Ringo says, yum yum hospital food; hospital kitchen inspections in Philadelphia region yield range of results

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Don Sapatkin of the Philadelphia Inquirer has been writing for at least a year about deficiencies in the antiquated Philly system and that even with improvements in inspections, most food establishments don’t publicize even their most positive inspection reports, and no government in the Philadelphia region requires that they be tacked up for easy viewing like a menu.

Last week, Sapatkin turned his investigative focus to Philadelphia’s hospital kitchens, and found they were far more likely than food establishments as a whole to be out of compliance with food-safety regulations, averaging six violations apiece in their most recent quarterly inspections by the city health department.

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, routinely named among the nation’s best medical centers, was cited 14 times. The largely organic kitchen at Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s Eastern Regional Medical Center in the Northeast had eight violations.

And in New Jersey, Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly was rated "conditional satisfactory" after inspections in November and last month found several violations.

"Many live German cockroaches observed on or at base of wall in dish-washing room, dead roaches observed under shelving in paper storage, next to ice machine, and behind refrigerator in vegetable prep area," a Burlington County health department inspector wrote June 28.

All three hospitals said the violations had been quickly corrected.

Food generally isn’t considered when patients choose a hospital. Yet a review of inspection reports from around the region found scores of violations, as well as wide variations in what was cited from county to county. Some evidence suggests that the scrutiny is more rigorous in the city.

Inspections are a far-from-perfect measure of risk: Inspectors found nothing amiss before or after an outbreak sickened 54 people and killed three patients at a Louisiana state hospital in May. And experts say most hospital kitchens go overboard with food safety, cooking so thoroughly to kill microbes that flavors may be lost.

Sheri Morris, food program manager at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, which regulates restaurants and stores but not hospitals, said,

"Anybody who has a compromised immune system is going to be more susceptible to food-borne illness. And hospitals are full of people with compromised immune systems.”

Since inspections are a snapshot of a constantly changing kitchen, they have limited ability to predict either safety or danger. "Just because you went in there and the place had no violations doesn’t mean that 15 minutes later the place didn’t go to pot," said Dennis J. Bauer, food-safety coordinator for the Bucks County Health Department.

New web site, letter grades go into effect for New York City diners

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The New York City health department unveiled a new Web site today to go along with the beginning of its A-B-C restaurant inspection disclosure system of more than 24,000 restaurants in the five boroughs.

Daniel Kass, a deputy commissioner, told The New York Times,

“There is no shortage of sources of information on restaurants, but there is no other central source to find information about restaurants’ hygiene practices. We hope that this Web site will help spread the food safety message.”

The Web site displays restaurants’ current A, B or C letter grades and the specifics of their violations, and is designed to allow searches by restaurants’ first names or even first letters, by letter grades in specific ZIP codes, by boroughs and by dates of inspection. It also offers maps of restaurants’ locations, and Google street views of the restaurants’ exteriors.

John La Duca, the department’s director of online editing said a widget on the home page will permit readers to type in restaurants’ names for their latest inspection results. This widget can be installed on other Web sites or home pages — for example, on the Zagat Survey’s online version, or on bloggers’ sites, or Facebook and other social media platforms — to permit quick access to the inspection ratings from places other than the department’s home page.

Inspection results on the site were formerly updated weekly, Mr. Kass said. “Now, in most cases, it will be updated daily, when it is uploaded overnight from the inspectors’ hand-helds,” he said, referring to the portable computers in which inspectors enter restaurants’ cleanliness scores.

Associated Press commemorated the beginning of the new letter grades by recycling old arguments – the same ones heard when Los Angeles started it’s a-B-C system in 1998 and Toronto started its red-yellow-green system in 2002.

Robert Bookman, a lawyer for the New York State Restaurant Association, which vehemently opposes the letter grades, said,

"Some will undoubtedly close if they get a B or a C."

Others say they accept the new system and will strive for an A.

David Chang, whose hotter-than-hot restaurants include Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ko, said,

"It is our goal always to get an A," said. "If we don’t get an A, we fail."

Chang said he has sent his sous chefs to city Health Department workshops to get up to speed on the new system.

That’s a much better approach. The best restaurants will not only embrace the letter grades and provide critiques to improve the system, they will brag and promote their A grades. It’s a form of marketing food safety, which helps enhance the overall culture of food safety.

Madelyn Alfano, who owns nine Maria’s Italian Kitchen restaurants, said Los Angeles restaurateurs still are not fond of the system, adding,

"If you don’t have hand towels in your restroom that’s points off. We don’t like it but we’ve learned to live with it."

That’s because paper towels should always be available. And what about a sticker on the dispenser that says,

“No towels? Please tell a server immediately. Yours in hand cleanliness, the owners.”

I just made that up.

