Episode 9 of Food Safety Talk opens with an extended wide-ranging session of follow-up, touching on cookies, beef jerky, and the SRA annual meeting. Finally the guys get around to discussing a recent change to the NYC heath code and the timing of public announcements about foods implicated in food poisoning outbreaks.
- The show opens with a discussion of audio levels, which is apparently very important in podcasting.
- It turns out that PIBCAK, specifically Don's keyboard and chair.
- The first pop culture reference is Beck's classic Two turntables and a microphone.
- And while we do get listener mail, it's not all positive.
- This first part of the podcast is devoted to what's known in the business as "FU", or followup, as commonly practiced by one of the best in the business, although he's apparently not infallible... so...
- The first item of FU relates to baking cookies, where starch gelatinization can be determined with a tip-sensitive thermometer.
- A least one the these baking companies is looking to validate their baking protocols. Which is important because cookies can make you sick. So, it's best to make sure you have validated their safety with a challenge study.
- The discussion of cookies and baking moves on to a discussion of heating and low water foods like meat jerky, and Don and Ben's podcasting hero, who is according to Ben, a jerky fiend. Which is not surprising since it's one of the things you can eat on the Paleo diet.
- From there, the guys get into a brief discussion of the complexity of the US Food safety regulations.
- Don's brings Ben up to speed on the SRA annual meeting, where Don missed a great talk by Eric Evers of RIVM who spoke about petting zoo risk assessment. Which reminds Ben of a guy that he and Doug call Gonzo, although he's neither a muppet nor a gun-toting journalist.
- While at SRA, Don watched the last episode of The Wire, which featured a brief food safety reference.
- Finally, the guys get down to business with a discussion of new food safety rules in New York City which are related to hairnets and to real issues like time out of temperature control.
- Don briefly recalls some clever teaching experiments by Carl Batt which demonstrate which foods might need temperature control (like beer) but not pizza made by your cousin Vinnie's pizzeria.
- Ben mentions Brae Surgeoner's work on how consumers would like to be communicated to regarding take out food safety, and his own experiences at Maggiano's.
- The next topic up is about some potentially crossed signals between Missouri public health officials and the CDC. Clearly making public statements implicating a particular food are tricky, and Paul Mead ought to know, as he wrote the book, or at least the definitive article. At least it was until the more recent articles by Scallon, here and here.
- Don is reminded of more SRA presentations by Hallman and Cuite at SRA and their important work showing that people still eat implicated foods in a recall.
- Its clear that there are communication challenges, just ask Hershey's and the CFIA or some Florida tomato growers
- It's a good thing we have folks like Craig Hedberg and Frank Yiannis, and tools like the Reportable Food Registry for Industry working to improve information flow. Even the USDA/FSIS is considering Public Release of Establishment-Specific Data.
- Ben mentions Parents just don't understand, by Will Smith. This prompts Don to ask about the difference between Hip Hop and Rap. Ben tells him to search the Internet. Don couldn't find anything helpful on the always entertaining I love charts, although he did seem to find this article which does a pretty good job explaining the difference.
- Don talks about what he's been listening to recently, and Ben suggests a lyric-off for a future episode.
