Tag Archives: Consumers

Listeria paper from Canada sucks; why aren’t government types attacking BS listeria advice from Toronto Sick Kids Hospital instead of babbling about collaboration?

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Academic publishing is like the Tina Fey flick, Mean Girls. Reviewers are catty, bitchy, and snarly, all because the nerds are in power and can hide behind the cloak of anonymity.

For some reason, I usually get called in to review lousy papers, probably because I have no hesitation saying, ‘this work sucks; I could write a better paper with my butt cheeks’ or something like that.

There are so many bad papers out there.

Some geniuses at Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency decided that after 23 people died of listeria in Maple Leaf cold colds in 2008, rather than write a paper about all the mistakes that were made, they would write a paper entitled, Changing Regulation: Canada’s New Thinking on Listeria.

I have a problem with anyone who says they speak on behalf of all Canadian women, or Canadians, or other groups. Industry, don’t pay attention to this – go above and beyond because you’re going to lose money when the outbreak happens, not the bureaucrats.

The Health Canada and CFIA types proudly proclaim they’d never heard of listeria in Sara Lee hot dogs in 1998, or any other outbreak, until it happened in Canada. Now the government types have introduced what they call enhanced testing requirements.

The authors find it necessary to say that,

“Consumers also have an important role to play in the farm-to-fork continuum. That role calls for Canadians to learn and adopt safe food handling, avoidance of certain high-risk foods, and preparation practices. To this effect, Health Canada has and will continue to undertake the development of science-based consumer education material which will help create an understanding of food safety issues within the context of the public’s right to know about the potential dangers in food, and industry’s responsibility for producing a safe food. A combination of all these approaches are currently being adopted and/or developed to improve the control of L. monocytogenes in RTE foods sold in Canada.”

Wow. Guess it was the consumers’ fault that 23 died from eating crappy Maple Leaf deli meat. Or the dieticians at the aged home facilities who though it would be a bright idea to serve unheated cold-cuts to immunocomprimised old people.

This is Health Canada, the agency that still recommends whole poultry be cooked to 180F, while the U.S. recommends 165F. Are the laws of physics somehow different north of the 49th parallel? We’ve asked, and no one at Health Canada will explain, So why should they be believed on anything else?

And instead of writing crappy papers about collaborations devoid of fact, why isn’t Health Canada and the food safety types at CFIA cracking down on the BS emanating from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Kids, which says that cold-cuts are fine for expectant moms despite a treasure-trove of scientific evidence to the contrary.

The paper concludes,

“We feel that we have learned valuable lessons from the Maple Leaf listeriosis outbreak, which occurred in 2008. We have used these lessons to help us develop CFIA Directives for federally registered meat and poultry plants. We are also learning from industry and we will use their “Best Practices” document to further develop our policies on Listeria control. By all parties working together in a non-competitive and trusting manner, we feel that we can make great strides in Listeria control and continue along a path to reducing the burden of foodborne listeriosis in Canada.”

OMG This made it into a scientific paper? I feel lots of things, but I don’t ’write them in journal articles. Here’s some tips. None of which were discussed in the so-called scientific paper:

• put warning labels on cold-cuts and other high-risk foods for expectant moms
• make listeria testing results public
• make food safety training mandatory (and then we’ll work on making it better).

And the paper is below, with the catty comments from reviewers.

I could write a better paper with my butt cheeks.
sites/default/files/Farber et al 2010_listeria.pdf

Corporate food safety lawyer talks food safety nonsense

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The authors at the blog site, Defending Food Safety, need a lesson in microbiology.

One of them, some lawyer, Shawn Stevens, really comes across as a douchebag.

A microbiologically-challenged douchebag.

He runs this Defending Food Safety website, which is full of facts, but the kind not referenced in peer-reviewed journals but in his (and his clients’) mind.

He says in his latest missive that,

“If we are really serious about reducing food-borne (sic) illness, however, such initiatives and regulations are only one part of the overall equation. Much greater progress can likely be achieved – more quickly – if more consumers recognize the importance of properly handling and preparing raw animal foods. If all consumers can be educated to assume raw chicken, meat and eggs carry bacteria that can cause illness, to take additional precautions to avoid cross-contamination, and to cook all raw animal products to a safe temperature, consumers can significantly reduce their risk of becoming ill. In this regard, better “Educated People” will more quickly and readily translate into far more “Healthy People.”

