. Don announced that there will be help for people like Ben who aren’t so good at managing their time and attention at IAFP 2014, with Merlin Mann presenting on Wednesday in a special lunch session. The guys estimate about 0.1% of IAFP annual meeting attendees will be excited to see him – including Ben and Don, and probably Batz. Ben mentions his excitement that Professor Dr. Donald Schaffner, PhD was name checked on Back to Work Episode 173.

The first mention of The Wire comes at 12 minutes in when the guys give a shout out to Baltimore resident Manan Sharma who says that this is his favorite part of the show.

In follow-up from Episode 61, friend of the show MDD says that there are not rats in Alberta  Ben and Don remark while there may not be any snakes in New Zealand and Ireland (although Ben thinks that Don is thinking of potatoes) there are rats in small pockets in Alberta. While Alberta has had a rat eradication program since the 1950s, a colony of Norwegian rats, of Roanoke Island proportion, was found in Medicine Hat (that’s in Canada) in 2012 and 2014. Ben tells Don that he wears big pockets to avoid rats, and that and on a pilgrimage to Edmonton to see a statue of The Great One, his pockets were not checked.

The guys then talk about a question from IAFP’s Dina (not Dinah). Dina asked the guys to discuss their thoughts on a recent JFP paper about non-intact steak cooking using temperature, flipping/turning and different cooking methods. The practical, take-home message (as dictated using Dragon Dictate) was that that flipping and covering with a lid (which allows cooking to occur both through conduction and convection heat) and using a thermometer for all cuts of meat helps reduce risk.

Ben talked a bit about some future work that his group is doing looking at mechanically tenderized beef messaging, perception and behavior – including cubed steak.  Cube steak is sometimes made by slapping two pieces of meat together and running through a cuber – although not according to Wikipedia, which is never wrong. The discussion moved to steak eating preferences as detailed by FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver’s cadre of numbers nerds who dissect a lot of pop culture and sports questions.

The guys then both talked about message variability projects they have going on. Ben’s group is looking at  cook book recipes (and how the messages and instructions in the culinary world often are not evidence-based). And Don’s group is looking at messaging on handwashing signs, something that his second favorite graduate student Dane, is undertaking.

In outbreak flashback the guys talked about 1854’s Broad St. Pump  cholera outbreak. Using a map and analyzing cases of human disease, John Snow, largely recognized as one of the founders of epidemiology, created a blueprint for the next generation of disease hunters. Removing the handle on the pump is commonly thought to have ended the outbreak except that modern epi-curve analysis suggests that the outbreak was already on the decline. Ben’s favorite part was what one of his undergraduate professors, Anthony Clarke talked about in class 15 years ago: the monks in a local monastery did not get sick because they didn’t drink the water, just home brewed beer.

The guys then ended the show talking about an outbreak linked to food service hamburgers made by Wolverine Packing. Or is that Wolverine Packing with it’s adamantium slicers and grinders? In either case, It’s unclear whether illnesses are linked to undercooked burgers or cross contamination – although anecdotally undercooked burgers have been reported. One of Ben’s graduate student’s Ellen Thomas has been working on a project related directly to this type of product, where secret shoppers have been speaking with servers at burger-serving family style restaurants throughout the U.S. The results of the project will be shared at IAFP in Indianapolis.

In after dark the guys chuckle and guffaw about Ben’s Beatles references, time and attention management, and Tony Robbins who Ben thinks is in prison. But he’s not. He was thinking of James Arthur Ray. Don mentions that the author Kurt Vonnegut (who explains the universal shapes of storytelling) has a memorial library in Indianapolis.

Nosestretcher alert: sous vide safety in the home kitchen

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Friend of the blog Don Schaffner of Rutgers University had some food safety concerns about a recent column broadcast by state-sponsored jazz radio station NPR about sous vide – or cooking under vacuum at a specific temperature.

schaffner.facebook.apr.14She (journalist T. Susan Chang) says:

Maybe you’ve heard the stories about city health department officials forcing chefs to pour bleach on their sous vide meats. It’s a story that always makes me want to cry, but for years public health has relied on a firm food safety rule: dangerous germs live at between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the pink interior of a medium-rare burger falls above this range, and most cooking techniques take place around or well above the boiling point of water (212 degrees F).

