Tag Archives: T-shirts

bites and barfblog: we help the next generation ask the right questions, and teach some writing basics

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barfblogger and second-year Kansas State veterinary student Michelle Mazur stars in a Dec. 3/09 story from the American Veterinary Medical Association which calls “barfblog.com one of the sickest (and funniest) sites about food safety.”

Mazur said she stumbled into her job after a food microbiology class she took as an undergrad at Kansas State. She started as a news puller for barfblog.com and now she’s been writing for the blog for about a year, covering issues related to her veterinary-school studies like Brucellosis, her summer job on Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the dangers of salmonella on pet turtles, and even about therapy animals.

“The world has really opened up for me, writing for barfblog.com. Just pulling news for Doug for six months I learned so much. It exposed me to so much news, and it’s a great college job. I can start work at 4 a.m. after my studies.

“I’ve learned that there are ways we can improve food safety in this country. Those who produce must produce properly, and those that consume must consume properly.”

If you like what we are doing, please take the time to make a tax-deductible contribution to bites or barfblog by clicking on the DONATE button at either bites.ksu.edu or barfblog.com.
 

Danger: This email contains barf, poop and foodborne pathogens, fund bites.ksu.edu

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What we have discovered at bites.ksu.edu is that it’s best to be obvious and when possible, humorous. Food safety information can be boring, leading to complacency. We make important food safety information accessible and interesting to everyone, because everyone eats.

bites.ksu.edu daily news e-mails are read by food safety professionals, journalists, students, chefs, regulators – really anyone — around the world. barfblog has 10,000 unique visitors every day. Our downloadable infosheets are posted and read by food workers everywhere. We also do videos and crisis communication.

From feedback and field studies, we know the bites-style works. (Here comes the NPR part of the letter.) While effective, it is also expensive. Stories have to be compiled, videos shot, infosheets designed, funny pictures found and coffee brewed. It takes time and it takes money.

We need your help to not only continue what we are doing, but to expand the range of the people we help. We have found a formula that works.

(Food Safety Info + A little commentary + A little Fun) x The Internet  = Safer Food.

Whether you read barfblog, share the info from our e-mails with colleagues or post our infosheets in food prep areas, you have come to rely on bites, and that was our goal from the beginning.

If you like what we are doing please take the time to make a tax-deductible contribution to bites or barfblog by clicking on the DONATE button at either bites.ksu.edu or barfblog.com.

Thanks for your contribution and we now return you to All Things Considered, brought to you by …
 

K-State graduate student helping New Zealand with development of national restaurant inspection disclosure system — review paper published

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This international research stuff can be challenging to co-ordinate. Not the supervision or the actual research, more getting all the various agencies, living arrangements and insurance lined up.

And I have to be more sensitive – I wanted to call this blog post, The shocking, untold, no-holds barred story of how Katie Filion went from Sault St. Marie, to Guelph, to Manhattan (Kansas) to New Zealand.

The Kansas State University press release that went out this morning said:

Katie Filion, a master’s student in biomedical science, has a thesis project with global implications. She is investigating New Zealand’s options for a national food business or restaurant hygiene grading system. She is working on the yearlong project with a $20,000 grant from the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.

Filion is doing her research in New Zealand and will return to K-State in May 2010 to complete her thesis with adviser Doug Powell, K-State associate professor of food safety.

New Zealand’s piecemeal use of grading systems means that it’s difficult for diners to check out an establishment’s food safety record. Filion said a consistent grading system throughout New Zealand will make consumers less confused and will bolster confidence in the country’s inspection systems. And with a population of about 4 million, New Zealand is an ideally sized country for such a project, Filion said.

"No one has determined the most effective way to present inspection results to the public but a good system has several characteristics," Filion said. "It should have clear guidelines about what earns a good or bad grade and should communicate to diners the risk of eating at a particular restaurant."

Here’s some more of the tale:

Katie left the Soo to do undergraduate research in food science at the University of Guelph. There, for reasons I’ve never fully understood, she and another friend started working for Chapman while he was finishing his PhD.

We met a couple of times, talked a couple of times, but Chapman said she was good and interested in restaurant inspection disclosure stuff – and graduate school – so I gave her some additional work. Then she graduated she spent eight months visiting farmers in Ontario as part of an on-farm food safety program.