What would Socrates say about the gap between reality and rhetoric for any of these food safety lawyer types? Like most, this dude needs an editor. Consumers don’t want to be educated. But I look forward to Stevens advocating toxic waste handling labels on all raw meat. Big, scary labels. And dangerous microorganisms are present on all raw foods, like potatoes and carrots and cantaloupes, not just animal proteins.

You’ve got to fight for your right to relevant and reliable food safety information

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Chapman asks me the other day, “How do we fight the dogma?”

Is that like fight the power? Fight the man? Fight for your right to party?

What he was talking about was food safety dogma, the kind where seemingly good people give bad food safety advice. Like the Brits and their piping hot turkey.

But this was directed at home. Why do good people reference bad advice, such as the cumbersomely named U.S. Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education, and their Holiday food safety success kit, which says people should always wash their hands for 20 seconds with warm water and never defrost turkey on the counter (with exclamation marks, so readers know they are seriously serious).

When washing hands, water temperature doesn’t matter, 10 seconds is sufficient. Turkey can be thawed on the counter, don’t leave it there forever and don’t let the cat nibble on it.

The dogma part is, where are the references? How do groups like the horribly named Partnership come up with food safety advice? Is it some magical mystery tour or is there some reference to something credible? Who knows. It’s not publicly available.

So why anyone would reference the awkward Partnership as a credible source is bizarrely baffling.

 

Has that Christmas steak been needle tenderized? Does that mean a higher internal temperature is required to kill E. coli O157:H7? People sick in 6 states

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There’s nothing like three inches of freshly fallen Christmas morning snow to make me think … barbeque.

Before firing up the grill in a couple of hours, I now have to consider whether the T-bones I bought at Dillons were needle or blade tenderized, or not. The idea is that small needles are inserted into steak to inject tenderizers. All hamburger should be cooked to a thermometer-verified 160F because it’s all ground up – the outside, which can be laden with poop, is on the inside. With steaks, the thought has been that searing on the outside will take care of any poop bugs like E. coli and the inside is clean. But what if needles pushed the E. coli on the outside of the steak to the inside?

There have been 6-7 such outbreaks in the past, but only a couple appear to be linked to the consumer issue of – how do I cook this Christmas steak?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a press release last night warning that people in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington were sick with E. coli O157:H7 and the common vehicle appeared to be “non-intact steaks (blade tenderized prior to further processing).” Why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has not commented on the outbreak remains a mystery.

Minnesota lawyer Fred Pritzker was the first to publicly identify the potential outbreak linked to blade-tenderized steaks a week ago, on Dec. 18/09.

He also explained that in November of 1997, the Meat and Poultry Subcommittee of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods concluded that standard beef steaks have a low probability of  E. coli O157:H7 migrating from the surface to the interior of the beef muscle.

Because of this, the cooking advice was to cook the steak at least enough to effect a cooked color change on all surfaces. Hence, it was officially safe to eat a steak rare.

Except color is a lousy indicator. How about some temperature recommendation, oh holy micro committee?

But the committee limited this advice to “intact beef steak” and then defined the term as follows: “A cut of whole muscle that has not been injected, mechanically tenderized or reconstructed.” Under the Food and Drug Administration’s 1977 food code, “injected” meant “manipulating a meat so that infectious or toxigenic microorganisms may be introduced from its surface to its interior through tenderizing with deep penetration or injecting the meat such as with juices.”

Based on these definitions, USDA’s Food Safety and Information Service FSIS proclaimed in early 1999 that the agency believes there should be a distinction between intact cuts of muscle and non-intact products, including those that have been tenderized and injected.

That was 1999. I don’t see any such intact or non-intact label when I go to the grocery store. Restaurants remain a faith-based food safety institution. And the issue has rarely risen to the level of public discussion.

The issue is not new, but may be new in terms of public discussion. Echeverry et al. wrote in the Aug. 2009 issue of the Journal of Food Protection that,

After three different outbreaks were linked to the consumption of nonintact meat products contaminated with Escherichia coli O157:H7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service published notice requiring establishments producing mechanically tenderized and moisture-enhanced beef products to reassess their respective hazard analysis and critical control point system, due to potential risk to the consumers.

The researchers found that application of antimicrobials to the steaks prior to packaging and shipment on day 0 was effective in reducing internalization of both pathogens in nonintact beef products stored for both 14 and 21 days.