Schaffner says:

Some species of pathogenic bacteria can multiply between 40 and 140°F, and by multiply I mean increase in number. There are several species of pathogenic bacteria that can multiply slowly at temperatures less than 40°F. There are many, many pathogenic bacteria that can survive but not multiply at temperatures less than 40°F. All spore forming pathogenic bacteria can easily survive at temperatures more than 140°F. Some of these spores can survive boiling water, including the spores of Clostridium botulinum, which is of great concern because it can grow in vacuum packaged foods if the temperatures are in that 40 to 140° range for the right amount of time.

She says:

Aiming for that window — above 140 degrees for safety, below 150 degrees for texture — isn’t hard if you’re set up to control temperature within a degree or two. And you can pasteurize your protein by holding it there for long enough.

Schaffner says:

Taking food above 140°F does not make it safe. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service has a document which provides guidance to meat processors regarding safe cooking temperatures. That document is entitled “Appendix A Compliance Guidelines For Meeting Lethality Performance Standards For Certain Meat And Poultry Products”, and is available here: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/95-033F/95-033F_Appendix_A.htm. According to this document a food at 140 °F needs 12 minutes to meet the USDA standards. That same guidance also indicates that a food can meet the standards by heating at 130°F too, just for a much longer time, and even at 150°F more than a minute is needed.

She says:

Salmon is a perfect protein on which to test your newfound control. Allow the salmon to sit in this brine in the refrigerator as you bring the water bath of your sous vide up to your target temperature (115 for rare, 120 for medium-rare).

When the water bath has reached the target temperature, remove any excess air from the zip-top bag by displacement if you’re not using a vacuum-sealed bag. Drop the salmon into the bath. It should take about 1/2 hour to come to temperature.

Schaffner says:

Not likely to result in any significant pathogen reduction.  Hitting the outside with a blowtorch will kill pathogens on the surface, but not any that are internalized.

She says:

Sous Vide Pork Belly, (when) cooked at 144 degrees for two days, the lean meat fibers sandwiched between the layers of fat stay plump and juicy.

Sous VideSchaffner says:

This will give significant pathogen reduction, but I worry about any process that takes two days.  If there is a temperature failure, that is a lot of time for risk to develop.

She says:

Sous Vide Basic Burger, bring the water bath up to 120 for rare, 125 for medium-rare. Drop the bagged frozen patties in the bath (displacing any air pockets first); the meat will take about 1 1/2 hours to get to its target temperature.

Schaffner says:

Quite risky from my perspective. Pathogens will be internalized in these burgers, and even 125°F for 1.5 hours will not give a significant reduction.

She says:

Sous Vide Herbed All-Purpose Chicken Breast, bring the sous vide water bath up to 140 degrees. … You’ll need 1 to 1 1/2 hours to cook the chicken to the target temperature.

Schaffner says:

Probably safe.

Food safety can be complicated.  While I share you passion for empowering people to innovate in the kitchen, I think it is important to get the science right, especially when it comes to food safety.

(Many thanks to Schaffner for continuing to share his infectious enthusiasm for all things microbiological – and getting it right).

Antibacterial soaps can reduce risk of foodborne illness

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Friend of the blog Don Schaffner has published some new research that shows  the use of antibacterial soaps can reduce the spread of harmful bacteria – that often leads to foodborne illness – more effectively than using non-antibacterial soaps.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Food Protection (Vol. 77, No. 4, 2014, pp. 574-582), used new laboratory data, together with simulation techniques, to compare the ability of non-antibacterial and antibacterial products to reduce the risk of the infectious disease shigellosis, which is often spread during food preparation.

antibacterial.soapLead researcher Donald Schaffner of Rutgers University’s Department of Food Science says the data show that the use of three antibacterial wash products result in a statistically significant reduction in the presence of Shigella (the bacterium that causes shigellosis) compared to the use of the non-antibacterial soaps.

