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Is it the last meal I ate that made me sick?
Michael Bauer writes the Between Meals column for the San Francisco Chronicle. Yesterday Bauer responded to an e-mail from a reader who had met a friend for lunch one day and explained,
“We both became quite ill an hour or so after we finished our meal.”
The diner wanted to know what to do if the restaurant food made them sick. Bauer responded by saying,
“Most common forms of food poisoning take anywhere from four to eight hours to incubate.”
It is not likely that the two diners were sickened by food eaten an hour before they felt ill.
A handy table from the FDA’s Bad Bug Book shows that the only bacterial foodborne illness known to show symptoms in fewer than two hours is Staphylococcus aureus. (That’s because this particular bacterium produces toxins before it’s even eaten; others don’t produce toxins until they’ve been sitting in your gut for a while.)
Even then, the average time between eating Staph-contaminated food and feeling sick is 2-4 hours. Very few feel sick in just an hour.
A physician commenting on Bauer’s response suggested that the two friends could have been exposed to a gastrointestinal virus earlier in the week that finally showed symptoms after eating at the restaurant together.
Rotavirus takes about two days to make you sick and symptoms of a norovirus can appear in a day or two.
After getting a few more details from the reader, Bauer said,
“I figured that it might have been spoiled fish, since what was consumed was fried and any off flavors might have been masked. However, tracing it back for sure is extremely difficult.”
Depending on the pathogen, a person with a foodborne illness will either start vomiting within a few hours or have diarrhea within a few days. In either case, the last thing you ate is often not the culprit.
A friend of mine, who is now a dietitian, has been keeping a food journal since high school. If she’s ever hit with a foodborne illness—and goes to the doctor, has a stool sample tested, discovers which bug made her sick, and remembers when she started feeling bad—she’ll have an excellent shot at figuring out which food made her sick and where she ate it.
If a sick person can only remember the last place they’ve eaten, though, they’re not considering all the possibilities—including the most likely possibilities.
‘Scorpion king’ back after bananas bite
Daniel Amey, 30, thought he had scratched himself until he noticed his finger was swelling up.
The Telegraph reported yesterday he was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered part of a scorpion’s tail in his finger.
Mr Amey (right, photo from telegraph.uk.com), who works at The Food Company said,
"I put my hand in the box and thought I had cut it but by the time I was carrying the bananas, my finger had swollen up to twice its size and it felt like it was burning. The doctor was ex-Army and he knew straight away that it was a scorpion as there was a single impact wound from the sting. He told me that if it had been the other kind of scorpion from Africa, I would have been dead within 15 minutes.”
The greengrocer returned to work the same day but says he will be more cautious when unpacking bananas.
CRAIG ANDREW-KABILAFKAS: This article made me barf
I’m usually immune to many of the crazy notions that appear in FSnet, but having been touched by the recent and tragic Pseudomonas aeruginosa-linked death of Brazilian model Mariana Bridi, reading Eating dirt can be good for you – just ask babies made me barf. Surely it’s not too hard to understand that the evolutionary advantage Jane Brody references is Darwin’s survival of the fittest. This means that the weak do not survive, they die. Yes, it is better for humanity in the long run, but are there really parents alive today that want to play Russian roulette with their infants?
Not me.
I know that 99% of the food that my kids eat is not sterile. If tested it in a food microbiology lab there will be a bacterial count, but hopefully no pathogens. I know that my mouth has trillions of bacteria resident in it even though I brush and floss my teeth twice daily. I know that the air is not sterile and that my nose connects to my throat. Some of the bacteria filtered by my nostrils will make their way into my throat and stomach. Same with my kids. I want my kids to survive and thrive so I get them to practice good personal hygiene. I teach them about understanding and avoiding risk. I think that it is an instinctive behaviour for children to crawl, but I prevented my children from crawling on the road because they had no concept of the risk of being hit by a car.
I also stopped them from putting dirt into their mouth. They are still alive, strong and healthy today. Bacteria don’t have discretion. Mariana Bridi was in her prime and yet could not withstand the attack of a potent and pathogenic invader. All of our knowledge, technology, and intellectual effort could not defeat her Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. Is society better off for her passing? 
Bridi’s untimely death has affirmed my knowledge that survival of the fittest is still in play. It can also serve to remind that we are not good judges of what is truly meant by "fittest". Your child may look healthy and robust, but by exposing her to pathogens that are readily found in dirt and pet faeces you are conducting a life threatening experiment. You are playing Russian roulette with your child’s life and that is not the way to ensure survival.
Practice good personal hygiene, good parenting and just hope that you and your family are fortunate enough to avoid the deadly, painful and destructive pathogenic bacteria that surround us.
Craig is a food microbiologist working as a food safety consultant across the Australasian region.
