Tag Archives: tuck shop

Epitaph ‘He tried to improve the world, one thermometer at a time’

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Soon after Sorenne started at Junction Park State School, I started volunteering in the tuck shop, prepping foods for a few hundred kids on Fridays.

I put in some time, but then politics overtook my food safety nerdiness so I stopped.

But not before I left about 10 Comark tip-sensitive digital thermometers and advised, use them frequently.

While cooking breakfast this morning for 120 school kids, I ran into my friend, Dave, who is currently running the tuck shop, and he told me the thermometers get a regular workout each week, he had to change some batteries last week, and he took one home for cooking.

Now imagine that a tip-sensitive digital thermometer could be used to harness user data (and sell product).

Sapna Maheshwari of The New York Times writes that most of what we do — the websites we visit, the places we go, the TV shows we watch, the products we buy — has become fair game for advertisers. Now, thanks to internet-connected devices in the home like smart thermometers, ads we see may be determined by something even more personal: our health.

This flu season, Clorox paid to license information from Kinsa, a tech start-up that sells internet-connected thermometers that are a far cry from the kind once made with mercury and glass. The thermometers sync up with a smartphone app that allows consumers to track their fevers and symptoms, making it especially attractive to parents of young children.

The data showed Clorox which ZIP codes around the country had increases in fevers. The company then directed more ads to those areas, assuming that households there may be in the market for products like its disinfecting wipes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends disinfecting surfaces to help prevent the flu or its spread.

Kinsa, a San Francisco company that has raised about $29 million from venture capitalists like Kleiner Perkins since it was founded in 2012, says its thermometers are in more than 500,000 American households. It has promoted the usefulness of its “illness data,” which it says is aggregated and contains no identifying personal information before being passed along to other companies.

It is unique, Kinsa says, because it comes straight from someone’s household in real time. People don’t have to visit a doctor, search their symptoms on Google or post to Facebook about their fever for the company to know where a spike might be occurring.

“The challenge with Google search or social media or mining any of those applications is you’re taking a proxy signal — you’re taking someone talking about illness rather than actual illness,” said Inder Singh, the founder and chief executive of Kinsa. Search queries and social media can also be complicated by news coverage of flu season, he said, while data from the C.D.C. is often delayed and comes from hospitals and clinics rather than homes.

The so-called internet of things is becoming enmeshed in many households, bringing with it a new level of convenience along with growing concerns about privacy.

Clorox used that information to increase digital ad spending to sicker areas and pull back in places that were healthier. Consumer interactions with Clorox’s disinfectant ads increased by 22 percent with the data, according to a Kinsa Insights case study that tracked performance between November 2017 and March of this year. That number was arrived at by measuring the number of times an ad was clicked on, the amount of time a person spent with the ad and other undisclosed metrics, according to Vikram Sarma, senior director of marketing in Clorox’s cleaning division.

Being able to target ads in this way is a big shift from even seven years ago, when the onset of cold and cough season meant buying 12 weeks of national TV ads that “would be irrelevant for the majority of the population,” Mr. Sarma said. The flu ultimately reaches the whole country each year, but it typically breaks out heavily in one region first and then spreads slowly to others.

While social media offered new opportunities, there has been “a pretty big lag” between tweets about the flu or flulike symptoms and the aggregation of that data for marketers to use, he said.

“What this does is help us really target vulnerable populations where we have a clear signal about outbreaks,” Mr. Sarma said.

Imagine using similar for data for people cooking dinner tonight.

This is what we’re having (above, right; Chapman, about those thermometers?).

Survival of Salmonella on basil plants and in pesto

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Yesterday at the school tuck shop, we made 280 sushi rolls (I cooked the chicken but felt naked without my misplaced thermometer, Chapman is mailing me more) 70 sausage rolls and 10 orders of pesto pasta.

basil.salmonellaThe pesto is part of the garden-to-kitchen initiative. I have my food safety concerns about such things but am trying to not alienate all the parent volunteers at once.

They got messages about handwashing and rice storage this week.

And I was also in charge of prepping the pesto pasta, so I made sure it was heated.

But, as reported by Eckner et. al, leafy greens, including fresh herbs, have repeatedly been involved in outbreaks of foodborne disease. Although much effort has been put into studying leafy greens and products such as head lettuce and baby leaves, less is known about fresh leafy herbs, such as basil.

The goal of this study was to investigate the survival of Salmonella on basil plants and in pesto. A mix of three Salmonella strains (Reading, Newport, and Typhimurium) was inoculated onto basil leaves and pesto and survived during the experimental period.

Whereas the mix of Salmonella survived in pesto stored at 4°C for 4 days, Salmonella was recovered from inoculated leaves for up to 18 days at 20 to 22°C. Although the steady decline of Salmonella on leaves and in pesto suggests a lack of growth, it appears that pesto is a hostile environment for Salmonella because the rate of decline in pesto was faster (0.29 log CFU/g/day) than on leaves (0.11 log CFU/g/day).

pesto.basil.cyclosporaThese findings suggest that the dilution of contaminated ingredients and the bactericidal effect of the pesto environment helped to further reduce the level of enteric organisms during storage, which may have applications for food safety.

