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Food Safety Talk 40: All in on Boogers

Added on by Ben Chapman.

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.

 

Food Safety Talk 26: We’re out of the lag phase!

Added on by Don Schaffner.

Ben and Don started the podcast with a discussion about Lego. Ben has finally started his homework – watching Episode 1 from Season 1 of The Wire. This evolved into a discussion of music, including Tom Waits, Neil and Pegi Young’s Annual Bridge School Benefit Concert and the Kronos Quartet. Then Don had little Skype hiccup, which turned out to be pibcak.

The guys then turned their attention to food safety and Don started it off with a mention of Back to Work, Episode 85: "Schrödinger's Soap Holder", which focused on safely navigating a public restroom with or without hot water, soap and paper towels. After a short sports excursion, including a walk down “No-Hockey Lane” (which apparently had Michele Catalano fired up) the guys found their unique spiritual connection… through peanut butter, but not jelly.  Andreas suggested Aussie Rules in the event there is no hockey.

The discussion then focused on the current peanut butter related illness outbreak and related recalls. Ben wondered allowed how a regulatory agency might determine the period of production that is to be recalled. Don guessed that it was related to the company being able to document the last comprehensive cleanup. A potential difficulty for this relates to the use of rework, as seen with the ever-expanding Hudson beef recall. While knowing how recall decisions are made may not be of interest to everyone, but Ben noted that this information would be useful to other companies who face recall decisions in the future.

Ben then asked about the magnitude of the risk of Salmonella in peanut butter as he hadn’t seen any published risk assessment. Don guessed that it was low (relative to many types of produce) because the Microbiological Data Program 2009 data summary didn’t show any Salmonella detections in 1542 peanut butter samples. Don then raised the issue that the MDP recalls were never or rarely linked to outbreaks. He was particularly interested in this because of an upcoming talk he was preparing, in which he combined prevalence estimates from the MDP 2009 data, under-reporting estimates from the Scallan et al article, and a rough dose-response estimate. Don’s reasoning indicates that it’s not surprising that the MDP program would result in detections (and hence recalls) that aren’t linked to outbreaks.

Using the example of cilantro, which had many detections of Salmonella reported in the 2009 MDP data, Ben noted that he would really like to know more about where and how the hazard is introduced into the product. Don then suggested that a better way of reporting the MDP results would be to report the positive rate, rather than just the number of positives, as clearly the denominator is important.

Ben then mentioned the current large norovirus outbreak in Germany, where more than 8400 children have shown symptoms. Ben hypothesized that it might be related to water in a fresh produce washing and packing plant.  Turns out he might just be right since frozen strawberries have now been implicated. Ben wasn’t sure whether a surveillance program like the MDP would ever detect viruses in fresh produce, and while he accepted the utility of the MDP he was also sure that it could be improved.

Ben then discussed his recent experience of visiting Jeanne Gleeson, Barb Chamberlain and their army of programmers, who produced Ninja Kitchen. He was talking to them about producing stop motion animations to illustrate how and where hazards are introduced into the fresh produce supply chain – from farm to the consumer. Ben is keen on using these for educational presentations to producers as well as consumers shopping at farmers markets. This reminded Don of the norovirus cross-contamination modeling work his student Di Li is working on, and also the excellent videos of Jim Mann from Hand washing for Life.

Then Don offered to send a free FoodSafetyTalk.com fridge magnet/thermometer to listeners who contact him via email or Twitter. He’s also using them for distribution at MaxFunCon East with the aim of increasing listener numbers, which has just exited the equivalent of the bacterial lag phase.

In the After Dark Ben announced that he was going to watch some more of The Wire and then proceeded to assign Don some homework – to watch Canadian TV Series "The Newsroom".

Food Safety Talk 26: We're Out Of The Lag Phase!

Food Safety Talk 16: Gun with a Bang Flag

Added on by Don Schaffner.

The show starts with a discussion of Canadian culture, including hockey, the Canadian national anthem, and the Tragically Hip, and then in quick succession, BLN, Rush, Neil Young, The Band, and Tim Horton's Coffee. 

No self-respecting podcast would neglect the preliminary requisite discussion of Skype, the resolutionary New iPad, favorite apps like Omnifocus, or favorite games like W.E.L.D.E.R.

A brief discussion of the merits of Multitasking during teleconferences occurs before the guys briefly revisit pink slime and then launch into their main topic on home canning food safety.

Home canning of green beans always should use a USDA approved recipe. And remember: there are no safe options for canning Vegetables in a boiling water canner! Why do some people not get sick when foods are improperly canned? Well, it comes down to probability, and like Barbie sort of said "probability is hard." And when your number comes up, it's not just a sign that says bang, in fact it's quite serious.

While it is true that heat does denature bot toxin, that is probably not a good food safety management strategy. A good quality management strategy for home or commercially canned foods is first in, first out stock rotation. The bottom line? When in comes to C. botulinum, don't play too close to the edge.

From the discussion of canned foods, Don moves on to discuss his recent trip to Thailand, funded in part, thanks in part to Mark Robson. He goes on to comment on the safety of street food, and his ideas for research. Because after all, how will he know what he thinks until he sees what he says? The safety of street food is a popular topic in the Journal of Food Protection, although our pal Linda Harris has yet to publish on the safety of roasted chestnuts.

The guys briefly remark that they are glad the FSPCA website is finally live. Too bad they didn't use squarespace.

When Ben mention's his opus, Don first think's he is talking about a penguin. Ben clarifies that he isn't talking about a musical work, or other excellent works by Richard Dreyfuss, but instead is talking about the Ottawa Lunch Lady and some of their recent problems.

In the after dark, Don tells Ben again how much he liked Ben's comment on too many cooks in the kitchen.

Gun With a Bang Flag