Maybe we should start kebab-blog
As a follow-up to last week’s kebab/street meat post, today, the FSA published results of a survey of the content of 494 kebabs across the UK.
The study’s authors report that without salad and sauces, the average kebab contains:
* 98% of daily salt
* nearly 1000 calories
* 148% of daily saturated fat
The authors also report the mislabelling of kebab meat, with meat species not declared or declared wrongly. In some instances, pork was present in samples labelled as Halal.
The Food Standards Agency’s Chief Scientist Andrew Wadge said:
‘We welcome this new study. It is important that people are properly informed about the food they eat. However, our advice is that people don’t need to avoid doner kebabs altogether because of these findings. Like all types of food that is high in fat and salt they do not need to be cut out of your diet altogether."
Wonder if they sampled for pathogens, and if they found any.
Snow day in Raleigh; be cautious if eating peanut butter
I made it through Snowmageddon in Ontario back in December, and now we are living our second Snowmageddon in Raleigh. Pretty much everything is shut down. Local news stations have been showing cars sliding into the ditch and around corners all morning and there was a reported run on the staples at the grocery stores: milk, bread and eggs.
And there’s about two inches of snow on the ground. 
The snow has an unexpected benefit for me — I’ve got the U.S. Presidential inauguration in HD on CNN in the background. Dani was watching the crawl on the bottom of the screen when the following Salmonella-related message came up: "consumers urged to use caution eating peanut butter". Wow. I guess that means chew it, or eat it slow.
FSnet funding, format and future
I’m a writer.
And writers write.
I may be a scientist, and my group has produced some decent stuf, but really, I’m just a writer.
And writers write.
Some people shouldn’t write, like Bono of the ridiculously overrated band, U2. Bono is a terrible writer. It’s on display in last Sunday’s N.Y. Times at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11bono.html?ref=opinion
I started FSnet, the food safety news, shortly after the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak in Jan. 1993. Sure, Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet, but those of us in universities had access, and I started distributing food safety stories.???
It all seems sorta quaint now, what with Google alerts and blogs and RSS feeds, but my goal was straightforward: during the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak, a number of spokesthingies said, they didn’t know E. coli O157:H7 was a risk, they didn’t know that Washington State had raised its recommended final cooking temperature for ground beef, they didn’t know what was going on.?????? So FSnet was conceived and made widely available so that no one could legitimately say, they didn’t know.
But times have changed. You’ve probably all missed my annual PBS-like funding plea. I’m grateful for the donations, but I can sense the funding model needs to change. Last year, Seattle lawyer Bill Marler stepped up – and I’m quite grateful — and covered the funding shortfall, but I don’t expect that to happen every year.
So, this is what I’m planning to do.
Over the next few weeks, a new web site, bites.ksu.edu will consolidate the existing food safety information resources of the International Food Safety Network – news listservs, blogs, infosheets, videos and others – and we’ll strive to become the pre-eminent daily international electronic food safety publication or portal with text, audio, video, blogs, and RSS feeds. And we’re going to sell advertizing. The bites.ksu.edu not-for-profit environment will additionally:
• provide research, educational and journalistic opportunities for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students in the multi-media electronic environment of bites.ksu.edu;
• develop, implement and evaluate a variety of food safety messages using various mediums to impact the safe-food behavior of individuals from farm-to-fork;
• provide an infrastructure to produce a series of multilingual public service announcements to further stimulate public interest in food safety and security and to raise awareness about specific emerging issues, especially during a crisis;
• host a dynamic and cross-cultural team of secondary, undergraduate and graduate students to create multilingual and multicultural food safety and security information, including weekly food safety info/tip sheets, podcasts and flash-based Internet animations and videos through bites.ksu.edu;
• provide training through a graduate emphasis in food safety, language, culture and policy (with distance education option); and,
• create employment and training opportunities for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students in conjunction with an international internship program to place students with regulatory authorities and industries who promote a food safety culture.
Should I keep the International Food Safety Network name? It’s a bit ponderous and creates confusion with the posers at the University of Guelph. bites is easier to deal with. What else should I keep or eliminate? I’m going to collapse the four listserves – FSnet, Agnet, AnimalNet and FunctinalFood Net into one daily e-publication. For those who want instant news, it will be provided through RSS feeds in the following categories. For those who can wait, a daily e-publication will be distributed, in html and text format.
The draft categories available for RSS feeds are:
E. coli
Salmonella
Listeria
Norovirus
Hepatitis A
other food safety microorganisms
restaurant inspection
handwashing
thermometers
raw – milk, juice, food
infosheets
Yuck
Food safety communication
Food safety policy
Food allergies
animal disease
plant disease
genetic engineering
functional food
pesticides
new science
I’m open to suggestions. If you feel I’m too much of an asshole to deal with, e-mail Ben at his new North Carolina State gig, benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu, or Amy at ahubbell@ksu.edu.