Larry Michael, head of food protection for North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said letter grade systems also are in effect in North and South Carolina, and the system works well, adding,

"Consumers really pay attention to the rating cards. The A, B, C system is familiar and it’s easy to interpret."

For those still wondering, here’s a review paper discussing the pros and cons of disclosure systems.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract?
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.

Food safety surveys are like jazz – they both suck

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National Public Radio took a break yesterday from seeking out the nation’s most inaccessible jazz (see Colbert, below) to report that Americans worry about the safety of the food supply.

According to a national survey conducted for NPR by Thomson Reuters and released today, 61 per cent are concerned about contamination of the food supply. Most of them — 51 per cent — worry most about meat.

In our Thompson Reuters survey, more people said food companies should improve their quality control systems, rather than calling for more inspections, oversight or stiffer penalties.

Consumers Union, which did its own survey recently, asked 1,000 people whether Congress should pass a law to give the Food and Drug Administration the power to force food companies to recall tainted products; 80 per cent said yes.

Food safety surveys suck.

And now back to hateful, free-form jazz.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
ThreatDown – Dawn, Actual Food & Texas GOP<a>
www.colbertnation.com
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Feeding lizards: Salmonella sickens in 17 states, linked to frozen mice, rats, chicks

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Mice Direct is an on-line provider of reptile food including frozen rats, mice and chicks with the motto, ‘direct to your door, cheaper than the store.’

Mice Direct may have to modify its other motto, ‘Frozen means added animal safety’ because the human lizard owners are possibly getting sick from handling the frozen critters, like mice hoppers, left, at $28 a bag.

The company announced a recall of the frozen rats, mice and chicks Tuesday, saying that human illnesses possibly related to the frozen reptile feed have been reported in 17 states.

The company says the recall is based on Food and Drug Administration sampling of the frozen mice.

Check out the Mice Direct experience through the video below.
 

American admits smuggling Aussie lizards – by strapping them to his body (again)

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Fresh off reports that a Peruvian man tried to smuggle 18 baby moneys into Mexico City by strapping them to his body, Michael Plank, owner of US-based Big Game Reptiles, admitted in a Californian court he smuggled 15 live Australian lizards into the US by strapping them to his chest.

Acting on a tip from a "confidential informant", a pat-down search on Plank after he arrived at Los Angeles international airport last November on a United Airlines flight originating in Sydney found two money belts strapped to his chest containing two geckos, two monitor lizards and 11 skinks worth more than $US8500 ($A9400).

Plank pleaded guilty after initially denying the charges.
 

Ratatouille: mouse jumped from bowl in UK restaurant

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A west London restaurant owner was criticized for an "appalling catalogue of offences" after health inspectors saw a mouse jumping from a bowl of sweet and sour sauce in the kitchen.

Press Association reports that inspectors visiting the Kam Tong, Hung Tao and Kiasu restaurants in Queensway, Bayswater, found mouse droppings all over the kitchens and cockroach eggs in the dim sum and baskets of prawn crackers.

One rodent was photographed scampering along a kitchen drainpipe in the Kam Tong restaurant after jumping from a bowl of sweet and sour sauce which was about to be served to customers.

Owner Ronald Lim, of Barnet, north London, admitted 17 counts of breaching food hygiene regulations at Southwark Crown Court.

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC ordered him to pay fines totaling £30,000, plus £18,131 costs, and handed him an eight-month jail term suspended for two years.

Has ‘food safety culture’ jumped the shark?

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The first thing Bob Dudley, the new chief executive of embattled oil giant BP, vowed to do was "change the culture" of how the company tackles safety issues after the Gulf of Mexico disaster and promised to "make sure this does not happen again."

Same thing after Bhopal and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Me and Chapman and Frank Yiannas and Chris Griffith have been pushing the concept of food safety culture for years as an enhancement to inspection, regulation and training.

Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. It’s when one food service or farm or retail employee says to another, dude, wash your hands, without being told by the boss or the inspector.

But now that safety culture is being touted by BP, the concept may have jumped the shark.

Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise. The phrase was originally used to denote the point in a television program’s history where the plot spins off into absurd story lines or unlikely characterizations. These changes were often the result of efforts to revive interest in a show whose audience had begun to decline, usually through the employment of different actors, writers or producers.

The phrase jump the shark refers to the climactic scene in "Hollywood," a three-part episode opening the fifth season of the American TV series Happy Days in September 1977. In this story, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his leather jacket, jumps over a confined shark on water skis, answering a challenge to demonstrate his bravery. The series continued for nearly seven years after that, with a number of changes in cast and situations.
 

The face of E. coli: rodeo edition

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A bunch of us went to the Riley County Fair Sunday morning (that’s in Manhattan, Kansas) so we could wander around the animals without too many people around.

We’ve done this before, but now there are a couple of public health students interested in doing some formal work to decrease the risk of dangerous bugs passing from animals to humans, or humans to animals, so we introduced them to the petting zoo/fair concept, and the hygiene measures available.

