Blame the consumer: (latest) Canadian edition

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Douglas Powell

“More than 85 per cent of all foodborne illnesses occur as a result of incidences of food contamination in Canadian homes.”

So says Sylvain Charlebois, some academic thingy at the University of Guelph in the Globe and Mail last week.

No reference, all rhetoric, no reality.

In a piece about allocating food safety resources, Charlebois writes “governments should remain actively involved to ensure industry compliance and public reassurance.”

As a member of the public, I don’t want reassurance; I want confidence, I want the choice to buy microbiologically safer food, I want data to support claims of safety.

The stats that have been reported in peer-reviewed journals are all over the place: anywhere from 15-90 per cent of foodborne illness apparently happens in the home.

So if a consumer ate bagged spinach in fall 2006 at home, would that mean they possibly got sick at home, or that the contamination originated on the farm and there was little consumers could do?

Casey Jacob and I attempted to tackle this question in the journal, Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, and concluded,

“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.”

Robert Tauxe of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has noted there have been 10 new food vehicles identified in multistate outbreaks of foodborne illness since 2006: bagged spinach, carrot juice, peanut butter, broccoli powder on a snack food, dog food, pot pies, canned chili sauce, hot peppers, white pepper and raw cookie dough.

Few, if any of these have to do with consumers.

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.

Guam says most foodborne illness comes from homes

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Douglas Powell

In May 2011, 370 students in five of Guam’s southern schools became ill after a breakfast of an egg salad sandwich, fruit and milk.

But Jian Yang, an associate professor of food science with University of Guam’s College of Natural Applied Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service, says data from the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services show that 63 percent of foodborne illnesses in Guam occur in the private home. Foodborne illness is estimated to occur for one out of four Guam residents at least once per year. Obviously, foodborne illness prevention at home is essential.

Anyone who has to write “obviously” is compensating for something.

Yang also writes that based on a survey of 200 individuals in 17 villages, the high frequency of foodborne illness on Guam may be attributable to storing food at unsafe temperatures, cooking food improperly, and consuming risky foods.

I’m not familiar with the data cited, but any time someone tries to point fingers, it’s easy to find holes in the data.

We’ve reviewed most of the publicly available data and seen estimates of the home as the source of foodborne illness vary from 11-84 per cent. And most of the data sucks. If a person eats peanut butter or spinach at home, they might get sick at home, but the contamination was beyond the control of the consumer.

Jacob, C.J. and Powell, D.A. 2009. Where does foodborne illness happen—in the home, at foodservice, or elsewhere—and does it matter? Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, 6(9): 1121-1123.

 http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2008.0256

Blame the consumer, New Zealand style: is high rate of campy due to poor home practices?

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Douglas Powell

New Zealand has a much higher rate of reported campylobacteriosis than the rest of the developed world and it’s because consumers are dumb, not because of high loads of campylobacter entering kitchens. Or that’s what a new paper says; I’ve parsed the abstract, below.

“The two main risk factors identified internationally for campylobacteriosis are, consumption of undercooked chicken and cross-contamination during food preparation.”

With you so far.

“One possible reason is that New Zealanders have poorer home hygiene practices during food preparation than the citizens of other developed countries.”

Why just the home? Isn’t food prepared in a myriad of places like, restaurants, and isn’t the basics of many food safety risk reduction efforts to actually reduce risk: to lower loads of Campylobacter moving from the farm right through to the food service and home kitchen?

“The objective of this study was to investigate cross-contamination during chicken preparation at home as a possible hypothesis to explain the high reported rate of campylobacteriosis.”

That sounds like a great observational study, coupled with microbiological modeling. Except the researcher did this:

“An extensive search of databases of publications concerned with consumer food handling practices or self-reported practices, consumers’ knowledge or perception about food safety and consumers’ observed practices, was conducted.”

Scream. Relying on other studies of self-reported research is flawed and the conclusions erroneous.

“Personal communication with science groups in New Zealand and the world were also carried out. It was found that in New Zealand there is a lack of data regarding consumer knowledge and studies on handling practices. The few studies conducted in New Zealand were not comprehensive.”

So the data about New Zealand home handlers, already flawed, is worse than usual, yet the researchers write …

“It appears from the findings of this study, that New Zealanders’ knowledge of basic food hygiene is lower in comparison to people of other developed countries. For example, New Zealanders scored the lowest in their knowledge about food safety or hygiene.”

