Fantasy cycling and fantasy eating during the Tour de France

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I’ve been following the Tour de France since 2002 when I discovered my former classmate (and 4th grade crush) Levi Leipheimer was competing. Last year I boycotted the race when team Astana was not allowed in the Tour, but this year I kicked it into high gear and even started playing fantasy cycling. (Nerdy, I know.) Leipheimer broke his wrist on Thursday, and, unfortunately, had to leave the race. But his teammates race on, and racing requires amazing sustenance.

According to the New York Times article, “Five-star tour cuisine for guys who eat and ride” the men on the tour require 5000 to 8000 calories a day.

Eating that much demands enticement and Team Garmin-Slipstream (the team of my fantasy cyclists Farrar, Wiggins and Zabriskie) has its own chef, American Sean Fowler. Fowler works with the team’s physiologist to keep the guys feeling good and their bowels running smoothly. Juliet Macur writes:

Every day at the Tour, Fowler cooks exclusively for Garmin’s nine riders, to the chagrin of team management. (…)

On a typical morning, they will gather their cooking gear and take it to the motor home in which they follow the race. They make sure to arrive early at the team’s next hotel, to inspect the kitchen.

If it is not up to Sean Fowler’s standards for cleanliness, which has happened a few times at this Tour, he will cook in the motor home. He takes precautions to keep the riders safe from food poisoning or other gastrointestinal problems, which could be devastating to their performance. In his motor home, he wields utensils and pots and pans like a careful samurai because the space is cramped.

Although Leipheimer’s out, as of this morning my fantasy team still has four of the top ten riders. Let’s hope none of the others are injured or downed with foodborne illness.

Cilantro recalled after Salmonella test; no one sick

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Fresh herbs are particularly prone to bacterial contamination: parsley, basil, and especially cilantro.

Sweet Superior Fruit Co, based in McAllen, Texas, announced Saturday it is recalling 104 crates of fresh cilantro over concerns of possible salmonella contamination discovered through testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The company says no illnesses have been reported.

The company said the potentially contaminated cilantro was sold July 13-16 at its McAllen facility. Sweet Superior Fruit said it may have been sold again by retail outlets in the McAllen area or used to manufacture additional products.

Sweet Superior Fruit is urging companies to try to recall the product and telling consumers to return it or throw it away.
 

Health dept: We balance public’s need to know with needs of business; 20 sick with Hepatitis A in Illinois

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KWQC is reporting that two workers at the Milan, Illinois, McDonald’s tested positive for Hepatitis A but TV6 has learned one of those tests came back a month ago.

Even though the first case was confirmed back in mid-June, the Rock Island County Health Department didn’t close the McDonald’s until this past Wednesday. By then, another case had been confirmed.

The health department now says it didn’t respond back then because it didn’t know back then. The health department says it didn’t find out about the case on June 9th until July 10th, a month later.

By law, the health department should have been notified within 24 hours. At a press conference Saturday afternoon, health department staff said the system broke down.

Wendy Trute with the Health Department said,

"There’s a network of providers and there’s a whole list of people responsible for reporting infectious diseases or communicable diseases."

The Health Department also says in addition to the two confirmed cases at the Milan McDonalds, there are also confirmed hepatitis A cases involving other local businesses.

We then asked which businesses, Trute said,

"You know what? It’s not our policy to name them, nor is it the policy of the state health department. However, I can assure you we have worked with them and they have taken all the necessary pre-cautions required of them."

As far as communicating details to the public, the Health Department says it tries to balance the public’s need to know with the needs of any business that may be involved.

There are 20 confirmed Hepatitis A case in Rock Island and surrounding areas, with 11 people being hospitalized.
 

Wienermobile enters home, wasn’t invited

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Although it’s National Hot Dog month, it’s been a lousy couple of weeks for Oscar Mayer.

On July 7, 2009, Oscar G. Mayer, retired chairman of the Wisconsin-based meat processing company that bears his name, died at the age of 95.

He was the third Oscar Mayer in the family that founded Oscar Mayer Foods, which was once the largest private employer in Madison. His grandfather, Oscar F. Mayer, died in 1955 and his father, Oscar G. Mayer Sr., died in 1965.

Mayer retired as chairman of the board in 1977 at age 62 soon after the company recorded its first $1 billion year. The company was later sold to General Foods and is now a business unit of Kraft.

Besides the actual hot dogs, Oscar Mayer is well-known for its Wienermobile. Amy saw it once on the back roads of Missouri. My kids had the plastic replicas (thanks, John).

Yesterday, Wienermobile was turning around in a Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, driveway, about 35 miles south of Milwaukee. The driver thought her wiener was in reverse but it was in drive. No one was home and no one was injured. No citations were immediately issued.

Tragic food safety stories and teaching moments

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This is what happens when doing interviews at 6:30 a.m. while feeding Sorenne some mush of peach and pear.

After blogging about how the U.K. Food Standards Agency was embracing food safety culture, I turned the post into an opinion piece and sent it to a newspaper in Wales.

The next morning, while feeding Sorenne, a reporter e-mailed me with some questions, and I replied, “call me.”

