Tag Archives: Whole Foods

Save Lives: Clean Your Hands

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Megan Hardigree, a research associate at Kansas State University working on hand hygiene, writes that this year, Cinco de Mayo wasn’t just a holiday to celebrate the Mexican army’s victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla (yesterday) or a song by the band, Cake. It was also a day to celebrate the launch of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) newest hand hygiene campaign: Save Lives: Clean Your Hands.

The aim of Save Lives: Clean Your Hands is to stop the spread of infection by increasing hand hygiene of healthcare workers. This is said to be the next step of the original, Clean Care is Safer Care, from 2005. The initiative persuades individuals to join the movement with gain-framed messages (they apparently encourage positive behavior) such as “Help stop hospital acquired infections in your country” and “Make patient safety your number one priority.”

To help support this initiative, WHO has accompanied the promotion with a variety of tools and resources to aid healthcare facilities in promoting and enforcing better hand hygiene. These tools include: tools for system change, tools for training and education, tools for evaluation and feedback, tools as reminders in the workplace, and tools for institutional safety climate. My personal favorite, mostly because of the fun diagram, is in the “tools as reminders in the workplace” which includes “My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene:”

• before touching a patient;
• before clean/aseptic procedures;
• after body fluid exposure/risk;
• after touching a patient; and,
• after touching patient surroundings.

 “Be a part of a global movement to improve hand hygiene, “ says WHO.

Now to evaluate whether any of these messages actually compel people to wash their hands.
 

Egypt kills pigs to stop a virus that moves person-to-person

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Egypt began culling its roughly 300,000 pigs on Wednesday and, Reuters reported,

“The move is not expected to block the H1N1 virus from striking, as the illness is spread by people and not present in Egyptian swine. But acting against pigs, largely viewed as unclean in conservative Muslim Egypt, could help quell a panic.”

The next day, according to the Associated Press, the World Organization for Animal Health said, "there is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs," and the World Health Organization announced, "Rather than calling this swine flu … we’re going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A."

These organizations recognized that Egyptians aren’t getting the whole story.

The World Health Organization has raised the alert on the H1N1 flu virus to phase 5, which assistant director-general Dr. Keiji Fukuda said is reserved for situations in which the likelihood of a pandemic “is very high or inevitable.” The move reflects the need for countries to take the virus seriously, and Egyptian leaders appear to be doing just that. However, costly culls that act against current evidence are sending inaccurate messages to the public about the risks present and the ways in which they can be effectively controlled.

Egyptian pig farmers are outraged. The remaining citizens feel a bit safer now. But they will all feel terribly betrayed when the H1N1 flu infiltrates their borders in the form of an infected human.
 

I buy my eggs at a new-age store so they’re safe; Barry’s got my back

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One of the few pleasures in watching the movie, Baby Mama, is Steve Martin’s turn as Barry, the narcissistic, new-age genius who runs a Whole Foods-like organic supermarket chain, seen here transferring his success to v.p. and mama-to-be Tina Fey.

Stores like Whole Foods are easy to poke fun at because of their earnest idiocracy. But when a lifestyle choice crosses into public health outcomes, I stop snickering.

A buyer for one of these new-age stores sent the following to a supplier:

“I’m still not too crazy about pasteurized just as I’m not too crazy about ultra pasteurized dairy products in general. All one has to do is look at movement in our region regarding raw products, raw milk, and one quickly learns that our customers are for the less processed the better. In my 25+ years in the grocery business I don’t recall ever having eggs returned to the stores because they were bad. I haven’t refrigerated an egg in over 20 years myself personally, so although "salmonella" is currently getting a lot of press I’m not convinced that it really applies to eggs. When I worked at (another store) for nearly 13 years, we didn’t have one incident that I was aware of regarding "bad eggs," and we NEVER refrigerated them until the law passed making refrigeration mandatory. We must have sold a billion eggs in those 13 years.”

I wouldn’t want this guy purchasing eggs for me, and not just because of his annoying use of air quotes – what Jon Stewart calls dick fingers. Salmonella is getting more than a lot of press; it makes a lot of people barf. And eggs are a source.
 

Whole Foods bites

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I could devote an entire blog to debunking the nonsense that is Whole Foods.

Every day they have a post that contains the most outlandish, fantastical claims about food – and they expect customers to pay twice as much.

Unbeknownst to me, Amy came across part II of the Whole Foods fairy tale about what it means to be natural. And she asked a question:

In light of recent major recalls including natural peanut paste, I’d be more interested in knowing what kind of research you put into the safety behind your ingredients.

That comment has yet to be posted; it never will. The good demagogue that speak for Whole Foods know to never lose control of the microphone. Especially at those prices.
 