For me, it’s more writing.
Cause writers write.
Food safety vs food security
My month-long break in Paraguay is coming to an end. It has been a hectic month – packed with family visits, celebrations, and of course, lots of [un-safe] food.
With concepts like “cross contamination”, “meat temperature”, and “hand washing” floating around my head I’ve been able to look at things differently. I concluded that we are decades behind the U.S. in terms of food safety.
While Americans worry much about food safety, Paraguayans are more occupied with food security. Access to food is more important than stopping to think whether it’s safe or not. I even have a hard time explaining what food safety is. I am not surprised; I had no idea when I started working for Doug. Food safety topics are not in the news much and I have not heard people discussing about it.
To find out more, I’ve sat around the kitchen a lot. I tried a few times to explain to the cook why she should wash her hands every time she touches raw meat and goes on to something else. All I got back were looks of ‘you are just crazy’. Her food is still delicious.
I asked her how often her kids have diarrhea. She said, not often, maybe once or twice a month. I asked her if she’s worried about it, she answered she’s not, it’s a normal part of being a kid.
Or maybe our stomachs are used to handling salmonella and E. coli better than others. It’s hard to know. When I moved to Kansas two years ago I survived on rice and toast for a week because I couldn’t stop barfing.
But sitting back and recalling some of my experiences on this side of the world, I am surprised I have not yet barfed once (not counting the New Years party, when I had too much champagne). 
A couple of weeks ago I went to eat one of my favorite meals – steak sandwich – better known as lomito. The best place I know is just a few blocks away – a humble-looking lomito stand. I took a bite out of my lomito and realized the meat was still pink on the inside. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the mayonnaise tub by the grill.
I wondered how long the mayo (probably home-made, with raw egg) had been sitting out in the heat. I wondered where he kept the raw meat or how he knew if it was done or not. Should I ask? I resolved that some things are better left unknown. I finished munching and handed him the money. He grabbed the bills with bare hands, put them in a box, and continued flipping steaks. (Note: the pic to the right is actually another lomito I ate during a short visit to Brazil, but that’s pretty much how it looked like)
We do have nice restaurants where things like these don’t happen or at least we don’t see them happening. But in a broader picture, citizens and leaders of the country have plenty to figure out before they can tackle food safety concerns.
In the meantime, I will keep savoring the lomitos, chipa guazu, sopa paraguaya, asados, and such. For me, it is still awesome [un-safe] food.
Is Diet Coke Plus really a plus?
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It’s no secret. The obesity epidemic is still raging in the United States. Documentaries such as Super Size Me and TV shows like Big Medicine have helped to bring the public’s attention to the obesity problem in the US, but there is still a long way to go to encourage consumers to adopt proper eating habits and exercise regiments.
There have been quite a few fad diets out there that guarantee the latest “quick fix” for a spare tire around the waist or love handles. The health food market has also exploded with new products offering few calories and added vitamins and minerals. Consumers are also looking for products not only to help them lose weight, but also stay healthy by consuming products, like functional foods, to help prevent cancer. Functional foods, any fresh or processed food claiming to have a health-promoting and/or disease-preventing property beyond the basic nutritional function of supplying nutrients, are also being researched and developed by many scientists.
Functional foods are fast becoming a part of everyday life. Two-thirds of adults made an effort to buy more fortified foods in 2006 – up 17% over 2005. One-third of young adults age 18–24 regularly drink energy beverages, and more than half of mothers of preteens bought organic foods last year.
With the majority (69%) of Americans pursuing a preventive lifestyle and 27% taking a treatment approach, not surprisingly, products that offer specific health benefits that make it easier for consumers to address their individual needs are enjoying explosive sales growth.
How does the market classify whether or not a food is considered functional food? The FDA regulates food products according to their intended use and the nature of claims made on the package. Five types of health-related statements or claims are allowed on food and dietary supplement labels:
http://www.ific.org/nutrition/functional/index.cfm
* Nutrient content claims indicate the presence of a specific nutrient at a certain level.
* Structure and function claims describe the effect of dietary components on the normal structure or function of the body.
* Dietary guidance claims describe the health benefits of broad categories of foods.
* Qualified health claims convey a developing relationship between components in the diet and risk of disease, as reviewed by the FDA and supported by the weight of credible scientific evidence available.
* Health claims confirm a relationship between components in the diet and risk of disease or health condition, as approved by FDA and supported by significant scientific agreement.
Could junk food be advertised with health claims? Diet Coke Plus was introduced in 2007 by The Coca-Cola Company as an alternative to Coca-Cola Classic. The ingredient list includes the following added vitamins and minerals: magnesium sulfate (declared at 10% of the Daily Value (DV) for magnesium in the Nutrition Facts panel), zinc gluconate (declared at 10% of the DV for zinc), niacinamide (declared at 15% of the DV for niacin), pyridoxine hydrochloride (declared at 15% of the DV for vitamin B6), and cyanocobalamine (declared at 15% of the DV for vitamin B12).