So she did.

The article, by Abby Alford, appeared this morning in  Wales under the headline, Tragic E. coli death used to teach US students food hygiene.

The tragic story of E. coli victim Mason Jones is being used by an American professor as a graphic illustration of what unsafe food can do.

Dr Douglas Powell also shows his students at Kansas State University a picture of the five-year-old as he teaches them about food safety.

“We are always trying to come up with new ways of getting the food safety message across. We have to have a compelling story and there’s no more compelling story than Mason Jones,” he said.

I talked about food safety culture, what FSA was proposing, and questioned how they were going to measure effectiveness.

The FSA has announced a culture change is needed in all parts of the food supply chain if the UK is to avoid another E.coli outbreak.

Dr Powell also suggested UK firms could follow the example of a factory in North Dakota, USA, which uses webcams to stream its activities live on the Internet.

Apparently I dreamed that part. There is a turkey processing plant in South Dakota that uses video cameras to constantly monitor operations and the videos can be accessed by auditors or USDA inspectors at any time – but not on the Internet. And not in North Dakota.
 

Gambling with food safety messages

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The food safety songs that Megan wrote about crack me up.

And they’ve been found effective at getting high school students to remember safe food handling messages, so they must be cool.

However, facts should not be sacrificed for the sake of coolness (since doing so simply leads to food porn).

The USDA FSIS has determined that, "A ground beef patty cooked to 160 °F is safe."  But UC-Davis’ "Stayin’ Alive" suggests burgers should be up to one-eighty-five to avoid hepatitis and gastroenteritis.

I suppose listeners could overcook their burger to be extra-safe and extra-dry, if they wanted to. But my personal favorite food safety song, a parody of Kenny Rogers’ "The Gambler" entitled "Don’t Be a Gambler," suggests the centers reach the USDA-endorsed 160.

Messages must be consistent to ensure clarity.

Both parodies were used in the evaluation conducted with high school students, but student’s knowledge of safe end-point temperatures for ground beef was not tested.

I’d bet the tools aren’t effective at relaying that particular message. Any takers?

Singing songs of food safety

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University of California at Davis researcher, Carl Winter, has recently published a study in the Journal of Food Science Education on how contemporary popular culture songs affect teaching kids about food safety. From the Beatles to the Beach Boys, Ricky Martin to Van Halen, songs can be found on their website. My favorite is, of course, the rendition of “I wanna hold your hand,” by the Beatles into “You better wash your hands.”

Customer, parent outraged over Hepatitis A linked to Illinois McDonald’s

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There are 19 confirmed cases of Hepatitis A in Illinois, primarily in Rock Island County, and they appear to be linked to a McDonald’s restaurant in Milan, Illinois that was closed Wednesday evening.

The mother of a McDonalds employee who did not wish to be identified, said her daughter worked from 11-5 on Wednesday and she then accompanied her to the Rock Island County Health Department where employees were being screened for Hepatitis A.

The mother said,

"I’m very angry. They put my daughter in jeopardy along with the public and other people."

Arnie Hanson, his wife and daughter were among the last to be served food on Wednesday evening. A manager had to unlock a door so they could leave.

"You should be able to trust who’s preparing your food. It’s very disappointing. … We’re upset about it because not only me and my wife ate there. We also had our 11-year-old daughter. Now you’re dealing with kids. It’s just not right."

Safest food in the world: American cattlemen’s edition

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It’s been awhile, but Dr. Sam Ives, director of veterinary services and associate director of research at Cactus Feeders, Ltd., testified today on behalf of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) at a U.S. House Agriculture Committee Hearing on food safety that the U.S. has the safest food in the world.

“There is no question that the United States has the safest food supply in the world and other countries consider the U.S. the ‘gold standard.’  Cattle producers support the establishment of realistic food safety objectives designed to protect public health to the maximum extent possible.

“…The U.S. has the safest food supply in the world, which is an achievement worth noting.  Science is a critical component of the beef industry and through science-based improvements in animal genetics, management practices, nutrition and health, beef production per cow has increased from 400 pounds of beef in the mid 1960s to 585 pounds of beef in 2005. … The beef industry will continue to dedicate time and resources to ensure the safety of beef.”

But that doesn’t mean the U.S. has the safest food supply in the world. For a group so dedicated to science, perhaps they could provide some science to substantiate the claim?
 

New York teen left kitten in oven to die

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Associated Press is reporting a New York City teenager has admitted that she failed to let a kitten out of an oven after a friend put the animal inside and left it to roast to death.

After pleading guilty to charges of animal cruelty and attempted burglary on Wednesday, 17-year-old Cheyenne Cherry confronted a row of animal activists outside the courtroom. Cherry stuck out her tongue and told the activists that the kitten named Tiger Lily was dead.

Authorities say Cherry and a 14-year-old friend ransacked a Bronx apartment before putting the cat in the oven, where it cried and scratched before dying.

The 14-year-old was charged with aggravated animal cruelty and burglary in the May 6 incident.

Cherry will serve a year in jail under a plea bargain.