That’s not evidence. And awareness doesn’t mean people will actually do it.

“Most of the evidence collected in this study supports the hypothesis that New Zealanders are poorer in home hygiene than people of other developed countries, and this has possibly contributed to New Zealand having the highest rate of campylobacteriosis among developed countries.”

No. It was a foregone conclusion. But that won’t stop politicians and producer/industry groups from citing the work … extensively. And then the researcher will get promoted.

How to wash produce and what consumers say they do

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Surveys still suck.

But at least researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognize the limitations of self-reported food safety behavior, in this case applied to produce washing practices in the kitchen. From a recent paper in Food Protection Trends:

“Although washing does not guarantee removal of pathogens if the item has become contaminated, it increases the likelihood that pathogens will be removed, compared with not washing or using washing methods that are not recommended. Soaking and use of any type of cleaner are not recommended washing methods. Soaking does not remove contami¬nants as effectively as rubbing or rinsing produce under running water. Cleaners not meant for produce can introduce chemical contaminants, and produce washes are considered no more effective than water. Unlike other types of produce, almost all bagged, pre-cut let¬tuce in the market place is pre-washed. For bagged, pre-cut lettuce that is labeled as pre-washed, additional washing is not recommended as it is not likely to en¬hance safety and introduces the op¬portunity for cross-contamination of the product with pathogens that may be in the home kitchen. …

“This study has some strengths and limitations. One of the limitations is that the data are self-reported. We rely on consumers’ ability to both remember what they do and convey it accurately. Self-reporting is also subject to the de¬sire to give socially desirable responses; an observational study of consumer produce washing showed that far fewer consumers actually wash produce than report doing so in surveys. Also, the findings would have been more use¬ful if we had asked consumers why they washed cantaloupes and bagged, pre-cut lettuce. Finally, our survey suffered from the increasingly common problem of low response rates for household sur¬veys, although this does not necessarily bias the survey results. Some of the main strengths of this study are the sampling method, large sample size and weighting strategy, which allows our findings to be representative of the population. This allows us to make comparisons at the population level.

“Food Safety practices should be¬gin on the farm and be rigorously ap¬plied along the entire chain so that food products are safe for human consump¬tion without the need for extraordinary measures. Consumers, however, are the critical endpoint along the food supply chain. Educational efforts with respect to product washing should focus on explaining why it is important to wash hard rind produce such as cantaloupe be¬fore cutting, but not rewashing produce that is ready to be eaten.”

The abstract is below:

Consumer vegetable and fruit washing practices in the United States, 2006 and 2010
Food Protection Trends, Vol. 32, No. 4, Pages 164–172
Linda Verrill, Amy M. Lando 1 and Kellie M. O’Connell
Vegetables and fruits may become contaminated with pathogens anywhere along the farm-to-plate continuum. Therefore, the FDA recommends that vegetables and fruits that have not already been washed be washed by the consumer before slicing or consuming them. The FDA included in its 2006 and 2010 Food Safety Survey a series of questions about purchasing and washing of strawberries, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and bagged, pre-cut lettuce. The Food Safety Survey is a telephone survey tracking consumers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to food safety. In 2006, of those who buy these products, 98% wash strawberries, 97% wash tomatoes, 57% wash cantaloupes and 54% wash bagged pre-cut lettuce. Overall, for both years, more women than men wash cantaloupes, and more men than women wash bagged pre-cut lettuce. Cantaloupe washing declined from 2006 to 2010 for men, while lettuce washing increased for women in the same period. Targeted education campaigns should emphasize the importance of washing produce, especially fruits with hard rinds.

Who’s to blame? Campy cases up almost 50% in UK, Ireland

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Wales Online reports that sloppy food hygiene at home has been blamed for a worrying increase in cases of campylobacter food poisoning.

Carried by chickens, it is thought large numbers of raw chickens sold in supermarkets are infected with campylobacter, which can be spread to other foods in the kitchen via cross-contamination.

Tom Humphrey, a professorial fellow in food safety at the University of Liverpool, said: “Campylobacter doesn’t need any exaggerating; we don’t need to big up its importance. My daughter got it when she was seven and lost 7kg in two days. She was passing nothing but blood.

