Food Safety Talk 76: Get 'em really hot

This episode starts with a discussion of Ben’s taste in music, and then quickly moves into documentaries. Ben recently watched Jodorowsky’s Dune, on Don’s recommendation.  This documentary has some ‘artful nudity’ that leads to a discussion of perverts on airplanes and the appropriateness of reading material such as Fifty Shades of Grey while crammed into an airplane seat.  The conversation naturally transitioned into a discussion of microphone stands and coffee. Ben notes that owning a Nespresso machine has changed his life; he ranks it among his top 10 life changing things (including his wife and children). The guys then discuss other pop-culture topics including Deflate-Gate and TV shows The Affair, Portlandia (which had an episode satirizing raw milk), and Garfunkel and Oates. Note that Portlandia is required viewing before attending IAFP 2015 in Portland this summer

Ben leads off the actual food safety talk by mentioning sprouts and the number of outbreaks associated with them.  The guys then discuss experiments to validate sprout cooking processes including charred bean sprouts.  Ben then brings up the idea of baking cookies in a car and a visit from Linda Harris (who now downloads and listens).  From there the talk turns to pathogen reduction validations for baking processes spurred by the Wegmans recall of baked fruit desserts last summer, presumably because they contained peaches recalled for Listeria.

The FDA’s Reportable Food Registry, along with CDC whole genome sequencing of pathogens, is enabling more illnesses to be linked to products, as seen in Salmonella Braenderup linked to nut butter.  Ben predicts more businesses will have to issue recalls because of validation issues, and the investigations that accompany these recalls will isolate pathogens from within facilities that can be linked to other illnesses which have occurred over months and years prior.

The discussion then turns to the very bad blizzard that New Jersey never had.  Don discusses the similarities between the models for weather forecasting and models in food safety.   Both situations have consequences for over or under reacting; both present risk management and risk communication difficulties.

A tweet from The New Yorker made Don mad: Bill Marler may be all that stands between you and Salmonella.  This resulted in Don tweeting back to The New Yorker.  Ben mentioned it was probably just Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.   Bill Marler is probably not all that stands between you and Salmonella; as there are a few more people trying to do the right thing.  The guys then go on to discuss how Marler and Caroline Smith DeWaal, a lawyer with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, have become controversial but generally respected food safety personalities over the years.

Don recently was quoted in an article about the safety of various cuts of meat (and Barfblogged here).   Don and Ben were so happy Don was quoted correctly, they were able to ‘ding’ their podcast bell; a auditory high-five.

Pork has a reputation for being dangerous but decreases in the prevalence of Trichinella and Americans tendency to overcook pork have reduced the actual risk, so Ben wanted to discuss a recent MMWR Trichinellosis report.  Don mentions ‘The Batz Report’ which determined the top 10 pathogen-food combinations with the greatest burden in public health.  This led to a discussion of sample size, detection limits, consumption rates, and risk messaging, leading to the conclusion that cultural practices in food preparation adds complexity to the determination of risk.

Food Safety Talk 47: But that's not science

The guys started by talking about their office and home podcasting set-ups; how Don inspired his son Zac; podcast sponsorship (thanks Dr. Indian Clarified Butter); the Food Science short course at Rutgers; MC-ing; Ben’s wedding; and, customer service at Frito Lay’s and General Mills.

In the bug trivia segment the guys talked about the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, recently reviewed by Beniamino and colleagues. T. gondii was ranked the second worst pathogen in terms of quality adjusted life years (QALY) by Mike Batz (guest on FST 4) and colleagues, and recently featured on Back to Work.

The discussion took a short detour to food thermometers, including the PDT 300, iGrill, and ThermaPen, before coming around to the retiring Pete Snyder, from HI-TM. Pete is held in high regard by both Ben and Don, not only because he wasn’t afraid to ask questions, like Don did in the comment exchange to the Snapper barfblog article. Thanks to Pete’s guidance Ben is always seeking the primary information for creating his Infosheets.  A classic example of Pete’s drive for the scientific justification relates to the information produced on thawing poultry at ambient temperatures, which was picked up by barfblog.

Ben then talked about the CDC report on the tempeh related outbreak discussed in FST 18. He found it interesting that many of the illnesses appeared to be caused by cross-contamination rather than consumption of the contaminated, unpasteurized tempeh. Don was bummed that his own work wasn’t cited by the CDC, but he noted that Michelle’s recent work showed that cross-contamination was facilitated by moisture. This then turned into a broader discussion around managing risks in a food service setting.