Katie decided graduate school was next and I said, come to K-State. Meanwhile, while Amy and I were in New Zealand last summer (Kansas summer, not NZ summer) I worked out a possible arrangement – that Ben had initiated — for a grad student to work with NZFSA on restaurant inspection disclosure procedures.

She was supposed to go in Jan. 2009, but too many details needed to be filled in. Rather than facing winter in the Soo, Katie ventured to Kansas, and helped out around here for five months. She started contributing to barfblog and her writing got better.

In May, it was off to Wellington, NZ, and she seems to be doing great; even got a review paper published, which just came out.

The ways restaurant inspection disclosure systems reach consumers with food safety information was the topic of a review article that Filion and Powell published recently in the Journal of Foodservice. Because diners choose restaurants in part for their perception of the establishment’s hygiene, Filion and Powell suggest that restaurants would be wise to market themselves to potential customers in terms of their food safety inspection records.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.
 

Food safety, news, and the slow death of journalism

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I’ve been doing food safety news for 16 years – aggregating, analyzing, and everything else. Archives are available online going back to Jan. 1, 1996.

I believe in  the 4 Rs of food safety communications — rapid, reliable, repeated and relevant. I believe in using new media. I believe the rose does go on the front, big guy.

But I don’t believe in using new media to just blindly repeat what government or someone else says. Beyond being scientifically inaccurate, it’s really boring.

Food safety reporting, or what is supposed to pass for it, has become incredibly boring. Recirculating a press release is not journalism. And it’s not about asking questions.

The few remaining mainstream new outlets still have some premise of journalistic procedures, but not all the retwitters, transmitters and translaters, who apparently dominate the on-line world. It’s like talking to a family member or spouse who thinks if they just repeat things more and more, the statement becomes true.

That never ends well.

Michael Gerson writes in this morning’s Washington Post – it still exists – that at its best, the profession of journalism has involved a spirit of public service and adventure … Most cable news networks have forsaken objectivity entirely and produce little actual news, since makeup for guests is cheaper than reporting. Most Internet sites display an endless hunger to comment and little appetite for verification. Free markets, it turns out, often make poor fact-checkers, instead feeding the fantasies of conspiracy theorists from "birthers" to Sept. 11, 2001, "truthers."

I’m not sure where the food safety news thing will shake out. I was reminded by Amy this morning about the need to clearly communicate – written, visual, digital, whatever – and the need for editors, ’cause there sure are a lot of awful writers and communicators out there, and I need editing as much as anyone.

As I’ve said before, this is exactly what happened the first time Amy and I met (below).

Potluck again sickens hundreds; this time it was the home-prepared turkey; no biggie says New Mexico official

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Barfing and crapping for days on end is not a minor issue; ask Chapman.

But Deputy County Executive Officer Kim Carpenter of Bloomfield, New Mexico, said that when 150 of the 300 county employees who attended a potluck last week at the County Administration Building became sick later that day,

"This really is a minor issue."

The suspected cause was a poorly prepared turkey.

The turkeys all were prepared at home by volunteers, but officials plan to change to a safer option for future events.

"In the future, the turkeys that we cook for our meal will be done at the correctional facility," Carpenter said.

The San Juan County Adult Detention Center prepares meals for hundreds of inmates and annual events, such as the annual Salvation Army Thanksgiving meal.

It is unclear what caused the illness, but officials believe it may be undercooked turkey.
 

Colts win in stunner; stadium food service company denies media access to witness food safety improvements

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Maybe it was the stadium food that somehow lifted the Indianapolis Colts to a stunning come-from-behind 35-34 victory over the New England Patriots in another chapter of the U.S. football rivalry of the decade, Peyton Manning (right) versus Tom Brady (below, left).
 
After being hammered by local health types, the folks who run the food concessions at Lucas Oil Stadium swooped into town and promised to set things straight. WISH went out to ask some tailgaters to see how confident were about buying food inside the stadium.

Tailgater Glen Vigar reacted to the news,"(It’s) a little scary. I mean it’s a brand new building. I wouldn’t expect it."

Vigar said that he wouldn’t eat the food there anymore.

Centerplate said it planned to have 15 of its own food safety inspectors inside the stadium Sunday to make sure conditions are clean.

