Food Safety Talk 35: The Abuelas of Social Media

Don was excited about his new “Dan Benjamin approved” microphone and headphones and Ben was excited about Folding Text. After emailing with Marco, from the Neutral podcast, Don is planning on moving Food Safety Talk to Squarespace 6, which should allow them to get better download tracking information. Don and Ben also sent shout-outs to David Tharp (IAFP), Ian Jenson (Meat and Livestock Australia) and Renee Boyer’s Food Safety class.

The discussion then returned to the reusable bag discussion (see FST 34), which was prompted by Tomas Aragon who shared his memo about the “Clickety-Clack” paper. In the memo Thomas pointed out that Klick and Wright had used the ICD-10 codes, for which there were 140 deaths during 2000-2010. However, 111 of these were due to Enterocolitis due to Clostridium difficile, leaving only 29 related to other intestinal infectious diseases.

The guys took a quick pop culture detour to iTunes Match which had allowed Ben to rediscover Rancid. Don’s been listening to R. L. Burnside (not R. L. Stine), Bite Harder: The Music De Wolfe Studio Sampler, Vol. 2 and Holy F*ck.

On return to food safety they guys discussed an article on Farmers Markets and FSMA and in particular the quote from Kate Flannery. Ben disagreed with Kate’s implication that greenhouse farming was without risks. Don agreed that the risks were different rather than non-existent.

The guys then turned to the horse meat scandal in the UK, which is even reverberating through the popular culture twittersphere. Ben challenged Prof. Hugh Pennington’s comments that horse meat was safer than beef, as surely the denominator matters!

The discussion then turned to barbeque and roadkill. While you’ll find some vaguely disturbing erotic images you probably won’t find a road kill recipe on the Amazing Ribs website. Ben did discuss the safety of eating road kill in this barfblog article. Road kill is apparently making a resurgence with those who are struggling with food security (i.e. having enough food to eat). Don has worked with Debra Palmer Keenan to help people make better choices in relation to food safety when they have to compromise on the foods they buy.

Don had some more follow up from FST 34 in relation to washing coffee mugs. He found some silly advice in this Huffington Post article and he expressed his disgust with this Mamapedia article. This got Ben excited as his grad student, Ben, is working on how to engage people in food safety via social media. Ben’s research will focus on mommy blogs (but probably not Dani’s 2 Little Supeheroes blog or Portlandia's Parenting tips over the coming months.

The discussion then turned to Doug’s poop cruise article and that someone sold a bio poop bag on Ebay for $15. Another Barfblog article reported on the closure of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, due to norovirus and Don contemplated the irony of this happening at North Carolina State University, the home of the NoroCORE project.

In the after dark the guys talked about beverages, iTunes Match and MobileMe, and Ben had some questions about establishing variances to food safety standards.

Food Safety Talk 34: Don't puke up the doughnuts

Participating in the Krispy Kreme Challenge challenged Ben in more ways than one. Don is looking for a new podcasting mic and he is getting some guidance from Dan Benjamin’s guide. The guys discussed the download statistics for the podcast and Folding Text to manage their pre-show notes, as well as Don’s homework, The Newsroom (Canadian TV series), which prompted Don to correctly note the excessive plaid fashions. Bill Hallman had provided some further thoughts on the “no illness language” in recall notices (FST Episode 33) which led to a broader discussion about recalls, including one for Listeria in Crab Dip.

The discussion continued with Listeria, namely Missa Bay LLC's recall due to Listeria in apple slices  and the more recent FDA warning letter to the company. Don and Ben were surprised by where and how much Listeria was found by the FDA. The guys agreed that the publication of these warning letters was a good thing – not only for customers, but also to provide valuable information to suppliers of similar products – which reminded Ben of the Blue Pages for teachers.

The guys then switched to the Chicago Tribune article “Triclosan: Anti-bacterial soaps called useless, potentially dangerous” that Don had been interviewed for (based on his publication “A Meta-Analysis of the Published Literature on the Effectiveness of Antimicrobial Soaps.”) The average benefit of antimicrobial soaps over normal soaps was about 0.5 log, or 63%, and Don explained that the benefits were greatest when the contamination levels of hands were high, for example after handling raw meat and poultry or after cleaning up vomit.

Then Ben and Don got back into the reusable bag discussion. This was prompted by an article by Klick and Wright (not Watson and Crick). Klick and Wright combined Gerba, Williams and Sinclair’s research on bacteria in reusable shopping bags with a pathogenic E. coli related illnesses and deaths in hospital in the San Francisco area. They concluded that the ban on grocery bags led to an increase of 5.4 additional deaths per year, though Ben got really fired up on Barfblog about the lack of epidemiology and microbiology evident in the article. Don also took issue with a couple of lawyers mistaking correlation with causation and recalled FST Episode 19 where the guys had discussed reusable bags, which Carl Custer likes to call nickel bags (or check out this link).

Ben then shared that that his department was advertising a local food extension / research position to collect evidence for a range of possible impacts of local food systems, including food safety, nutrition, or related areas. This led to a discussion about local food systems and Don was all in favor of fresh food, such as the locally source food available at Wegmans.

In the after dark the guys geeked out with Folding Text, Markdown and its syntax, the octothorpe (not to be confused with Dr. Octavius from Spider-Man 2), Ben’s Garage Band workflow, Apple messages for the Mac, and Ken Finkleman.

Food Safety Talk 34: Don't Puke Up the Doughnuts