“This exciting research blends quantitative microbial risk assessments with an impressive set of laboratory data to show that antibacterial treatments are more effective than non-antibacterial treatments in reducing disease,” said Dr. Schaffner.

In the study, 163 subjects were used to compare two non-antibacterial products and three antibacterial products, with a study design intended to simulate food handling. The participants’ hands were exposed to Shigella and then treated with one of the five products before handling food melon balls. The resulting levels of Shigella on the food were then measured.

The levels of Shigella were then used to predict the outcome from an event in which 100 people would be exposed to Shigella from melon balls that had been handled by food workers with Shigella on their hands.

The data show all three antibacterial treatments significantly lowered the concentration of Shigella compared to the non-antibacterial treatments. Based on this model, the paper predicted that by washing with the antibacterial treatments, the number of illnesses could be reduced tenfold.

“This research provides strong evidence that antibacterial soaps are significantly more effective than non-antibacterial soaps in reducing Shigella on the hands and its subsequent transfer to ready-to-eat foods,” the authors write.

The American Cleaning Institute (www.cleaninginstitute.org) and the Personal Care Products Council (www.personalcarecouncil.org) provided funding for the research as part of the groups’ ongoing commitment to product and scientific stewardship to affirm the safety and benefits of these products.

An abstract summarizing the paper, “Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment of Antibacterial Hand Hygiene Products on Risk of Shigellosis,” can be found online athttp://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2014/00000077/00000004/art00006#aff_3

Food Safety Talk 56: Damned hard to make safe food

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds. The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University. Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.

The guys started the show following up on the previous episode, the write up on David Gumpert’s website and the comments on the Internet. Theresa Lam also reached out wanting to know more about the risks associated with bootleg versus regulated raw milk.

roger dean wallpaper.jpg

Despite raw milk drinker’s hatred of epidemiologists, Don confessed that maybe he wants to be an epidemiologist, while Ben noted that he has admired them ever since the Jalapeno Saintpaul outbreak. Don also praised Petran, White and Hedberg, for their efforts to identify what items in a restaurant inspection were predictive of the possibility of an outbreak, and Ben’s comments to USA Today on the topic.

A quick round of “I think you’re thinking of” with Howard Dean, and Roger Dean, not to be confused with Roger Dean followed. The guys then hopped back in time with the whizzinator before moving on to food storage mistakes and tortilla safety as prompted by Listener John Kimble.

The guys covered the 1990’s in the IAFP history segment, which also featured a discussion of 808, the Beastie Boys and the speed of Joe Walsh’s Maserati. Ben identified the 1990’s with the adoption of PFGE and rapid methods, while Don though the Mega Regs characterized the time. Ben recalled a recent discussion with Cathy Cutter about meat processing and how HACCP shaped other food safety regulations.

The discussion then turned to Norovirus, prompted by a couple of recent noro outbreaks on the “Explorer of the Seas” and the Caribbean Princess, the boat that Chris Gunter boarded. Unfortunately, Chris couldn’t find out whether the hand sanitizer on the ship was the one that works, though he was assured that it was “alcohol based”. Ben wrapped up the noro discussion with the MoChunk resort outbreak. The guys talked about Netflix in the short after dark.

Food Safety Talk episode 50: Fifty pink flamingos

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds.  The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University.  Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.

The guys started the show with a Flamingo flash back, Don’s iTunes Radio “Grateful Dead” channel experiment (sans Katy Perry and Kanye West), New Girl with Zooey Deschanel, She & Him, Steve Earle, The Walking Dead, the Pulling the String podcast, and The Lone Ranger.

Don then shared how he used the Internet’s way-back machine (not to be confused with Mister Peabody‘s WABAC Machine) to get around the black-out of US government websites.