KWTX.com reports that Derek Scott “Bubba” Kirby, 3, of Goldthwaite, Texas (above, right), has been fighting for his life for several weeks at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, will be transferred Monday or Tuesday to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston where he can receive more specialized care.

The story says that Bubba contracted E. coli from the floor of a rodeo arena after he ended up with a mouthful of dirt when he was thrown from a sheep during a mutton-busting event and then developed serious complications that caused his kidneys to shut down and led to a stroke.

??In 1999, 159 people, mainly children, were sickened with E. coli O157:H7 traced to goat and sheep at the 1999 Western Fair in London, Ontario (that’s in Canada). Scott Weese, a clinical studies professor at the University of Guelph (that’s also in Canada) and colleagues reported in the July 2007 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases that in a study of 36 petting zoos in Ontario between May and October of 2006, they observed infrequent hand washing, food sold and consumed near the animals, and children being allowed to drink bottles or suck on pacifiers in the petting area..

Weese noted that risk can be significantly reduced by locating hand-washing stations at the exit of a petting zoo, posting signs promoting good hygiene and educating people about the risks of bringing food, beverages or items that may end up in a child’s mouth into the zoo.

Such measures echo recommendations issued in 2001 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Unfortunately these reports and recommendations do not offer advice on how to ensure that fair operators are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing.

In 2003, U.S. researchers, in a study of livestock at 29 county and 3 large state agricultural fairs, found E. coli O157:H7 in 13.8 per cent of beef cattle, 5.9 per cent of dairy cattle, 3.6 per cent of pigs, 5.2 per cent of sheep, and 2.8 per cent of goats. Over seven percent of pest fly pools also tested positive for E. coli O157:H7.

The bad bugs are there and handwashing may not be enough to get rid of them.

The E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 82 people in 2002 at the Lane County Fair in Oregon appears to have spread through the air inside the goat and sheep expo hall. In a case-controlled study, health investigators found that the percentage of sick people who washed their hands after leaving the Lane County animal barns — 31 percent — was only slightly lower than the percentage of healthy people who washed their hands — 36 percent. In other words those who washed their hands were at almost the same risk of contracting E. coli, O157:H7. One child sickened at the fair, 23-month-old Carson Walter of Eugene, spent a month at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital before coming home.

So, how best to motivate fair managers to provide petting zoos that are microbiologically safe? Should the urban public be allowed to interact with livestock at all? Should petting zoos be inspected, as restaurants are, and the results displayed? We’ll be looking, and hoping that Bubba improves. Bubba has his own Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/BUBBAS-ANGELS/141182275896304.

A table of petting outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks-1988-2009.
 

Abu Dhabi blames outdated food safety attitudes for problems, mandatory training for all food handlers by 2012

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To coach little girls playing ice hockey in Canada requires 16 hours of training. To coach kids on a travel team requires an additional 24 hours of training. ?

So it seems reasonable to have some minimal training for those who prepare food for public consumption.

Some U.S., Canadian and Australian states or municipalities require at least one person at a restaurant or food outlet to have some food safety training, even if that person is at home in bed. Others require training for everyone who touches food; others require nothing.

So the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) is way ahead when it announced that all employees who handle food must be trained in hygiene by the end of 2012.

The food safety watchdog was straightforward yesterday when it said outdated attitudes to food safety are to blame for food workers failing hygiene tests.

The National reported that so far 40 per cent of workers, about 17,000, have been trained, and 60 per cent of those have failed the exams. Eleven per cent of all the emirate’s food workers have passed.

Earlier, the authority partially blamed language barriers for the problem, but yesterday it said the absence of a culture of hygiene and food safety in restaurants and food outlets was also a major cause.

Mohammed al Reyaysa, the authority’s spokesman, said,

“Unfortunately a lot of people think going into the kitchen and dealing with food does not need any science and anyone can do it. This is an old way of thinking and it is changing after the requirements and regulations being implemented.”

Mr al Reyaysa’s comments came after the release of a wide-ranging annual report, which detailed the agency’s programmes, draft laws, financial status and the total number of inspections and food establishment closures last year.

The high failure rate on hygiene exams raises questions as to why ADFCA’s spending of almost Dh1 billion in 2009 has not led to better results. Passing the tests is currently not a requirement, but Mr al Reyaysa indicated that it may eventually be obligatory for food workers in the emirate, posing a potentially protracted problem for employers.

It’s excellent Abu Dhabi is getting serious about requirements and puts them way ahead of many North American jurisdictions. Unfortunately, what constitutes a certified food safety course is often crap. So figure out what the barriers are to effective training and figure out what works and what doesn’t – what kind of training actually translates into food service staff practicing safe food preparation.

