Would you like flies with that?

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Although it’s winter in New Zealand, back in North America it’s summer, and summer means flies. I distinctly remember eating dinner at my camp with sticky fly traps (pictured right) hanging above the dinner table, dead flies stuck to it, daring to drop onto my cob of corn.

Chicagobusiness.com reports that Dunkin’ Donuts on West Madison St. has had its food license suspended after a recent inspection reported a fruit fly infestation.

The Department of Public Health had cited the Dunkin’ Donuts on June 8 for the health code violation and gave the restaurant management a week to correct the problem. A follow-up inspection on Monday found “dozens of fruit flies” in the kitchen and dining area…

The location also was cited for a poorly maintained and overflowing garbage bin and gaps in its front door that were large enough to allow rodents and insects to enter the premises.

The restaurant will face a fine that could total $1,000 and will be required to appear at an administrative hearing on July 23.

Restaurant inspection results for Chicago are available online, found here or here, with the latest inspection for Dunkin’ Donuts showing as a pass in October, 2007.

Singing songs of handwashing

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Children’s Memorial Hospital and the Chicago Children’s Choir are teaming up to record a handwashing song. Chicago native Joel Frankel wrote the song, “Wash, Rinse Dry.” The singers will record at SPACE Recording Studio in Evanston. The song and video will be used for patient and staff education. And don’t forget, JJ the puppet will be joining the singers during the recording session.

Doug dreams about flaming turtles

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I’ve taken to going to sleep about 10 p.m. and getting up about 4 a.m. That means Amy stays up later, feeds Sorenne a couple of more times, and apparently gets to listen to me babble in my sleep.

This is nothing new. I’ve given entire lectures in my sleep – and I’m just talking about with Amy, not classrooms.

I’ve written about the trauma of only having turtles as pets while growing up. And the recent story in the Baltimore Sun and the terrible response about how those tiny turtles are OK as long as little kids don’t put the entire turtle in their mouths apparently triggered some sort of response.

"I’m supposed to kill 6 of those f***ing flaming turtles"

Amy says she laughed, Doug started laughing, then said, "See, I’m wasting my resources when I’m not doing what I’m supposed to."

Amy, who likes to ask questions when I talk in my sleep, says,

"What are you supposed to be doing?"

"Keeping those f***ing new zealanders in line."

This probably had to do with the e-mails I was sending to New Zealanders Katie and Gary before I went to sleep. Or not.
 

U.K. targets listeria risk in old people – when will Canada?

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I got an e-mail from the vice-president of communications for Maple Leaf Foods on Saturday afternoon.

She was sending me a blog that her boss, Michael McCain wrote, about his new knowledge of listeria and the role of food safety inspectors.

I figure she’s making at least $150,000 to do her vp communicating, so, even though I was a dick, I felt OK responding,

“Thanks for forwarding this in a timely manner. I blogged about it yesterday.”

It was about 24 hours earlier.

And while McCain and Maple Leaf go about enhancing their communications reputations, even the mother country, land of the cook-your-turkey-till-it’s-piping-hot advice, has decided listeria is a problem, maybe we can’t rely on manufacturers, maybe listeria is everywhere like Michael McCain says, so maybe we better tell old people they could be at risk.

The U.K. Food Standards Agency commissioned a bunch of research and figured out that people over the age of 60 are more likely to take risks with ‘use by’ dates than younger people and that eating food like cold-cuts beyond its ‘use by’ date increases the risk of food poisoning from listeria.

A recent sharp rise in the number of people taken ill with listeria has seen more older people affected. The number of cases rose by 20% in 2007 and has doubled since 2000, this increase occurring predominantly among people over 60.

The number of cases of listeria in people over 60 years of age has doubled in the past nine years. And one in three of the people who get food poisoning caused by listeria die as a result.

Listeria is a type of food poisoning bacteria that can live and grow in a wide range of food – chilled ready-to-eat food in particular – for example pâté, cooked sliced meats, certain soft cheeses and smoked fish.

Dr Andrew Wadge, Chief Scientist at the FSA, said,

The rise in listeria food poisoning among older people is worrying. Listeria can make people very ill, and 95% of cases end up needing treatment in hospital.

‘There are some really simple steps people can take to prevent getting ill in the first place: be aware that ‘use by’ dates indicate how long food will remain safe, and then make sure you stick to them; always follow the storage instructions on the label; and make sure your fridge is cold enough – between 0°C and 5°C is ideal.

‘These are the three messages that our new campaign is focusing on and Food Safety Week is a good time to be raising awareness of them."

VP communications thingy: stop sending me e-mails that you or any of your underlings – and I know how many people at Maple Leaf subscribe to bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com – know was repetition and maybe work on an information strategy so that the genius dieticians in Canadian old-folks homes stop serving unheated cold-cuts to their patients. That’s how 22 people died last year.

New food safety infosheet — 3 in Spokane sickened by botulism linked to home canned beans

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Canning season is just about to start. I’ve never really done any home food preservation before. Growing up all I was really exposed to, canning-wise, was pickles, freezer jam and frozen peaches. All of which I loved to eat, but I always found ways to occupy myself while my mom and grandmother were making them for fear of having to help. My dad and grandfather usually golfed while this was all going down.

