Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Less vomit, more cheer: Top 5 ways to a barf-free Thanksgiving

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 Tips for a food safe Thanksgiving dinner are popping up, so Chapman and I, always eager to jump on a bandwagon, came up with our own.

1. Never wash the Thanksgiving turkey. Research from the U.K. and elsewhere shows that washing turkey or chicken is an ideal way to spread dangerous bacteria throughout the kitchen or food preparation area. Washing under running water can spray surface contamination up to three feet away.

2. Never place a whole turkey over your head. While it may be a popular attempt at comedy in movies and television shows like “Mr. Bean” or “Friends,” do not inspect the internal cavity of the turkey by placing it over your head. This is potentially the most contaminated part of the turkey.

3. Make sure to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure the turkey has reached 165 F. Color is an inadequate indicator of safety so always use a thermometer to test the turkey before serving.

4. Cool leftover turkey quickly. Refrigerate leftover turkey within two hours of taking it out of the oven. Some spore-forming bacteria will grow and form toxins if kept at room temperature for too long. Turkey should be cooled to 41 F quickly and this is best accomplished by placing sliced leftover turkey in reseal-able bags of one quart or smaller size. Bags should be laid flat in the refrigerator to allow cool air to circulate.

5. Do not pass babies with leaky diapers around the holiday table. This can lead to all kinds of food contamination, and does not end well for anyone at the table.

A table of holiday-meal related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/turkey-related-outbreaks.

A (thermometer-verified) Canadian Thanksgiving in Australia

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 I’ve got turkeys wandering around the yard but I can’t buy one at the grocer or butcher.

Paul the butcher in Annerley, Brisbane, Australia, took pity on me and gave me – gave me for free – a frozen turkey breast he had in his freezer.

“If it sucks, throw it out.”

I threw it out.

Paul says he does a lot of turkeys for Christmas, but Thanksgiving just isn’t an Australian thing.

And it’s sorta weird, with spring strawberries and asparagus abundant rather than the traditional North American harvest foods.

Was even weirder prepping food all morning while Amy played with Sorenne and listened to the K-State football game on Internet radio.

But, we continued our tradition and had some 15 Aussies over for a Canadian Thanksgiving feast.

And instead of North American football, there was the 2011 Rugby World Cup quarterfinals: yeah Wales (suck it Ireland); France will lose next weekend to Wales; yeah Australia (suck it South Africa), and in a few hours it should be yeah New Zealand (suck it Argentina).

Cas fatal à E. coli lié au dîner familial de Thanksgiving

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Translated by Albert Amgar

Une femme de 51 ans de Carthage dans le Missouri est décédée récemment d’une infection à E. coli O157:H7, après une réunion de famille. La femme est tombée malade ainsi qu’au moins 10 membres sur les 24 personnes de la famille qui ont participé à Thanksgiving.

Bien que les autres cas n’étaient pas aussi graves, trois autres membres de la famille ont aussi été testés positifs pour ce pathogène.

Selon les rapports des services de la santé, tous les cas étaient associés à de la dinde servie au dîner le 27 novembre 2010. On ne sait pas exactement si la source de E. coli O157:H7 était un aliment, une boisson ou un manipulateur d’aliments. Les officiels des services de la santé étudient les sources possibles en analysant les échantillons des aliments préparés.

E. coli O157: H7 se traduit souvent par une diarrhée sanglante, des crampes, des vomissements et de la fièvre. Dans certains cas, l’infection peut entraîner une déshydratation et une maladie grave qui affecte les reins, le syndrome hémolytique et urémique.
E. coli O157:H7 se trouve dans les intestins et les excréments des ruminants et d’autres mammifères.

Des éclosions antérieures ont été associées :
• à de la viande crue (en particulier la viande bovine) qui a été insuffisamment cuite ou qui a contaminée des aliments prêts à être consommés ;
• aux fruits et aux légumes frais ;
• à des personnes infectées manipulant les aliments ;
• à de l’eau contaminée et aux parcs animaliers pour enfants.
Que pouvez-vous faire ?
• se laver les mains et respecter les bonnes pratiques d’hygiène.
• nettoyer et désinfecter les ustensiles et le matériel entre son utilisation avec des aliments crus et des aliments cuits.
• Utiliser un thermomètre digital à pointe sensible pour déterminer quand les viandes ont atteint une température sécuritaire (74°C pour la volaille).