Official figures show there were 70,000 cases of campylobacter illnesses in the UK in 2010; the latest figures for Wales show there are some 3,000 a year but it is thought for every one reported case, a further 10 go unreported.

There were 2,440 official cases notified in the Republic of Ireland last year, a rise of 46.9pc over 2010.

Humphrey said because most poultry had campylobacter, “The importance, therefore, is very much on the careful handling of poultry. Studies have found campylobacter on domestic dishcloths, which is symptomatic of what is happening in the kitchen. We tend to take things for granted and can be a bit sloppy when it comes to food hygiene at home.

“All cows have campylobacter and all milk will have cow poo in it, if you don’t heat it, there’s a risk of campylobacter.

“Kittens and puppies can get diarrhea caused by campylobacter and, particularly for young children, being in contact with that is a risk factor.

“But overwhelmingly, the biggest factor is the consumption of under-cooked chicken – this makes up between 50% and 80% of cases.”

He added that intervention on the farm is the key to controlling campylobacter in chickens.

So is it the farm, home kitchens, food service, everywhere, what’s the message?

Blame the consumer: while congratulating itself beef industry takes shot at consumers

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Is you is, or is you ain’t, my constituency?

The U.S. beef industry said last week beef is safer than it was 10 years ago, and cited survey data to show consumers agreed.

Surveys still suck.

“When asked whether someone is more likely to get sick from foodborne bacteria eating at home or at a restaurant, 65 percent of consumers answered “at a restaurant.” However, 72 percent of the experts attending the summit answered “at home.”

“In fact, statistics back up the experts’ opinion showing between 60 percent and 70 percent of foodborne illnesses occur at home.”

Got a reference for that? Or were the press release authors too busy inserting “dick fingers” and statements of nonsense like, “In fact.”

“In fact, it isn’t beef safety consumers are concerned about. When asked which fresh food they might buy in the supermarket was their biggest safety concern, 48 percent of consumers answered “Fish and Seafood.” Only 10 percent said beef was their biggest safety concern.”

Beef safety may have improved, but industry types can’t help but continue to cast stones. Beef types have lots to concern themselves with – non-O157 shiga-toxin producing E. coli, pink slime, cross-contamination, welfare and workplace issues — instead of wasting rhetorical energy about who’s to blame for foodborne illness.

It’s called playing to your constituency

Jacob, C.J. and Powell, D.A. 2009. Where does foodborne illness happen—in the home, at foodservice, or elsewhere—and does it matter? Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, 6(9): 1121-1123.?http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2008.0256
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.

Vials of E. coli found in Arkansas apartment

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Vials of E. coli bacteria found in the refrigerator of a Jonesboro apartment have been safely removed, authorities told Associated Press.

A maintenance man cleaning out the unit at the Willow Creek Apartments on Friday found 25 vials marked E. coli in a foam box in a refrigerator, officials said. The maintenance man notified the facilities manager, who then called Arkansas Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An Arkansas National Guard hazardous material crew spent most of Friday afternoon and night securing the bacteria and removing it from the apartment, Fire Battalion Chief Marty Hamrick told the Jonesboro Sun for a story in Sunday’s editions. The vials were of medical-grade quality but there wasn’t enough danger for officials to evacuate the complex, Hamrick said.
As a precaution, however, firefighters washed their boots and equipment, he said.

Peer-review has a purpose: Canadian food safety study long on rhetoric, short on data

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Douglas Powell

A new report says Canadians suffer more foodborne illness than Americans, that most of it happens with restaurant meals, and that consumers are sorta dumb too.

Unfortunately, the report relies heavily on other reports that are not peer-reviewed, assumptions, and suffers from highly selective referencing to make a point – and I have no idea what that point is.

The report, Improving Food Safety in Canada: Toward a More Risk Responsive System, released by the Conference Board of Canada to coincide with their food safety conference and upstaged by Galen Weston Jr.’s comments that farmer’s markets were going to kill someone, says half or more of all cases of foodborne illnesses in Canada are picked up in restaurants or from other food service providers.

Daniel Munro, Principal Research Associate, said, “It is commonly assumed that farms and food processing companies hold the most responsibility for ensuring safe food, and their role is critical. But most foodborne illnesses are associated with the preparation and storage practices of restaurants, food service operations, and consumers themselves.”