Don then wanted to hear Ben’s thoughts about Bill Marler’s question on what cantaloupe and baseball have in common. Bill’s suggestion to change the incentives had the flavor of a Modest Proposal, but without the satire. Ben agreed that retailers and restaurants should be held responsible, as without them there isn’t enough pressure on the suppliers. The guys then discussed third party audits and the setting of supplier standards. Both agreed that the current system doesn’t work how it should and that proper data analysis could provide significant insights.

In the after dark the guys talked about Ben’s upcoming trip to Brazil, the PCV show, food safety a-holes, Mexican wrestling masks, the Conference for Food Protection councils, laws and sausages, and getting hurt at the doctor's office.

Food Safety Talk 37: Inoculating the Plane

The guys started with some follow up on The Wire, The Newsroom, what colored food does to your poop, Mike Batz’ link to Craig Goldwyn’s Huffington Post article on sprouts, T. gondii in Romanian animals, and F’ed up.

Aaron’s email then prompted a discussion about Plague Inc., the CDC’s interest in it and CDC’s own game Solve the Outbreak. The guys were impressed by how progressive the CDC is in terms of social media and new ways of engaging the public.

Don then provided some info about HDScores, a company that plans to make Restaurant Inspection Scores from 3100 jurisdictions from the US, Canada and UK widely available. This prompted a discussion about making restaurant scores available to the public in an interpretable way.

Ben shared his experiences from a recent trip to Calgary, where his 4 year old son Jack got sick, possibly with Norovirus. Ben was fascinated by Delta Airlines’ approach of dealing with the vomit problem, which involved plastic bags to contain the risk and coffee pods to manage the smell. Don was familiar with the approach thanks to Roderick on the Line. Ben didn’t agree with Delta’s decision to take them off plane first (thus inoculating the plane).  It reminded him of two different articles. Both Don and Ben were glad Delta had a plan, even if they didn’t quite agree with the whole plan.

Don then wanted to ask Ben about a Meatingplace article by Richard Raymond entitled Is our food safer than five years ago? (free registration needed to read). Ben explained why he didn’t agree with Richard’s arguments. Don agreed and asked aloud about conspiracy theories, not dissimilar from those surrounding New Coke.

Don then wanted get Ben’s take on the IFT’s March 2013 media update. In fact both Ben and Don thought that these updates were way over the top and it reminded them of "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons” and Doug Powell’s comment on Barfblog “I'm immediately suspicious of people … who say trust me.” Ben especially didn’t like that organizations say “trust us” and without telling people what the risks are and why they should be trusted. The discussion of food processing reminded Don of Richard Wrangham’s great book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.”

The last thing on Ben’s agenda was Doug’s comparison between the porn industry and the food industry, which had resulted in a fair bit of backlash against the legendary Doug. Ben noted that Doug’s point was how the two industries differed in how they manage the risks, which people missed. And boy… you mention porn and people get excited.

Food Safety Talk 33: Fresh Produce Punk Rock Hippieness

Don starts by battling Skype again while Ben gets organized. The guys shared their favorite Starbucks coffee orders, which Don takes to go in his Marco-approved ™ Contigo travel mug. While these mugs can be challenging to wash, the guys agreed that washing them (or other dishes) in the bathroom was never a good idea. Even John Gruber knows that storing dishes in the bathroom is a bad idea, as he pointed out in a recent episode of The Talk Show. Ben then went into a coffee-fuelled rant about Getting Things Done, his favorite Canadian TV series ‘The Newsroom’, The Lumineers, Bad Religion and The Wire’s Stringer Bell. Don countered with Fat Boy Slim, the Luther, Bramwell, Ripper Street, and Transmetropolitan.

After a shout-out to Renee Boyer’s Food Safety class at Virginia Tech they talked about listener Bridgette’s link to “Dear Abby - Changing baby on eatery table takes the cake” and her comment that perhaps that common sense isn’t that common at all.

Next on the agenda was a discussion of the recent CDC report on foodborne disease attribution and how fresh produce is associated with greatest amount of foodborne illness, while poultry is linked to the greatest number of deaths. Don explained how the MDP’s retail sampling results match up reasonably well with actual illness estimates, according to his crude risk assessment. Ben was looking for information on what people could do to reduce the risks, as Don recently shared on WebMD. Ben was also surprise by the amount of deaths associated with norovirus (shown in the Technical Appendix 1 of the CDC report), the majority of which are associated with nursing homes. As the guys dug deeper into the results they unearthed more questions than answers and they cautioned against blindly trusting data.  As Don learned from reading Chumbawuba liner notes.