Pour plus de renseignements contactez Ben Chapman, benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu ou Doug Powell, dpowell@ksu.edu
 

1 dead, 10 sick from E. coli at Missouri Thanksgiving meal

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Details are trickling out about the death of Jasper County, Missouri, resident from E. coli last week.

The Joplin Globe reports this morning that a food or a beverage served at a Thanksgiving dinner is the apparent source of an E. coli outbreak that killed a 51-year-old Carthage woman and sickened several other people.

Tony Moehr, director of the Jasper County Health Department, said,

“We have two confirmed cases of E. coli O157:H7 in Jasper County. One of the cases resulted in a death.”

Moehr said a third confirmed case of the bacterial infection has been reported in Dade County and involves someone who attended the Thanksgiving dinner.

“It appears the cases are related to a family gathering for Thanksgiving on Nov. 27,” he said. “We have identified seven or eight additional illnesses related to that gathering, but we don’t have the test results back for them. These cases occurred around the same period of time but were not as severe.”

It is believed that 11 of the 24 people who attended the event became ill.

The department, Moehr said, did not issue a press release about the E. coli death because the incident was associated with a family gathering and did not pose a threat to the public.

Store Thanksgiving leftovers safely and quickly

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Liz Szabo writes in tomorrow’s USA Today that a Thanksgiving cook’s work doesn’t end when mealtime begins.

Douglas Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University says people need to slice and refrigerate leftover meat within no more than two hours of taking the turkey out of the oven, adding,

"As soon as dinner is done, you better go deal with that turkey.”

Lynne Ausman, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science at Tufts University in Boston, agrees.

"The worst thing you can do is let everyone sit at the table with the turkey there," Ausman says.

To get leftovers cold quickly, cooks should slice meat off the carcass, wrap it in individual plastic bags and refrigerate as soon as possible, Powell says. And be careful not to stack bags on top of each other, because that can trap heat.

"You need to expose more of the surface area so it cools faster," Powell says. "Otherwise, the cool fridge air won’t get to the warm areas of the turkey."

Powell also recommends refrigerating rice — another bacterial hot spot — as soon as possible.

Certain bacteria can proliferate in food at room temperature, producing a toxin that can’t be killed by reheating in the oven or microwave, Ausman says.

For example, a church turkey dinner Nov. 6 in Arkansas City, Kan., sickened at least 159 of the 1,800 people who attended, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Victims suffered diarrhea, abdominal pain, cramping and vomiting. One was hospitalized.
 

Sécurité des aliments des repas de fêtes

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Une récente éclosion de maladies d’origine alimentaire au Kansas touchant 159 personnes a été liée à un dîner au cours duquel de la dinde a été servie dans une église. Les symptômes comprenaient vomissements, diarrhées et crampes abdominales – un vrai cadeau de fête. Aucun aliment particulier n’a été identifié.

Les repas de fêtes ont été liés à des éclosions de nombreux pathogènes, tels que Salmonella, Campylobacter, Clostridium perfringens et Staphylococcus aureus. La cuisson pour un nombre de personnes plus grand que de coutume, soit à la maison ou dans une cuisine collective, peut conduire à des erreurs au détriment de la sécurité des aliments.

Que pouvez-vous faire ?

Nettoyer et désinfecter les ustensiles et les surfaces de travail après avoir préparé la dinde crue pour le rôtissage. Lavez-vous les mains après avoir manipulé de la viande crue ou de la volaille. Ne lavez pas votre dinde. Des recherches récentes ont montré que lors du lavage de la volaille, les agents pathogènes peuvent se propager un mètre autour de l’évier, ce qui pourrait inclure des plats déjà préparés.

La couleur n’est pas un indicateur de sécurité ou de cuisson. Souvent il y a des suggestions dans les recettes au sujet de la dinde comme « le jus doit être clair ». C’est un mythe. La seule façon de savoir si la dinde est cuite est d’utiliser un thermomètre digital à une sonde sensible et lire au moins 74°C. Piquer la sonde en plusieurs points mais soyez sûr que le thermomètre ne touche pas les os car cela peut donner une mauvaise lecture de la température.