Luchansky et al. wrote in the July 2009 JFP that based on inoculation studies, cooking on a commercial gas grill is effective at eliminating relatively low levels of the pathogen that may be distributed throughout a blade-tenderized steak.

I hope they’re right. But there’s obviously something going on in the current outbreak.

Oh, and I know it was Christmas Eve and everything, but the USDA press release contained the tired and sometimes true advice for handling ground beef – hamburger – which has nothing to do with intact or non-intact steaks. I won’t be asking Karen anything (ask Karen is the supposed on-line help thingy that USDA keeps flogging).

There are many more details that will emerge as the story evolves, and people more knowledgeable than I — and others — pop up to speak. I’m sorry if you’re spending Christmas barfing because the food safety community did a lousy job providing information about risks that are out there. I’m still enjoying Christmas morning with the family. That’s Sorenne looking out our living room window this morning.

Labels on frozen foods can be confusing – the Stouffer’s Family Size Lasagna experience

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We’ve been visiting with some of Amy’s family in Minnesota the past few days. Dinner for the gang last Sunday in Andover, north of Minneapolis, featured a couple of frozen Stouffer’s lasagnas.

Two lasagnas were required to feed the crew, and were cooked in the oven at the same time.

Although the recommended cooking procedure was followed, the result was still-frozen-in-the-middle lasagna. Two frozen lasagnas take longer than one. Amy says it’s physics.

Being the food safety nerd, I wondered aloud if the frozen lasagna was made with raw ingredients – which would need to be cooked to 160F — or cooked ingredients, meaning 135F would be fine. We rationalized, it’s lasagna, probably cooked ingredients, but 160F just in case. Aunt Jean brought out her oven-friendly thermometer and dinner was great.

The label on the Stouffer’s package had lots of cooking instructions and lots of mentions of food safety, but nothing about raw or cooked ingredients, and nothing about final cooking temperature. In really tiny print, a label proclaimed the product had been inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That’s when I became worried.

I attempted to call the Stouffer’s consumer hotline , but it’s only open Monday to Friday, because people don’t eat frozen entrees on the weekend.

I called the hotline again on Monday and a nice lady told me that yes, two lasagnas take longer than one, and that she has instructions for proper cooking of two lasagnas at once – but nothing on the label or website. Did I mention the hotline wasn’t open Sunday?

The nice lady said the meat ingredients were all cooked, but that the lasagna should be cooked to 160F. “Yes, 160F is exactly what it should be cooked to.”

I’d argue 135F is sufficient, but regardless, there was nothing on the label about final cooking temperature, nothing about using a digital, tip-sensitive or some other type of accurate measuring device.

Pathogens in frozen lasagna have been linked to human illness on at least one previous occasion, earlier this year.

"The owner of Mona Lisa pasta says his kitchen is not to blame for six central Virginia dinner guests coming down with salmonella. While he says he sold the frozen lasagna, it was not his kitchen that was responsible for cooking it to code.

"The customer has written instructions as to how to prepare the food, to bake at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time, and that’s a food-safe temperature.”

I wonder how thorough those label instructions on safe cooking really were.

Sure, most people will not follow food safety labels, as we’ve found out with our own experiments, but it’s up to food manufacturers to provide complete and accurate food safety labels. And encourage thermometer use. How else are people going to be encouraged to stick it in?
 
That’s Sorenne with great-grandma Lorraine (below).

From the douchebag files

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Some people are lawyers and specialize in rhetoric. It’s that Plato thing.

Some of us submit our opinions to cat scratching peer review, take our lumps and get better.

There’s this bunch of lawyers who say they’re Defending Food Safety.

Probably the worst blog name since Maple Leaf’s “Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership.”

One of them, Shawn Stevens (stevens@gasswebermullins.com) wrote on Oct. 22/09 that each year, American families eat somewhere in the neighborhood of 328.5 Billion safe meals – and countless more safe snacks. While any illness or death linked to the consumption of food is one too many, the fact remains that (at three meals a day) you and I are 20 times more likely to die this year from pneumonia or drowning than from a food-borne illness. Although not perfect, the statistics are quite impressive.