Ben and Don then discussed the recent Food Safety News article “Does The “No Illnesses” Language Belong in Recall Notices?” and whether the wording impacts on how consumers react.

The focus then turned to the FSIS “Let's Talk Chicken” podcast. The guys found the scripted nature very difficult to connect with. Instead they found CDC’s approach in “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse” much more engaging. Don felt that passion was important in podcasting and cited the Obsession times Voice talk by Merlin Mann and John Gruber at SXSW.  Don also noted that he listens to Neutral, and his new favorite podcast, for the voice, and not the content.

In the after dark the guys chatted about using American Apparel for making T-shirts, creating Food Safety Talk Decals, iPads, Ben’s hockey obsession and 2 Little Superheroes.

Food Safety Talk 33: Fresh Produce and Punk Rock Hippieness

Food Safety Talk 22 – Gut demons, miniature blood Nazis, vampire nanobots and scientific reviewers

The guys started with the usual technical problems but this time they were self-inflicted rather than Skype induced.

Don started off by talking about FSIS Risk Assessment for Guiding Public Health-Based Poultry Slaughter Inspection, which he is currently reviewing. The risk assessment is part of FSIS’ attempt to modernize their meat inspection system. Despite the introduction of HACCP in the mid 90’s, the current system relies on inspecting every carcass for visually observable contamination, obviously missing microbiological contamination, like in Gary Larson’s “Early microbiologists.” The risk assessment was undertaken to assess whether allowing FSIS personnel to undertake off-line inspection verification activities would result in reductions (or at least no increase) in the occurrence of Salmonella or Campylobacter on finished poultry carcasses.

The risk assessment is largely based on a data rich and complicated regression model, which attempts to model the prevalence of Salmonella or Campylobacter from different types of inspections activities. While ultimately nothing is clear-cut, the risk assessment does indicate that moving inspectors from on-line inspection to more risk-based off-line activities will not result in more foodborne illness. However, the coding system used in the risk assessment was turning Don into 'grumpy pants' and reminded Ben of Bingo, and it shows an apparent communication disconnect between those undertaking the modeling and those writing up the risk assessment.

The conversation then turned to FSMA and the delay in the regulations. Ben’s worried that some companies may be holding off on undertaking certain activities until the regulations come out. For example, he thinks that some business may be holding off on training staff until the training standards are better defined. Both agreed that concern for food safety and public health didn’t stop due to the lack of regulations and that any effort expended in planning and thinking about food safety is not wasted. Don is hopeful that even if the FSMA is repealed that the good ideas in FSMA will not be lost, and neither will the activities of the Food Safety Preventative Control Alliance be wasted.

Since the last podcast, Don had been to his favorite restaurant, Moosewood in Ithaca, NY while Ben started his visit to Canada with a trip to Tim Hortons to bask in the Canadian ambiance and slang, such as beauty and giver, eh? Ben also went to Swiss Chalet with his mom and dad. When a child on a nearby table  vomited, Ben’s neurotic father wanted to know whether they should move. But Ben assured him that they were OK, having ulterior motives in mind. One of the kitchen staff then came out of the kitchen to clean up the vomit with a bucket, mop and some cleaning cloths, before disappearing back into the kitchen, clearly not following CDC’s guidelines for cleaning up vomit. Ben was of course aware of the risks associated with airborne Norovirus infection as shown by his Food Safety Info Sheet and his careful reading this article. But he wanted to see how the restaurant handled the cleanup, even at the risk of his own heath and that of his parents!

On the social media front, Don recommended that Ben follow Michele Catalano and John Roderick (from Roderick on the Line) on Twitter. Don was totally in awe of Mike Batz’s Twitter-awesomeness when Mike replied to John’s tweet about the bactericidal effects of coffee with “Coffee kills gut demons, miniature blood Nazis, and vampire nanobots. But not milk devils. Everybody knows this.” Ben is again trying to engage more on Twitter, but he wasn’t impressed with McDonald’s Executive Chef’s video on how to do a Big Mac at home.

The guys then discussed scientific writing. Despite Don’s best efforts he can’t get his students to write better, though maybe collaboration with Michelle Danyluk on “How to write a paper that won’t piss off your advisor” might help. He’d even be happy if students learned to use a reference manager like Sente. Ben is trying out some advice he’d received from Gord Surgeoner during his graduate studies – with a bit of luck it’ll earn him some beers.