Diet Coke Plus has just come under fire for using the word “plus” in their product name. According to the FDA, Diet Coke Plus is “misbranded … because the product makes a nutrient content claim but does not meet the criteria to make the claim.” Muhtar Kent, the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Coca-Cola Company received a warning letter from the FDA last week detailing regulations for using the word “plus” and Diet Coke Plus’ abuse of the word, along with the statement that the “FDA does not consider it appropriate to fortify snack foods such as carbonated beverages.”
I’ll be honest; I’ve bought Diet Coke Plus at the grocery store. I might’ve been trying to rationalize my caffeine addiction. It said Plus, it must be ok to drink. If they ever come out with an Organic Coke I’m sure people will be clamoring to buy it, supposing that it will be “all natural”.
The FDA has allowed Coke 15 days to prepare a letter detailing the actions that Coke plans to take in response to the warning letter, including an explanation of each step being taken to correct the current violations and prevent similar violations. “We take seriously the issues raised by the FDA in its letter,” Coke spokesman Scott Williamson said in a prepared statement. “This does not involve any health or safety issues, and we believe the label on Diet Coke Plus complies with FDA’s policies and regulations. We will provide a detailed response to the FDA in early January."
Jim Romahn: It’s time for general Canadian public to speak up
I’ve know Jim Romahn for about 15 years. His writing drives a lot of bureaucrats ballistic, which is why he’s recognized as one of Canada’s best journalists writing about food and agriculture.
Jim just sent me this column about food, protectionism and hypocrisy. The South Koreans went somewhat nuts about American beef earlier this year, with riot police called to quell the protests of tens of thousands.
Six months later and the Washington Post reported, what was the big deal?
“Low-priced U.S. beef has appeared in supermarkets here in recent days, after a decision by three major retailers to start selling it again, and the reaction has been brisk business and no political fuss. Fifty tons of U.S. beef disappeared from shelves the first day it was offered for sale."
That’s usually the way things work. Politicians worried about particular constituencies will make outrageous claims on behalf of all Canadians or Koreans or consumers in general, in the absence of any data. Yet when people are allowed to vote at the grocery store, with their wallet, conventional wisdom becomes political nonsense.
So here’s Jim’s take on Canada, South Korea, trade and BS.
Pity the beef and pork producers eager to increase exports to South Korea.
Trade talks have been dragging on for years.
For sure, the beef and hog producers of South Korea oppose dropping tariffs on Canadian products.
But there’s also a big problem in our own back yard.
The Koreans want to sell us cars, but Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are lobbying hard to maintain the 6.1 per cent tariff. So is the Canadian Autoworkers Union.
There is another big problem – our dairy industry.
The trade talks have expanded to bring in other countries to make a deal more attractive, especially to increase exports.
So far those talks involve Singapore, Chile, Brunei and New Zealand.
New Zealand wants to export its dairy products. And everybody knows Canadian dairy farmers won’t budge one iota.
So, after 13 rounds of negotiations with South Korea, and a few with the so-called P4, Canada’s special interests are blocking trade deals that would quite obviously benefit beef and hog farmers and all Canadian consumers.
It’s one thing to stonewall at the World Trade negotiations. It’s even more upsetting when our politicians stonewall on country-specific negotiations, and this P4 group of minor countries.
What are the chances our politicians will agree to trade terms that will increase competitive pressure on our auto industry?
What are the chances they will undermine supply management for the dairy and poultry farmers?
What hope, then, that Canadians will be able to heed the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper when he says the current economic crisis calls for free trade.
Harper reminds world leaders that protectionism gets blamed for some of the depth of the Great Depression.
It’s not world leaders who need a lecture. It’s our own Canadian protectionists.
What’s more, Harper has the tools to back his talk with action.
If he could make a deal with the P4, it would set the stage for him to take a far more aggressive position in the World Trade negotiations.
And there the goal from the beginning of the Doha round has been to benefit poor nations. And among the poorest people in those nations are farmers.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture and a series of agriculture ministers have pretended we can take a “balanced” position in trade negotiations, winning market access for our exporters and continued protection for the marketing boards.
It’s obviously not true.
The Doha round talks have repeatedly stalled. Thirteen rounds of negotiations with South Korea have failed to yield a deal. And Canada is unlikely to stay at the negotiating table with the P4 because it won’t compromise with New Zealand.
It’s time for the general Canadian public to speak up and demand an end to political pandering to special interests. We can’t afford to waste our money and resources, especially as the rest of the world moves to capture the benefits of freer trade.