Spider found at Tulsa Whole Foods

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An employee at Whole Foods Market in Tulsa, OK, recently caught a spider (below) roaming in the produce section.

The director of animal facilities at the University of Tulsa, Terry Childs, thought it to be a Brazilian wandering spider, or banana spider, which is considered to be the most deadly spider in the world. Childs said the spider likely came to the store in a bunch of bananas from Honduras.

A manager at the store said employees check the produce for spiders and insects, and believes that’s why the spider was discovered before it left the store.

Whole Foods said in a later statement,

"We take every precaution to inspect all of our produce as it arrives in the store and prior to it being merchandised on the sales floor. This incident is an extremely unusual circumstance, and one that we’ve never encountered before. We are confident that this will remain an isolated incident as we are very cautious when unpacking produce for our sales floor."

I can’t find this statement, so I’m not sure if the entire thing is so defensive and impersonal. I wonder whether the store or chain ever said sorry for the scare, or that they were glad no one got hurt.

Granted, the situation may not have been as dire as was first believed. The curator of aquariums and herpetology at the Tulsa Zoo, Barry Downer, saw video and photos of the spider (who has now been destroyed) and thinks it may have been a Huntsman spider—an arachnid that is harmless to humans.

Regardless of its true identity, the spider was perceived as a threat to shoppers and Whole Foods would do well to recognize that.

If anybody finds their statement, I’d love to check it out: casey.jo.jacob@gmail.com, or comment here for all to enjoy.
 

Whole Foods fairytale

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Baby Sorenne is already taking an interest in colorful books and images. Soon it will be storytelling.

The Whole Foods blog had a particularly fantastical and derogatory tale today.

Joe Dickson writes in a piece entitled, Standards Even A Kid Can Understand, that he couldn’t figure out how to write about the complexity of quality in one post so he gets to do a series.

Joe, it’s called editing. You’re a terrible writer.

“Is everything here organic?” and Paige said “no” but that everything was natural. And then fumbled through various attempts at explaining what natural means – realizing as she rambled that a typical 11-year-old doesn’t have the background to understand how much junk is in our conventional food supply. Paige eventually came up with this: “You won’t find blue catsup here because catsup comes from tomatoes and tomatoes aren’t blue in nature.” And the friend got it: “So, catsup is red here?” Yes.

Joe the former nursery school teacher then introduces those readers who haven’t fallen asleep or clicked elsewhere to Quality Standards Storytime.

Once upon a time there were only natural foods. I know this is obvious, but one of my most strongly-held beliefs about food is that we should pay attention to the diets that humans have followed for 200,000 years or so. Our bodies and brains evolved on a diet of unprocessed foods — mostly plants and nuts, some animal protein and very little else. The 50-100 years since the advent of food processing and artificial preservatives occupies about .05% of that timeline. I think it’s fairly logical to play it safe and stick to the diets that have proven safe and healthful for most of recorded time.

Then, sometime in the twentieth century, Artificial Preservatives, Colors and Flavors were invented by “food scientists,” devoted to improving the quality of our lives through science. The ability to color, flavor and preserve food indefinitely made it possible to recreate authentic-seeming foods and make them last virtually forever. …

The Organic and Natural Products movements were born in opposition to these changes, based on the belief that natural food is healthier, better for you and better tasting. As the conventional grocery industry got weirder and weirder, the group of resisters got bigger and bigger. Whole Foods Market was born out of that opposition, founded in 1981 as a natural alternative to mainstream grocery stores. Organic agriculture also followed a similar route, rising as a resistance movement to chemical/industrial agriculture during the 1970s and 80s.

What a fairytale. Maybe Whole Foods should worry first about keeping dangerous bacteria out of the food it sells – it’s part of that food science thing – so its customers don’t barf.

And leave the storytelling to experts like Robert Munsch of Guelph, Ontario, whose 1986, Love You Forever, is one of the most popular children’s books ever, with some 8 million copies sold (my kids preferred The Paper Bag Princess, while I preferred Good Families Don’t, because it’s about farts).

Shortly before baby Sorenne was born I gave an animated telling of the story to our prenatal class, complete with bad singing, based on years of practice, and because I’d seen Munsch tell the story a few times.

Whole Foods – purveyors of food porn

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Baby Sorenne is three-months-old today. She slept eight-straight hours last night. Awesome.

Whole Foods Market figures I’m part of their demographic, and is rolling out a Whole Baby promotion.

Throughout the month, in-store lectures by Whole Body experts will provide shoppers with information on such topics as prenatal top priorities, natural baby care choice, tips and concerns for breastfeeding mothers and top 10 "first food" facts.