Golfing is sort of out of the question now that I have a nine-month-old crawling around the house, so I’m taking up canning. I’m heading out to Walmart this week to grab the Ball Home Canning Basics kit and start experimenting.

Maybe experimenting might now be the right word. I don’t really want to experiment too much when the consequences can be so drastic. This week’s food safety infosheet focuses on an outbreak from earlier this year in Spokane, WA. Reportedly a 30-year-old Washington State nurse and her two children became ill with botulism reportedly acquired from canned green beans. The nurse’s illness was so severe that she required a ventilator to breath for months.

Though reliable data is often hard to access, other recent outbreaks linked to the potentially complicated processes of home preservation have contributed to the national burden of foodborne illness. Illnesses have been linked to home preservation in numerous states. As recent as September 2008, an Ohio man and his grandson were hospitalized as a result of botulism toxin poisoning caused by improperly canned green beans. In 2007 a Virginia couple died after consuming improperly canned foods that also contained botulism toxin.  There have been at least seven other outbreaks of botulism linked to home preservation practices across the U.S. since 1995. Improperly processed home-dried jerky products have also recently been linked to Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli outbreaks.

You can download this week’s food safety infosheet here.

I’m a big kid now; but, I need to wash my hands

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While watching Speidi on the View today, I saw a Huggies Pull-ups commercial about potty training. The mom in the commercial mentioned the need for her daughter to be potty trained before they go on a vacation. She goes further in mentioning all the supplies needed to teach potty training to her daughter: the child-sized toilet, the magic wand (an incentive for her princess of a daughter), and toilet paper. The mom failed to mention any sort of handwashing, whether it is with soap and water (preferred method after using the toilet) or alcohol hand sanitizing rub.

Other potty training tips can be found on the pull-ups website. These items include blogs for parents, DVDs, child incentives, and many others.

Researchers say that handwashing is learned during toilet training. Please, don’t eat poop, wash your hands.

Georgia restaurants whine about poor inspection grades

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Restaurant operators in Newton County, Georgia, are upset about recent inspection results, complaining that the new regulations are too strict, reports CovNews.com.

Community staples like Jim Stalvey’s and Smiley’s restaurants and popular newcomers like Bangkok Grill and Debbie’s Deli and Café have all received failing inspection scores, as low as 44, in the past couple of months. The owners say they’ve had historically good scores and they believe the health inspector for Newton County is unfairly stringent and inconsistent. They say the low scores are a serious issue because their business has substantially declined and some are in danger of shutting down.

Restaurant scores decreased across the state after the Georgia Department of Health adopted more stringent regulations in Dec. 2007, but the scores partially decreased simply because the regulations were new and restaurants had to adjust. Most counties saw significant improvement in scores over the course of 2008 as restaurants worked with health inspectors to learn the new health code.

District Three Commissioner Nancy Schulz said the regulations changed focus from looking more at the facilities before 2008 to looking more at food safety now. She said the guidelines are much more stringent in terms of food handling, food safety, proper temperatures and proper sanitation as opposed to what the facility looks like, although that still plays a part.

However, despite the decline across most of the state, Newton County has continued to see a larger number of "C’s" and "U’s," a failing score, than surrounding counties and other counties across the state.

Restaurant inspection results for Newton County are available online, here.

Food is the new fur for the celebrity with a conscience

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Jay Rayner writes in the U.K. Observer today that, really bad food, is hot.

Greta Scacchi, who is pictured clutching a cod to her naked body (right, exactly as shown), will doubtless come to be seen as the seminal image for a particular moment, when the gruelling, knotty business of campaigning around food issues finally became sexy.

Where celebrities are concerned, it seems, food is the new fur. … Tomorrow, Paul McCartney and his daughters Stella and Mary are launching a campaign to convince the public to go meat-free for one day a week. Another movie, Food Inc, which looks at the excesses and foul side-effects of industrial food production has just been released in the US and will shortly arrive here. Plus there is a major investigation by environmental campaigner Tracy Worcester into the dark underbelly of the global pig-rearing business which is about to be screened on digital channel More4.

What marks out these campaigns is their sophistication. It began a couple of weeks ago with the news that Nobu, the global high-end chain of Japanese restaurants favoured by the glitterati, was still serving bluefin tuna despite it being an endangered species.
 

Jack Black vomiting mystery

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Dude, the urine sample ain’t going to tell anyone anything. It’s a poop sample you need to give the doctor. Because, as they correctly say on the TV show Scrubs, Everything Comes Down to Poo (see below).

Jack Black, who’s been in a gazillion movies but is best remembered by me for his scene-stealing effort in 2000’s High Fidelity (right, exactly as shown) has been bedridden for a week – after contracting a mystery vomiting virus.

"Just last weekend, I thought I was knocking on death’s door. I have never had this thing before where it has to go out of you in all directions. I’m not going into the grisly details, but it was explosive. Simultaneous explosions. I was wondering whether it was the sushi I ate or whether I caught it from someone and the doctor said it was the latter."

Black, who was at home with his wife and two young sons, was terrified he might pass on his condition to little Sam, three, and Thomas, 12 months: "It’s harder when you’ve got two babies, because you’re exploding, then you’re washing your hands ’cause you don’t want to get them sick either. It’s a constant battle to stay clean."

And the star admits the most embarrassing incident came after he had seen a doctor, who ordered him to hand over a urine sample for testing.