Conserver au réfrigérateur les restes de dinde dans les deux heures après la sortie du four. La dinde devrait être refroidie à 5°C rapidement. Le mieux est de mettre les restes de dinde en tranches dans des sacs refermables d’un litre ou de plus petite taille. Les sacs doivent être entreposés à plat au réfrigérateur pour permettre à l’air froid de circuler. Certaines bactéries formant des spores vont croître et former des toxines si elles sont conservées à température ambiante trop longtemps.

Pour plus d’information contactez Ben Chapman, benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu ou Doug Powell, dpowell@ksu.edu
 

Bad frozen dessert — and labels — on Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving was a decidedly low-key affair this year. As the parents of a soon-to-be 1-year-old, we’re just tired. We’ve been to a baby shower, hosted a birthday party with too much good scotch (and turkey) and are driving to Missouri on Saturday, so we were all happy to hang out in our PJs.

Our friend Angelique came over for some Champagne, but the scallops and beef I made to top the pasta was far too salty. For dessert, it was the frozen kind from Target.

Amy got some frozen Tiramisu. And I had no idea what that was. But the label and handling directions were horrible. Thaw 6 hours before serving? And cut into 1-inch cubes and divide into 4 wine glasses, and then thread cubes and berries onto skewers?

Amy tried to zap it in the microwave. Didn’t work out so well.

Best of Thanksgiving from blue eyes.


 

Every health inspector needs one of these.

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Oh snap, this is an awesome T-shirt. I know the writing is small, so this is what it says.

You know you are a health inspector when…

  1. People ask you where to eat and…… you just smile.
  2. You interrogate the cook at your own family’s Thanksgiving dinner
  3. The waiter asks “How would you like your burger?”and you reply,”Cooked to 160°F please.”
  4. Vomiting, diarrhea, and parasitic organisms are just part of the dinner conversation.
  5. You have a pool and spa kit on the edge of your bathtub.
  6. Your pockets contain test strips, alcohol wipes, thermometers, and spare change.
  7. Examining septic systems and leach fields constitute your daily aerobic workout.
  8. You know how to pronounce words like “Escherichia” and “ Staphylococcus.”
  9. Children avoid your neighborhood when setting up lemonade stands.
  10. You have developed a HACCP plan for your backyard barbeques.

Chapman says amateurs shouldn’t cook on Thanksgiving

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The idea of Chapman calling others amateurs is amusing.

P.J. O’Rourke wrote a National Lampoon column about how amateur drunks throw up on other people’s shoes. In Champan’s case, it would be other people’s rose bushes. That’s us, in 2000, at my house in Guelph. He barfed in the bushes.

But Chapman, food safety specialist and assistant professor of food science at North Carolina State University, did get quoted by a paper in Nebraska today saying,

"The biggest risk comes from undercooking. Color is not an indicator of safety or doneness. We see suggestions in recipes about making sure ‘the juices run clear’ but that’s a myth. You also have to worry about cross-contamination — which can happen when countertops, sinks or utensils aren’t being cleaned properly between use with raw meats and other foods."

And this was Chapman last weekend tailgating at the Kansas State football game. We left early because he had digestive upsets. Amateur.

Gratuitous food porn shot of the day – Canadian Thanksgiving edition

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Sorenne eating dinner with mom, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 10, 2009.

The second Monday in October is Canadian Thanksgiving. In the U.S., it’s the fourth Thursday in November.

Why the difference?

Thanksgiving is a celebration of the harvest, and the harvest happens a lot earlier in cold Canada. But the annual gathering felt particularly Canadian last night, with plants being brought inside as the first frost hung in the air – ridiculously early for Manhattan, Kansas – and Don Cherry of Hockey Night in Canada on the tube as the Kansas State 66-14 football loss was too embarrassing to watch.

It especially felt like Canada because the Toronto Maple Leafs sucked – like they have for the past 42 years.

On the menu: turkey breast (overheard? Doug, how do you get it so moist? use a meat thermometer), stuffing (more vegetables than bread and used up all the sage before the frost), acorn squash stuffed with pecans, apple, lime juice and brown sugar (got the most raves); rosemary garlic mashed potatoes (thanks for the prep help, Jen) fat-free gravy via my coolio decanter, fruit salad (thanks Peter and Yasmin) and chocolate mousse (thanks, Jen).