24-Hour News 8 had asked to be inside the stadium to see how that was going, but a Centerplate spokesperson denied that request.

Atypical scrapie in single NZ sheep

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Contrary to what the New Zealand Herald reported tonight (this morning in NZ), the animal in question was born in NZ, not the UK, because NZ does not import sheep from the UK.

MAF Biosecurity New Zealand (MAFBNZ) and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) today confirmed that a series of New Zealand and European laboratory tests on a single New Zealand sheep brain have detected the condition atypical scrapie (also known as Nor 98).

Atypical scrapie/Nor 98 is a relatively recently discovered brain condition of sheep and goats that is quite different from the classical form of scrapie. 

Neither atypical scrapie/Nor 98 nor scrapie is known to pose any risk to human health or the safety of eating meat or animal products.

MAFBNZ Principal International Adviser Dr Stuart MacDiarmid says global knowledge about atypical scrapie/Nor 98 is evolving.  The widely accepted mainstream scientific view is that it occurs spontaneously or naturally in very small numbers of older sheep in all sheep populations around the world.

“This positive detection of atypical scrapie/Nor 98 in a sheep from New Zealand’s national flock reinforces that view.  Every country that has conducted sufficient surveillance for atypical scrapie/Nor 98 has found it in their flocks.  This includes most Scandinavian and EU countries, the UK, the USA and Canada,” he says.

The detection does not change New Zealand’s status as free from scrapie.

Dr MacDiarmid says because of this scrapie freedom status, New Zealand supplies sheep brains to the European Union for use in the development of tests for scrapie. 

“The affected brain was one of a consignment of 200 brains sent for this purpose.  EU-authorised tests carried out in New Zealand prior to shipment had not picked up anything unusual.  However further tests in Europe and re-testing in New Zealand on different parts of the brain from the area originally tested have now established a diagnosis of atypical scrapie/Nor 98.

There is no evidence that atypical scrapie/Nor 98 can be transmitted naturally to other animals or to people, or that it in any way affects people.

 

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
 

No one told me that there would be snakes here

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While investigating our move to North Carolina last year, no one told me that there would be snakes involved. I’m sort of a city person, my wildlife and camping experiences are limited and I’m not a huge fan of rodents. I didn’t think much about snakes in Ontario.

I’m starting to think about snakes a lot more now — I saw a story on Fark.com today about a snake in Brunswick County (N.C.). A serious snake:

"Two brothers were just driving along N.C. 133, near Orton Plantation, on Wednesday morning when they noticed a large snake – different from those native to the area – in the roadway. “We thought it was a rattlesnake,” said Billy Ballard, of Oak Island. But a closer look and, later, an expert opinion revealed it was actually a boa constrictor that stretched at least 7 feet long."

"The brothers, on their way to Wilmington for an appointment, brought the snake to the StarNews, where about a dozen people – the ones who apparently did not have a phobia of snakes – came outside to hear the brothers’ story."

"“He’s wounded. We just have to care for him,” Billy Ballard said. “He’s got a family. You can’t tell me he’s just a stray.”"

Who grabs a snake from the highway, thinking that it might be a rattle snake, throws it in the back of a truck and takes it to the newspaper?

I had my own snake sighting last week. While visiting a farm in Chatham County with a bunch of food safety folks, we saw a snake (left, exactly as shown), known to my tour companions a "big black snake" (creative taxonomist).

I’m feeling a bit like Indiana Jones.

bites barfblog and food safety: information procedures

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People often ask me, “Doug, how do you choose the information that goes in bites.ksu.edu? Do you have a basis for any of your food safety rants on barfblog? Why are you such a jerk?

People often ask Ben, “Why do you write so much about vomit?”

People often ask Amy, “Why are you with Doug?”

When we ran the food safety information centre back in Canada, we had detailed procedures for how to answer questions, what information was provided and why. We don’t answer questions so much anymore, but we do provide a lot of information so I figured we better clearly understand what we do and why. This is more for us and all the students that come through my lab than it is for you. Really, it’s me, not you.

bites.ksu.edu is a unique comprehensive resource for all those with a personal or professional interest in food safety. Dr. Powell of Kansas State University, and associates, search out 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.

Throughout all bites activities, the emphasis is on 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, Dr. Powell, 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 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. And now, available in French, Spanish and Portuguese.

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