Ben then turned to an NPR article about the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network and a Kickstarter campaign to create an open source HACCP plan. This lead into a broader discussion of the work undertaken by extension specialists, Don’s ‘useless’ Twitter exchange and how to find out about food safety using Let Me Google That For You.

In the Food Safety History segment, Don shared information from the IAFP History book about the 1950’s and an increased focus on preventing foodborne illness.

Don then returned to his recent Twitter exchange about hand washing with @Frankly and @danbenjamin, which included this article from About.com. The article, which referenced unpublished work from 2000 by Barbara Almanza on hand sanitizers, got the guys fired up about the regulatory system and undertaking effective research on the assessing the efficacy of hand sanitizers. After taking yet another detour into the world of The Wire, the guys returned to hand sanitizers and discussed some research articles, including:

To finish this monster show, the guys briefly touched on Foster Farms fiasco, which they’ve kept on their list of things to discuss next time.

By the time the after dark came around Don was contemplating a career in pottery, while Ben favored rolling cigars for a living.

Food Safety Talk 49: Less Risky Bathroom Event

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds.  The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University.  Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.

Episode 49

The show started with Don and Ben sharing their love for iOS7 and iTunes Radio. Ben’s still on his Beach Boys trip, having recently watched Beautiful Dreamer.

The discussion then quickly turned to food safety follow up. Ben wasn’t happy with his Food Safety News interview on dishwasher cooking and the message that he might have sent. Don felt that a really important aspect was the multitude of variables that can change from one dishwasher to another and hence that it was difficult be safe.FoodSafetyTalk

The guys then discussed some listener feedback about safety of low sugar jellies, which was related to the work of one of Don’s master’s student. The listener commended the work on low sugar jellies, which will help provide important information to existing Cottage Food Guidelines. The guys then delved into the effects of water activity, pH, sugar contents for the safety of the preserving process and how some products, such as the Cronut Maple Jam, fall far outside the known safe zone. This got Ben onto the Toronto Public Health investigation update on the Cronut Burger outbreak, which was related to the already risky jam not being refrigerated by the producer or the vendor who purchased it.

Don then gave Amy Jane Gruber, from Just The Tip podcast, a plug for her participation in the Fare Walk for Food Allergy. You might even hear her on a future FST episode.

In the Food Safety History segment, Don shared the initial editorial from the journal of milk technology, which while written in 1937 still resonates strongly with today’s food safety activities.

Ben then described personal challenge he has urinating in his office building without getting splash back. This reminded the guys of the aerosolization in the bathroom and potential risk that this can pose.

Ben then recalled the UPI story about a Swedish man urinating on supermarket produce. While urine is normally sterile, Ben wondered about the risks. While Don couldn’t quantify the risk on the spot, he noted that in HACCP terms hand washing after a bowel movement was a CCP while after peeing it could be considered a GHP. But both agreed that sick workers just shouldn’t be at work.

The discussion then turned to raw milk cheeses, which was prompted by the Gort’s Gouda raw milk cheese related outbreak in Canada. Don noted that the rate of inactivation in a particular product was more important that just a ’60-day limit’ say. That’s because the final risk is integrally related to the starting concentration and the inactivation rate.

To finish off the podcast Don wanted to talk about the Food Safety News article on food date labels, which was based on this NRDC work. While Don agreed that date labels were confusing, he was also rather sceptical of the underlying work.

In the after dark, the guys talked about the new markdown format for the shownotes and planned their podcasting schedules for the next few episodes.

Food Safety Talk episode 48: Ninja moves to rock and roll

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds.  The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University.  Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.FoodSafetyTalk

Show notes for episode 48:

The guys started the show with some general chit chat about The Beer Store and The Nail Shop, the Beach Boys, including “Pet Sounds“, Chuck Berry, Bed Bad Baaaaaaatz, Don’s Etymotic hf5 earphones, Twitter, (including this discussion), and Barbara M. O’Neill‘s great work.

Prompted by a link from Alejandro Amezquita the guys then turned their attention to laundry and in the process gave the phrase “Eat My Shorts!”meaning. In the article, Lisa Ackerley discussed the hygiene of laundering. The guys recalled a couple of research articles by Chuck Gerba related to the topic (here and here). Neither Don nor Ben were particularly worried about this.