Survival of Salmonella on basil plants and in pesto

01.feb.15

Journal of Food Protection®, Number 2, February 2015, pp. 240-476, pp. 402-406(5)

Eckner, Karl F.; Høgåsen, Helga R.; Begum, Mumtaz; økland, Marianne; Cudjoe, Kofitsyo S., Johannessen, Gro S.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2015/00000078/00000002/art00022

Some talk, some do: 101 burgers all temped for safety

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Sorenne was in prep (kindergarten for North American types) last year when she asked, “Dad, can I order food from the tuck shop?”

“Not until I check it out,” said Dr. food safety dad.

doug.tuckshop.feb.15So I asked about, and, as these things go, was soon nominated to be the food safety advisor or something for the tuck shop.

I can say that having worked with the team of volunteers, led by Katherine, they didn’t need much help in the food safety and cleanliness area.

I’ve introduced some basic paperwork (like recording fridge and freezer temperatures), some posters on cooking and handwashing as reminders, and using tip-sensitive digital thermometers to determine whether food is cooked to a microbiologically safe temperature.

I’m a parent, and wouldn’t serve anything to my daughter that I wouldn’t serve at home (as Katherine likes to say). That’s why I individually temped all 101 beef and chicken burgers that I cooked Feb. 6, 2015, for tuck shop.

It’s what I’d do at home, and what I’d expect anyone else to do.

The menu’s up to Katherine and the other volunteers. I’m there to make sure that whatever they serve, it’s safe.

It is.

Do you really want that holiday potluck?

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I’ve got a new gig.

powell.food.safety.dec.15I’m the head of food safety for the school tuck shop that is run by volunteers at daughter Sorenne’s school.

The pay is lousy (non-existent) but the discussions are gold, and gets me back into what my friend Tanya deemed reality research – and that’s what my group has always been good at, going out and talking with people.

More practice than preaching.

The tuck shop serves meals for about 200 students, one day a week. It’s run by volunteers, and all profits go to the school.

It used to be run by a school employee, and the meals were purchased and then resold, at a loss. When that person moved on, some parents decided, we can do better that that.

Sorenne said she wanted relief from the drudgery of everyday school lunches, and I said, not until I check it out.

I put my hand up, and now am in charge of food safety.

Things happen that way.

But there were no state resources for volunteers running a tuck shop.

We’ve been making it up as we go.

The questions at my kid’s school can be expanded to the larger community, especially with holiday potlucks.

sorenne.hockey.dec.14I avoid the food at potlucks, church dinners and other community meals. I relish the social interaction, but I have no idea of the hand sanitation, the cooking methods, and other food safety factors that can make people barf and sometimes kill them.

Typically, health types will insist on some level of competency for people providing food, and they will get overruled by politicians who say things like, it’s common sense, and, we’ve always done things this way and never made anyone sick.

No one inspects the tuck shop I volunteer at.

But volunteers aren’t magically immune from making people sick.

The outbreaks are happening weekly at this point, tragically resulting in the death of an elderly woman in New Brunswick, Canada.

Over 15 years ago Rob Tauxe described the traditional foodborne illness outbreak as a scenario that ‘often follows a church supper, family picnic, wedding reception, or other social event.’

This scenario involves an acute and highly local outbreak, with a high inoculum dose and a high attack rate. The outbreak is typically immediately apparent to those in the local group, who promptly involve medical and public health authorities. The investigation identifies a food-handling error in a small kitchen that occurs shortly before consumption. The solution is also local.

Community gatherings around food awaken nostalgic feelings of the rural past — times when an entire town would get together on a regular basis, eat, enjoy company, and work together.

Public health regulations for community-based meals are inconsistent at best, and these events may or may not fall under inspection regulations. Additionally, in areas where community-based meals are inspected by public health there is pressure from the community to deregulate these events due to their volunteer nature.

Food handlers at CMEs are usually volunteers preparing food outside of their own home, often in a communal kitchen. They may not be accustomed to preparing food for a large group, the time constraints associated with food service, or even the tools, foods and processes used for the meal. These informal event infrastructures, as well as volunteer food handlers with no formal food safety training and a lack of commercial food preparation skills, provide a climate for potential food safety problems.

Foods prepared at home and then brought to CMEs also pose a hazard, as research has shown that poor food handling practices in the home often contribute to foodborne illness.

The tuck shop at Sorenne’s school has been running for six months, and we’re now on summer break, did a deep clean, and planning how best to go forward, in a way we can recruit future volunteers.

We also just ended the (ice) hockey season this past weekend and Sorenne told her teacher she wants to be a professional hockey player when she gets older.

There’s no money in that, or food safety, but it’s great to be part of a community.

I needed 40 hours of training to coach a rep girls hockey team in Canada, and 16 hours to coach in Australia.

I don’t need nothing to make people sick.

 Dr. Douglas Powell is a former professor of food safety who shops, cooks and ferments from his home in Brisbane, Australia.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the original creator and do not necessarily represent that of the Texas A&M Center for Food Safety or Texas A&M University.