While Don is generally happy with his own scientific writing he wasn’t happy with the reviewer of his recent JFP manuscript entitled “Issues to consider when setting intervention targets with limited data for low-moisture food commodities: A peanut case study” which arose out of an ILSI North America sponsored meeting. The reviewer thought that the approach was very simplified and not novel enough. He clearly didn’t understand the complexities of making decisions from limited data – something the smartest people in this field in the country struggled with.

Finally, the guys got excited about the upcoming IAFP meeting, for which Don had done an IAFP webinar for students and IAFP meeting first timers, which was all about how to meet people. Don also offered to a buy a beverage of choice for any listener who mentions to podcast to Don at the IAFP meeting. 

Food Safety Talk 22: Gut demons, miniature blood Nazis, vampire nanobots and scientific reviewers

Food Safety Talk 5: A Medley of Fleetwood Mac

Don and Ben are back in the same time zone and talk a lot about cantaloupe. The episode starts off with a bit of nerdy discussion about Apple products and upgrading to iOS 5. But then the guys talk about food safety, outbreak investigations, social media and messaging. The podcast is available here.

• The muse who Don spoke with.
• Food safety's Weird Al, Carl Winter.
• The band that Ben suggests stringing 6 seconds of multiple songs together for the bump.
• FDA's report of finding one of the three outbreak strains at Jensen Farms.
• Like Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and Alan Thicke - Canada has brought the world notable things, including Listeria in fresh produce.
• Our good friend, who has said that sheep are used as weed control between crops.
• What hydrocooler might look like.
• Listeria dose/response in RTE foods.
• What a cantaloupe encrusted with animal feces might look like.
• The Finnish butter outbreak.
• High fat in chocolate and peanut products has a protective effect on Salmonella.
• Don and Michelle's pathogenic E. coli in leafy greens modelling work.
• A YouTube video of a cantaloupe packing line with the worlds greatest music
• Importance of having chlorine in your wash water when processing leafy greens.
• Absolutely, positively, Listeria-free cantaloupes on sale in Carborro, NC.
• Zach Braff's shining moment, Garden State.
• Edmonton's (which is on the outskirts of Canada) greatest time.
• Don's Skype interview where he was referred to as Canadian.
• Is a consumer really just a consumer? 
• Einstein's advice:  "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler"
• Don on NPR.
• Food safety's small group (IAFP's membership is around 3000).
• Our at least one listener.
• Nerdy app that Ben likes and Don doesn't.
• The competition that swamped Ben and Don with food safety questions from keen high school kids.
• A really nerdy thing Ben participated in high school, and loved it.
• The movie that Ben loved and felt that was the best social marketing for handwashing (that bordered on propaganda).
• The agency that Ben feels does the best job of telling folks what they do.
• Our friend who thinks Ben works at CDC.

A Medley of Fleetwood Mac

Food Safety Talk 3: Be the Ball (Chris Gunter, Guest)

Episode 3 of food safety talk. Don is galavanting around Europe, at least 5 hrs ahead of Ben. Instead of trying to match up schedules the guys decide to have a couple of guests on. Dr. Chris Gunter, vegetable production specialist at N.C. State joins Ben to talk cantaloupe, GAPs and share anecdotes from producers about their concerns around food safety.

• What Don was emailing Ben about from Europe.
• Chris Gunter on Twitter and the NC State Horticulture Dept website.
• Chris' previous institutions Purdue and University of Wisconsin, Madison.
• North Carolina Fresh Produce Safety.
• CDC page on Listeria-in-melons outbreak.
• A list of cantaloupe-linked outbreaks that Ben considers to be a lot.
• Produce association that has someone who is looking for outbreak information on behalf of members.
• Reggie Brown, Florida Tomato Commission.
• Risk assessment of Listeria in RTE foods.
• CDC's explanation of underreporting foodborne illness.
• Markets where buyers typically don't require verification of GAPs.
• The produce meeting that Chris and Ben were at in Florida.
• Sweetpotatoes, a lot of which are grown in North Carolina.
• TGAPs, a law for many tomato producers in Florida.
• One of the industries that Ben worked with in Ontario.
• People that say food safety isn't competitive (ex 1, ex 2).
• A couple of the formulaic checklists that are out there (ex1, ex 2).
• Be the ball (or the bug).

Food Safety Talk Episode 3