This reminded Ben of The Salt article on cooking food in the dishwasher. The guys discussed the potential risk of this approach and the sciences that is needed. Another [The Salt article on washing poultry had also resulted in a large amount of social media engagement, which is something the Don and Ben are always keen to explore. And both enjoyed Alton Brown’s proper method for washing out the inside of a whole poultry.

The guys then moved onto the bug trivia replacement segment called Food Safety History, in honour of a 100 years of the IAFP Journal of Food Protection. In this episode the Don covered the pre 1940 era. It all started with the Journal of Milk Technology and the connection with raw milk reminded Ben of this Toronto Star article.

Don then wanted to talk about this NY Times article, related to Salmonella in spices, and the related Food Microbiology article. Don posed Ben the questions that he was asked for a Q&A based Rutgers media release on this topic and the guys compared their answers.

The guys then got fired up about the Cronut Burger related outbreak article by Jason Tetro. Ben didn’t quite agree with some of Jason’s assumptions, so Ben queried the manufacturers about the parameters of the product, which Le Dolci didn’t know. Ben eventually found the answer from Toronto Public Health, and was able to set the record straight

To finish off, Don mentioned The New Disruptors podcast, which featured Marisa McClellan in Episode 38 “Yes, we can!”talk about food preservation. Don was pleasantly surprised by her knowledge, including of the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

In the after dark the guys continued with canning, including Canvolution, Canning Across America and pink flamingos for their 50th episode.

Wet is better for bacteria; produce cross-contamination in the kitchen

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Rutgers food safety something Don Schaffner writes:

Every paper I’ve published has a history behind it. This one has its origins in Aberdeen Scotland in 2008.

Michelle Danyluk was a newly minted PhD out of Linda Harris’s lab at UC Davis and had just started as an assistant professor at the University of Florida. Like most good assistant professors Michelle was always on the lookout for grant opportunities, and she had recently seen a call for proposals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on schaffnerconsumer risk from fresh-cut produce. Michelle had offered to lead the grant writing efforts with Linda and I as co-principal investigators. The grant submission deadline fell during the Food Micro 2008 meeting in Aberdeen, Scotland and of course, as the deadline loomed closer, the proposal wasn’t finished.  Michelle and I were in Scotland, and Linda was back in Davis, California. Fueled by Scottish Thai food (actually not that bad), and beer, as well as a passible Internet connection and the occasional trans-Atlantic phone call, the three of us hammered out the details of who would do what in the proposal.  Somehow it all worked, and FDA decided to give us the money. And Michelle got tenure.

Three years later, the grant is mostly spent, and Michelle is sitting on a pile of data collected by super-technician Lorrie Friedrich. Michelle and Lorrie have amassed an astounding pile of cross-contamination data for four different surfaces (ceramic, stainless steel, glass, and plastic) and four types of fresh-cut produce (carrots, watermelon, celery and lettuce) under both dry and wet conditions, and considering transfer in either direction. Because Michelle was foolish enough to listen to me when I suggest we repeat each experiment 20 times to “capture inherent variability,” the entire dataset was composed of more than 600 observations. Enter graduate student Dane Jensen.

Dane is from the Jersey shore. The real Jersey shore, near Asbury Park. I pointed Dane at the pile of data and told him to come back when it was graphed and analyzed. He did a good job, and it was part of his Masters thesis, and our recent publication in the Journal of Food Protection.

What did we discover when we set off down this road in Aberdeen?  Mostly that surface moisture and direction of transfer have the greatest influence on microbial transfer rates: bacteria would rather be on a wet produce surface than a dry counter-top or cutting board.  Want to learn more? Order up some Thai food, crack open a beer and read the article.