As the Sloan song says

When you find you’re a conformer
Take pride and swallow whole

Stevens goes on to say,

As consumers, we are inundated by media “fear-mongering,” and made to believe that with each meal consumed, we draw closer to the precipice of some fathomless tragedy. We are also taught to be suspicious and wary of the people who have dedicated their lives to ensuring that our families are fed, and that our food is wholesome.

You see, food safety is a complicated and dynamic issue. It is easy to be a cynic. It is easy to attack others with the benefit of extended hindsight. It is easy to simplify things to a level that a third grader would find devoid in both substance and fact. The real challenge, however, lies in embracing a reasoned and proactive approach that not only recognizes the limits of technology and science, but, at the same time, within these limits, best reduces the risks most likely to occur to the greatest extent possible.

Dude, you just failed my intro class for most horrible and unsubstantiated metaphors.

But why not reference  our paper, Where does foodborne illness happen–in the home, at foodservice, or elsewhere — and does it matter? Because that would conflict with your world-view?

In any event, for those who continue to ignore science and reason, who contend that food safety is the responsibility of food producers alone, and who wrongly proclaim that food safety is only as simple as “not eating poop,” I say this: given the statistics, what goes into one mouth is often far less harmful than what comes out of another.

I e-mailed the lawyer in question on Friday about the don’t eat poop line, and he decided not to answer. Seriously I don’t want to know what is coming out of his mouth.

 

Faith-based food safety? Market microbial food safety directly at retail so consumers can choose

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Most food purchases are based on faith. That’s why an extensive series of rules, regulations and punishments emerged beginning in 12th century Mediterranean areas.

Faith-based food safety systems are prevalent from the farmer’s market to the supermarket, especially in the produce section. And almost anything can, and is, claimed on food labels – except microbial food safety.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced they are going to examine the growing number of nutrition claims found on the front of food packages after complaints the labels promote health fairytales.

In the U.K., the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has encouraged diners to boycott restaurants that cannot answer questions about the origin of their food.

British chefs Raymond Blanc, Peter Gordon, Martin Lam, Paul Merrett and Antony Worrall-Thompson issued a joint statement saying:

“The British public need to stop being so reticent in restaurants and start asking where their food comes from. It’s your right to know the origin of the food you are served and what types of farms are being used – and the mark of a good restaurant is one that is proud to tell you.”

In response to this news Freedom Food has launched a new long-term campaign called ‘Simply Ask’ which aims to get people asking about food provenance when eating out. This is in a bid to encourage restaurants, pubs and cafes to start sourcing products from higher welfare farms such as Freedom Food, free-range or organic.

Americans are questioning nutrition claims, Brits are questioning allegedly animal-friendly sources of food, maybe there’s room to ask for microbiologically safe food – the stuff that sickens up to 30 per cent of all people everywhere every year (so says the World health Organization).

Lots of companies and retailers are taking baby steps in the direction of empowering consumers to hold producers accountable, but lots aren’t.

Maple Leaf Foods, whose listeria-laden cold-cuts killed 22 Canadians last year, is continuing on its bad Journey to Food Safety Leadership by announcing today that, “Industry and government come together to make food safer for Canadians.”

Invoking the two groups shoppers distrust the most – industry and government – and proclaiming they are working together to better things may not be the best communication strategy to build trust and confidence.

Dr. Randall Huffman, Chief Food Safety Officer for Maple Leaf Foods, stated,

"The Canadian food industry is united that food safety not be used as a competitive advantage. Every member at every step in the production process is a steward of food safety. This spirit of cooperation heralds a new beginning for our industry, and together we will make Canada the gold standard for food safety. This symposium is the first in a series to ensure we share experiences and knowledge, and gain insights into emerging risks, technology advances and cutting edge science that can deliver safer food for Canadians."

That’s nice. Computer companies share technology all the time but that doesn’t stop them from marketing their individual technological advantages.

Stop pandering. Companies that are serious about food safety will go beyond the trust-me approach of faith-based food safety systems and provide public access to food safety test results, provide warnings to populations at risk, and market food safety at retail, to enhance the food safety culture back at the producer or processor level, and to build consumer confidence. May even make money.

Consumer groups, industry, lots of others, misuse food safety data for political gain

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Chapman already commented on some of the, uh, failings of the recent top 10 (PR stunt) allegedly most dangerous foods issued by the poorly named Center for Science in the Public Interest – there wasn’t much science or public interest in that last report.