I’m not sure who makes that assumption. It is estimated there are 6.8 million cases of food-borne illness annually in Canada.

Part of the problem can be traced to restaurant inspection systems that are seen as too sporadic to have an impact on restaurants’ day-to-day food safety practices.

Garth Whyte, president and CEO of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association dismissed the report describing it as "shockingly short on facts."

"This study did not even bother contacting us about what we are doing, and if they had, they would know that there are three government recognized food safety training programs that train tens of thousands food handlers per year," Whyte said.

Except training alone doesn’t do much for food safety behavior.

The report provides a number of recommendations to improve Canada’s food safety system including providing restaurants and other food service providers with timely information and advice on how they can minimize food safety risks.

We call them infosheets.

It also urges governments to build on current consumer awareness initiatives by engaging consumers directly in discussions about food safety in their households.

The report offers no advice on how to do that.

Stop blaming consumers: be the bug, food safety is farm-to-fork

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Douglas Powell

It’s the first day of spring in Australia, which means daughter Courtlynn is heading back to the Northern Hemisphere to start school, the temperature is soaring, and an entire month awaits of unverified, repetitious and banal food safety messages aimed at consumers.

The Brits got an early start about a week ago.

The Food Standards Agency published a review of existing studies that explore how people manage food safety in their homes.

The report found that, although they are often aware of good food hygiene practices, many people are failing to chill foods properly, aren’t following advice on food labels and aren’t sticking to simple hygiene practices that would help them avoid spreading harmful bacteria around their kitchens. People often know what they should be doing, but they don’t put this knowledge into practice, believing they are not vulnerable to food poisoning.

Yes, individuals are impervious to risk; been known for decades.

There’s oodles of material to pick through in the full report, but my favorite is this: people have a low level of awareness of recommended good practice with respect to cooking (correct final cooked temperature).

Maybe FSA should stop telling people to cook things until they are ‘piping hot.’

Food safety isn’t just a consumer thing – it’s an everybody thing. Forget the farm groups and industries that fund the blame-consumers approach. What did consumers have to do with outbreaks involving peanut butter, pizza, pot pies, pet food, pepper and produce (washing don’t do much). That’s just the Ps.

Reciting prescriptive instructions – cook, clean, chill, separate – like some fascist country line dancing instructor benefits no one. Food safety is complex, and it takes effort.

Australian home cook fined $20,000 over mass food poisoning

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Douglas Powell

A bad batch of eggs is all it took for home cook Mercedes Zambrano to be hit with a legal bill of more than $20,000 and a place on the NSW Food Authority’s name-and-shame list for a case of mass food poisoning.

The Zambrano family had been regulars at weekly South American community gatherings at the Kensington Bowling Club for Rincon Cubano, a Latin-American music, food and dance event. ”We’re like the Partridge family,” Jefferson Zambrano, a Latin-American percussionist, said.

When the regular caterer left, his mother, Mrs Zambrano, was invited to provide the food.

But after more than 50 people fell ill with salmonella poisoning at a barbecue at the club in November 2009, Mrs Zambrano, 56, was fined $9600 and ordered to pay $11,000 in costs.

An investigation by the NSW Food Authority determined the presence of salmonella in various foods served at the function, the most likely cause of contamination being a raw whole-egg mayonnaise used in a salad.

Mrs Zambrano pleaded guilty to three offences including selling food that is unsafe, failing to comply with the Food Standards Code and a failure to notify the NSW Food Authority of her food business.

She was classified as a business because she charged money for the food. Mr Zambrano said this was unfair, as his mother was simply catering for a community event and had charged money to cover her costs rather than to make a profit.

In hearing the matter in the Local Court, Magistrate Gregory Hart acknowledged the woman had contributed significantly to her community through fund-raising, and volunteer work, and she never intended to cause harm; however, he stated the need to provide a deterrence factor in imposing his findings.

"It is important to alert [people] conducting food businesses, including part-time food businesses associated with community activities, that the requirements of the Food Act 2003 and the standards set by the Food Standards Code must be complied with," Magistrate Hart said.

The NSW Primary Industries Minister, Katrina Hodgkinson, said the case was a reminder to other community caterers of the importance of the Food Standards Code.

"This highlights the important work of the NSW Food Authority in establishing NSW regulations and food safety programs, including cultivating good food-handling practices and sharing information on food safety”

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