Quantifying transfer rates of Salmonella and Escherichia coli O157:H7 between fresh-cut produce and common kitchen surfaces

Journal of Food Protection®, Number 9, January 2013, pp. 1488-1657, pp. 1530-1538(9), DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X.JFP-13-098

Jensen, Dane A.; Friedrich, Loretta M.; Harris, Linda J.; Danyluk, Michelle D.; Schaffner, Donald W.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2013/00000076/00000009/art00005

Abstract:

Cross-contamination between foods and surfaces in food processing environments and home kitchens may play a significant role in foodborne disease transmission. This study quantifies the cross-contamination rates between a variety of fresh-cut produce and common kitchen surfaces (ceramic, stainless steel, glass, and plastic) using scenarios that differ by cross-contamination direction, surface type, produce type, and drying food.safety.talktime/moisture level. A five-strain cocktail of rifampin-resistant Salmonella was used in transfer scenarios involving celery, carrot, and watermelon, and a five-strain cocktail of rifampin-resistant Escherichia coli O157:H7 was used in transfer scenarios involving lettuce. Produce or surface coupons were placed in buffer-filled filter bags and homogenized or massaged, respectively, to recover cells. The resulting solutions were serially diluted in 0.1% peptone and surface plated onto tryptic soy agar with 80 μg/ml rifampin and bismuth sulfite agar with 80 μg/ml rifampin for Salmonella or sorbitol MacConkey agar with 80 μg/ml rifampin for E. coli O157:H7. When the food contact surface was freshly inoculated, a high amount (>90%) of the inoculum was almost always transferred to the cut produce item. If the inoculated food contact surfaces were allowed to dry for 1 h, median transfer was generally >90% for carrots and watermelon but ranged from <1 to ∼70% for celery and lettuce. Freshly inoculated celery or lettuce transferred more bacteria (<2 to ∼25% of the inoculum) compared with freshly inoculated carrots or watermelon (approximately <1 to 8%). After 1 h of drying, the rate of transfer from inoculated celery, carrot, and lettuce was <0.01 to ∼5% and <1 to ∼5% for watermelon. Surface moisture and direction of transfer have the greatest influence on microbial transfer rates.

‘I got to publish a paper with Ninja in title’: evaluation of a food safety education game

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Erstwhile food safety nerd and friend of the blog, Don Schaffner of Rutgers, was one of the authors of a new paper in the British Food Journal exploring food safety education for middle school youths.

“Teaching people about food safety is easy, says Schaffner. “Getting them to really get it – especially when it’s busy – is hard. This game shows the balancing act that kitchen employees have to master to keep customers happy while still keeping food safe.  Plus I got to publish a paper with Ninja in the title.  How cool is that?”

The game is available at http://ninjakitchengame.org.

ninja.kitchenAbstract below.

Ninja Kitchen to the rescue: Evaluation of a food safety education game for middle school youth

British Food Journal, Vol. 115 Iss: 5, pp.686 – 699

Virginia Quick, Kirsten W. Corda, Barbara Chamberlin, Donald W. Schaffner, Carol Byrd-Bredbenner

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0007-070x&volume=115&issue=5&articleid=17088306&show=abstract  

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of Ninja Kitchen, a food safety educational video game, on middle school students’ food safety knowledge, psychographic characteristics, and usual and intended behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach – The experimental group (n=903) completed the following activities about one week apart from each other: pretest, played the game, posttest, and follow-up test. The control group (n=365) completed the same activities at similar intervals but did not have access to the game until after the follow-up test.

Findings – Linear mixed-effects models, controlling for gender, grade, and geographic location revealed significant time by group effects for knowledge of safe cooking temperatures for animal proteins and danger zone hazard prevention, and usual produce washing behaviors. Pairwise comparisons, adjusted for multiple comparisons, indicated that after playing the game, the experimental group felt more susceptible to foodborne illness, had stronger attitudes toward the importance of handling food safely and handwashing, had greater confidence in their ability to practice safe food handling, and had greater intentions to practice handwashing and safe food handling. Teachers and students found the game highly acceptable.

Originality/value – The game has the potential to promote positive food safety behaviors among youth, in a fun and educational format.