The produce industry types responded with the blame-the-consumer routine, which is (incredibly dumb) unfortunate given that many outbreaks involving fresh fruits and vegetables clearly need to be prevented on the farm and have nothing to do with consumers.

“Consumers and other food handlers play a huge role in preventing illnesses, and they do need more information on safe handling.”

Neither approach is helpful. Casey Jacob and I tried to contribute to the public conversation about foodborne illness, where it happens and who’s to blame, with the appropriately titled paper, Where Does Foodborne Illness Happen—in the Home, at Foodservice, or Elsewhere—and Does It Matter? in the journal, Foodborne Pathogens and Disease.

The paper has been published online ahead of print. We conclude,

While some occurrences of foodborne illness result from unsafe practices during final preparation or serving at the site where food was consumed, others are consequences of receiving contaminated food from a supplier, or both. Data gathered on instances of contamination that lead to illness make greater contributions to the development of programs that reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses, than data or assumptions that describe locations where contaminated food is consumed.

The abstract is below.

Foodservice professionals, politicians, and the media are often cited making claims as to which locations most often expose consumers to foodborne pathogens. Many times, it is implied that most foodborne illnesses originate from food consumed where dishes are prepared to order, such as restaurants or in private homes. The manner in which the question is posed and answered frequently reveals a speculative bias that either favors homemade or foodservice meals as the most common source of foodborne pathogens. Many answers have little or no scientific grounding, while others use data compiled by passive surveillance systems. Current surveillance systems focus on the place where food is consumed rather than the point where food is contaminated. Rather than focusing on the location of consumption—and blaming consumers and others—analysis of the steps leading to foodborne illness should center on the causes of contamination in a complex farm-to-fork food safety system.
 

Dubai supermarkets start direct food safety messaging at deli counters

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Dubai is hot, with daytime highs at this time of year regularly exceeding 40C (104 F). Local public health types determined that with the super shopping mega malls, people were buying food, placing it in the incubators they called cars, and then some more leisurely shopping.

So, after a few meetings, all supermarkets in Dubai will now be offering warnings, similar to these, regarding ready-to-eat foods. The sign says, ‘Cold Food Consume Immediately Or Refrigerate Within One Hour.’

Cool stuff.
 

Nestle Toll House cookie dough returns; Linda Rivera still hospitalized

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In Room 519 of Kindred Hospital, Linda Rivera can no longer speak.

Her mute state, punctuated only by groans, is the latest downturn in the swift collapse of her health that began in May when she curled up on her living room couch and nonchalantly ate several spoonfuls of the Nestlé cookie dough her family had been consuming for years. Federal health officials believe she is among 80 people in 31 states sickened by cookie dough contaminated with a deadly bacteria, E. coli O157:H7.

The impact of the infection has been especially severe for Rivera and nine other victims who developed a life-threatening complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome. One, a 4-year-old girl from South Carolina, had a stroke and is partially paralyzed.

But good news. Two weeks ago, Nestle announced, in breathless PR-speak,

After almost two months of being out of the U.S. marketplace, Nestle USA is pleased to announce that Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough is returning to stores this week.

To make it easy for both retail partners and consumers to identify the new batch of cookie dough, a blue "New Batch" label will appear on all new production cookie dough items. Nestle Toll House shipping cases also are marked in blue (rather than the previous black) to denote new production and will contain the statement: "Do not consume raw cookie dough." The adoption of this distinct labeling is the result of helpful discussions between Food & Drug Administration (FDA) officials and Nestle, following reports of E.coli O157:H7 illnesses that appeared to be related to the consumption of raw cookie dough.

I bet the discussions were helpful. Probably similar to the ones ConAgra had with the U.S. Department of Agriculture geniuses who said, safe cooking instructions for frozen $0.50 pot pies should tell consumers to use a thermometer to make sure the pie is safe. Food safety is a shared responsibility apparently means it’s the consumer’s responsibility, especially in foods that may be perceived as ready-to-eat.

This is what the new Nestle cookie label looks like, on a package I picked up at a local store on Saturday (front, above, right; back, below, left).

Labeling is a lousy way to provide information about food safety risks, but better than nothing. I’m sure Nestle and ConAgra, in the best interests of their consumers, will publicly release the evaluative data they (probably? maybe?) acquired to show that these particular labels have a positive impact on consumer food safety behavior.