Food Safety Talk 48: Ninja moves to rock and roll

The guys started the show with some general chit chat about The Beer Store and The Nail Shop, the Beach Boys, including "Pet Sounds", Chuck Berry, Bed Bad Baaaaaaatz, Don's Etymotic hf5 earphones, Twitter, (including this discussion), and Barb O'Neill's great work.

Prompted by a link from Alejandro Amezquita, the guys then turned their attention to laundry and in the process gave the phrase "Eat My Shorts!" a new meaning. In the article, Lisa Ackerley discussed the hygiene of laundering. The guys recalled a couple of research articles by Chuck Gerba related to the topic (here and here). Neither Don nor Ben were particularly worried about this.

This reminded Ben of The Salt article on cooking food in the dishwasher. The guys discussed the potential risk of this approach and the sciences that is needed. Another The Salt article on washing poultry had also resulted in a large amount of social media engagement, which is something the Don and Ben are always keen to explore. And both enjoyed Alton Brown's proper method for washing out the inside of a whole poultry.

The guys then moved onto the bug trivia replacement segment called Food Safety History, in honor of a 100 years of the IAFP Journal of Food Protection. In this episode the Don covered the pre 1940 era. It all started with the Journal of Milk Technology and the connection with raw milk reminded Ben of this Toronto Star article.

Don then wanted to talk about this NY Times article, related to Salmonella in spices, and the related Food Microbiology article. Don posed Ben the questions that he was asked for a Rutgers Q&A press release on this topic and the guys compared their answers.

The guys then got fired up about the Cronut Burger-related outbreak article by Jason Tetro. Ben didn't quite agree with some of Jason's assumptions, so Ben queried the manufacturers about the parameters of the product, which Le Dolci didn't know. Ben eventually found the answer from Toronto Public Health, and was able to set the record straight.

To finish off, Don mentioned The New Disruptors podcast (earlier episodes), which featured Marisa McClellan in Episode 38 "Yes, we can!" talking about food preservation. Don was pleasantly surprised by her knowledge, including her mention of the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

In the after dark the guys continued the canning discussion, including Canvolution, Canning Across America and pink flamingos for their 50th episode.

Food Safety Talk 40: All in on Boogers

The guys started the show with some news and general chit chat, including hockey, an article about fighting bacteria with mucus, Linked In (perhaps the creepiest social network), Don’s Silver Beaver Award, surely a ’Major Award’, and the TV they are watching: Arrested Development, Adventure Time and Game of Thrones.

The new ‘Food is the New Rock’ podcast (suggested by fan of the show Brian Sauders - @BSauders) that provides a blend of food and music topics, reminded Ben of this Freganism barfblog article. Don then mentioned some interesting work of University of Iowa's Computational Epidemiology Group was working on, which was followed by a discussion about IAFP annual conference and IAFP PDGs.

The bug trivia segment focused on Staphylococcus aureus, which is ubiquitous in the human and animal buccal cavities. Staph produces a heat resistant enterotoxin in food, famous in part for causing the Chinese canned mushrooms outbreak. Don also noted that S. aureus poisoning was also known as Ptomaine poisoning.

The guys then talked about this SciLogs article by Matt Shipman (from Ben and Matt YouTube fame) and why people might not care about grants that have been awarded but are more interested in research outcomes.

The discussion then turned to the Salmonella Saintpaul cucumber outbreak and Ben was surprised by the lack of media coverage this outbreak created. Don noted that cucumbers generally had high microbial counts, as did other fresh produce such as tomatoes and lettuce, and he wondered why there hadn’t been more outbreaks to date. Ben was wondering whether contamination might be related to the water used in greenhouse production, which reminded Don of a recent article on bacteria in surface waters. Don pondered whether high relative humidity in greenhouses might be related to the transfer of pathogens.

The NSF’s article on the germiest kitchen items made Don and Ben so angry. They were flabbergasted by the lack of scientific rigor used in the work and in the reporting of it. The less-than-helpful food safety messages in the article reminded Don of Merlin Mann’s Old Butchers post, which mentions the ‘useful’ Lifehacker article on using soap to clean dishes.

The guys didn’t feel much better about the Consumer Reports article on ground turkey. They wondered about the low Campylobacter isolation rate and Don shared some concerns about the study that he had also discussed with Marge Perry. Ben and Don congratulated AMI on their spot on public response but they felt that the National Turkey Federation response lived up to its name.

In the after dark the guys talked about Dan Rockey’s research on Chlamydia and Don’s upcoming Brazil trip thanks to Scientists without Borders.