The best restaurants will not wait for a government edict and will go ahead and improve their training and compliance — today.

A day in the life of an airline meal

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AOL Travel reported on how those airplane flights that still serve food actually go about preparing the food (especially after the lousy inspection reviews compiled by USA Today).

AOL decided to track a single airline meal, from the time it is planned and placed on an airline’s menu to the moment it arrives at the passenger’s seat.

Or, given the bad press for Gate Gourmet and their bad food safety inspections, the story was a standard PR placement. But some elements of interest:

6 p.m. The passenger confirms her seat assignment – 31A – for tomorrow’s flight from Chicago to London. She doesn’t know it, but her meal choice is getting ready for takeoff, too.

She’s going to select grilled chicken breast with orange sesame ginger sauce, served with jasmine white rice and a side of broccoli and carrots. It’s taken a year of development for this dish to make it to the United menu, with three teams of 35 people considering menu items, procuring ingredients, testing and tasting food, and monitoring the quality of the product to the passenger.

Dishes for United’s Flight 958, which departs in 18 hours, are getting washed at Gate Gourmet catering, right on O’Hare property. In a green effort to conserve resources and reduce waste, United doesn’t have a lot of disposable products, according to Stuart Benzal, United’s managing director of onboard global product. Instead, bowls, plates, cups and other utensils are hauled off the aircraft after each flight and sent to one of the 52 kitchens that United uses around the world.

Most kitchens operate 24 hours. "After 10 at night, it goes into equipment processing (mode)" says Benzal, which means cleaning hundreds of plates, bowls, cups, saucers, trays and utensils for the next day.

2 a.m. Alison Hough, director of product planning, planned and ordered chicken for this meal months ago. She knows, based on customer preferences and numbers, how many chickens to order and send to the caterers. Her team ensures that there is fresh, quality product for all the major components of the meal, while smaller detail items like seasonings are covered by the catering kitchen.

5:30 a.m. Chef Danielle Nahal and her team of eight to 12 cooks and food handlers, arrive at Gate Gourmet to begin the day’s preparations. The kitchen will be making lots of meals today for flights to London, Asia, Amsterdam and Paris, so the prep work covers 250-300 servings of each entrée. Though the kitchen is very large, it is also very busy and crowded. Nearly 300 people work on a shift, and the kitchen runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It’s very cold in the kitchens to ensure food safety and food integrity. "You can’t just walk into a kitchen," Benzal says. "You fill out a health form, go to a wash station and wash your hands, use disinfectant, wear a lab coat; your hair and head are covered. There’s even a face mask," he says. "You look more like a surgeon than someone preparing to chop salads." This chilled environment is maintained throughout the production.

6.00 a.m. Twelve hours before flight time, United delivers the final counts and order for meals, including the chicken with orange sesame glaze. Gate Gourmet accepts the order and begins processing to the count specifications. "We’re producing in very large batches," says Chef Nahal. "Sauces are made by the gallon. Vegetables are done by the pound – about 500 pounds [for one day’s meal preparation]."

Executive Chef Gerry Gulli started testing the flavors and sauces for his mandarin chicken nearly a year ago. Since United likes to change out the menus every three months, and needs to have at least two economy meal choices per flight, Chef Gulli is a busy guy. The chefs must also adjust recipes for the diminished taste buds people experience while in flight. "We compensate for that with cooking techniques, using bold flavors and marinades," says Chef Nahal.

9:00 a.m. The grilled chicken breast with orange sesame ginger glaze is being prepared according to recipe instructions. Color photos guide the preparers, so they know exactly how the plate should appear before it arrives at seat 31A.

11.00 a.m. The plated meal for the passenger in 31A, along with nearly 250 other entrées, gets loaded onto trays. Trays are inserted into trolleys, where they sit in a blast chiller until called for delivery to the aircraft.

2:30 p.m. The truck for Flight 958 delivers the meals for the flight, including the chicken with orange sesame glaze destined for seat 31A today. Each high-loader truck takes a trolley of trays, and the driver puts them onto the aircraft. The meals fit into a refrigerated compartment. It will take the driver about 30 minutes to get to the aircraft, then another 45 minutes to an hour to load the meals onto the plane.

6:00 p.m. Flight 958 takes off, bound for London. Flight attendants take economy class meal orders from the three selections: mandarin chicken, a pasta dish, and a beef meal. The passenger in seat 31A chooses the chicken with orange sesame sauce.

7:00 p.m. Flight attendants are busy heating the fully cooked but cold meals in a convection oven. The convection oven circulates the hot air and ensures meals are heated evenly and at the same temperature. It takes about 20 minutes to bring them to dining temperature, and then they are loaded onto carts to head down the aisle.

8:00 p.m. The orange chicken with sesame ginger glaze arrives at seat 31A, hot, colorful, and prepared to Chef Gulli’s specifications.