I checked out Whole Foods’ food safety expertise, which they claimed they were really good at. Maybe they were using the same nutritionists and dieticians as in all those Canadian seniors’ homes who thought it was OK to feed listeria-laden cold cuts to the immunocompromised elderly. Nowhere in the Whole Foods literature is there any statement that pregnant women should avoid refrigerated ready-to-eat foods like soft cheeses, smoked salmon and deli meats.

But Whole Foods, like so many other groups, does manage to blame consumers for the bulk of foodborne illness, in the absence of any data to support such a claim.

Food safety is pretty high on everyone’s list of "things to be aware of," especially in light of the food recalls and poisoning scares that seem to happen all too frequently. But believe it or not, the ones you hear about on the TV news aren’t the most common — a good deal of food poisoning is caused by improper food handling in home kitchens.

Whole Food customers are paying a premium for foodstuffs, only to be told that the company carefully checks the paperwork for all the products it sells, but can do no better than the minimal standard of government.  “For the thousands of products we sell, that’s the extent we can go to. The rest of it is up to the F.D.A. and to the manufacturer.”

Whole Baby is going nowhere near baby Sorenne.
 

Food safety has to be farm-to-fork: WHO

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That’s what we’ve always said – safe food, from farm-to-fork.

Jorgen Schlundt, director of food safety at WHO, told Reuters today,

“The notion that you can deal with it at the end of the food chain is clearly wrong.”

Yet there continues to be an outpouring of advice for consumers – the end of the food chain. But more about that later.

Schlundt also said today that the number of foodborne diseases seems to be on the rise in both wealthy and poor nations.

Previously, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that up to 30 per cent of individuals in developed countries acquire illnesses from the food and water they consume each year. U.S., Canadian and Australian authorities support this estimate as accurate (Majowicz et al., 2006; Mead et al., 1999; OzFoodNet Working Group, 2003) through estimations from available data and adjustments for underreporting. WHO has identified five factors of food handling that contribute to these illnesses: improper cooking procedures; temperature abuse during storage; lack of hygiene and sanitation by food handlers; cross-contamination between raw and fresh ready to eat foods; and, acquiring food from unsafe sources.

Oh, and that logo (upper right) is going to be retired in January when we relaunch everything.

Majowicz, S.E., McNab, W.B., Sockett, P., Henson, S., Dore, K., Edge, V.L., Buffett, M.C., Fazil, A., Read, S. McEwen, S., Stacey, D. and Wilson, J.B. (2006), “Burden and cost of gastroenteritis in a Canadian community”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 69, pp. 651-659.

Mead, P.S., Slutsjer, L., Dietz, V., McCaig, L.F., Breeses, J.S., Shapiro, C., Griffin, P.M. and Tauxe, R.V. (1999), “Food-related illness and death in the United States”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 5, pp. 607-625.

OzFoodNet Working Group. (2003), “Foodborne disease in Australia: Incidence, notifications and outbreaks: Annual report of the OzFoodNet Network, 2002”, Communicable Diseases Intelligence, Vol. 27, pp. 209-243.
 

Whole Food food porn – it ain’t about safety

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I’ve never gotten the Whole Foods thing.

They display the food in a loving manner, it’s enjoyable to hang out at the stores, but like most porn — or food porn – it’s ultimately unfulfilling.

Two months ago, Whole Foods Markets Inc. “launched a revamped and more interactive Web site offering recipes, videos of cooking demonstrations and its Whole Story Blog that enables users to talk to one another about everything from food safety to prices.”

I subscribed to the RSS feed to stay current on all things Whole Foods. The blog they are blowing has nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with food porn.

I can just stay at home with a copy of Bon Appetit.


 

E. coli outbreak in ground beef linked to Whole Foods Markets

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When I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Whole Foods was adjacent to my apartment complex. It was cruel, really. I couldn’t afford to shop there very often but the food always looked so delicious, and, well, wholesome. Yesterday, however, Whole Foods Market recalled fresh ground beef sold between June 2 and August 6 for a possible contamination with E. coli O157:H7.

Seven are sick in Massachusetts and two in Pennsylvania. None in Ann Arbor, yet.

Whole Foods has successfully built its reputation on natural and organic foods with high prices to make you believe you are doing good to your body by shopping there. Personally, I shopped there for the wide array of cheeses and pâté that wasn’t available in my favorite (more affordable) grocery. This outbreak raises the question for me – why are people still getting sick from ground beef processed at Nebraska Beef Ltd. that was previously recalled? And, as Bill Marler points out, why was Whole Foods selling Nebraska Beef? He offers a list of hard-hitting questions for the elite grocery chain that touts its own high standards.

On a side note, the Whole Foods that used to be in my backyard in Ann Arbor has since become a Trader Joe’s. Whole Foods moved down the street to a much larger and fancier location.