Tag Archives: tom robbins

Tom Robbins, Apple, and family (NSFW)

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I was just sitting here editing and writing, with some tunes on the background –the daughter went back to school after 4 weeks away, and I am surrounded by euphoric emerson.mar.16parents every morning – when a shitty U2 song came on from that free album that no one wanted.

U2 is a terribly overrated band, I never liked them, except for that 1991 song, Mysterious Ways, but only because it sounds like it was based on a Tom Robbins novel.

Which got me thinking about encryption, Apple, and the future of my grandsons (#2 at 10 months, left, exactly as shown).

Which quickly went to food safety information. Anything can be hacked, anything is open for public disclosure, get it out there, and if you’re any good at food safety, brag about it.

Just don’t release it free on an iPhone.

No one wanted that free U2 album.

Raw grated beetroot linked to several outbreaks of sudden-onset gastrointestinal illness, Finland 2010

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But, but mom, I don’t like beets.

My friends said that when I was a kid; I don’t know why, other than the beet’s ubiquitous presence on the 1970s relish tray at dinner.

Beetroot, or what North Americans call beets, are part of the Australian Big beets1Mac hamburger.

Best writing about beets? Tom Robbins in his 1984 novel, Jitterbug Perfume.

““The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.”

“The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip…”

“Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.”

And foodborne illness.

Jacks et al report in Epidemiology and Infection that in 2010, 7/44 (16%) reported foodborne outbreaks in Finland were linked with raw beetroot consumption. We reviewed data from the national outbreak registry in order to hypothesize the aetiology of illness and to prevent further outbreaks. In the seven outbreaks, 124 cases among 623 respondents were identified. Consumption of raw beetroot was strongly associated with gastrointestinal illness (relative risk 8·99, 95% confidence interval 6·06–13·35). The illness was characterized by sudden onset of gastrointestinal jitterbug.perfume.robbinssymptoms; the median incubation time was 40 min and duration of illness 5 h. No common foodborne pathogens or toxins were found in either clinical or beetroot samples, but all tested beetroot samples were of poor quality according to total bacterial counts. Beta-haemolytic Pseudomonas fluorescens was detected in several beetroot samples but its effect on human health is unknown. No outbreaks were reported after the Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira advised against serving raw beetroot in institutional canteens.

Careful with those beets; raw grated beetroot linked to several outbreaks of sudden-onset gastrointestinal illness, Finland 2010

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Aussies like their beetroot – what North Americans would call beets. They’re plentiful at the markets and I’ve roasted beetroot and shredded it into salad. McDonald’s has a new Aussie lamb burger, and toppings include an egg, onion, lettuce, some sort of goop and beetroot.

The American novelist Tom Robbins wrote an ode to beets in 1984’s Jitterbug Perfume:

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lustly enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious…. The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stiched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.”

People in Finland may have a different impression of beetroot (I’m sorry, I don’t do impressions).

According to a new paper in Epidemiology and Infection, in 2010, 7/44 (16%) reported foodborne outbreaks in Finland were linked with raw beetroot consumption. In the seven outbreaks, 124 cases among 623 respondents were identified. Consumption of raw beetroot was strongly associated with gastrointestinal illness (relative risk 8·99, 95% confidence interval 6·06–13·35). The illness was characterized by sudden onset of gastrointestinal symptoms; the median incubation time was 40 min and duration of illness 5 h. No common foodborne pathogens or toxins were found in either clinical or beetroot samples, but all tested beetroot samples were of poor quality according to total bacterial counts. Beta-haemolytic Pseudomonas fluorescens was detected in several beetroot samples but its effect on human health is unknown. No outbreaks were reported after the Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira advised against serving raw beetroot in institutional canteens.