Michael Bauer writes the Between Meals column for the San Francisco Chronicle. Yesterday Bauer responded to an e-mail from a reader who had met a friend for lunch one day and explained,

“We both became quite ill an hour or so after we finished our meal.”

The diner wanted to know what to do if the restaurant food made them sick. Bauer responded by saying,

“Most common forms of food poisoning take anywhere from four to eight hours to incubate.”

It is not likely that the two diners were sickened by food eaten an hour before they felt ill.

A handy table from the FDA’s Bad Bug Book shows that the only bacterial foodborne illness known to show symptoms in fewer than two hours is Staphylococcus aureus. (That’s because this particular bacterium produces toxins before it’s even eaten; others don’t produce toxins until they’ve been sitting in your gut for a while.)

Even then, the average time between eating Staph-contaminated food and feeling sick is 2-4 hours. Very few feel sick in just an hour.

A physician commenting on Bauer’s response suggested that the two friends could have been exposed to a gastrointestinal virus earlier in the week that finally showed symptoms after eating at the restaurant together.

Rotavirus takes about two days to make you sick and symptoms of a norovirus can appear in a day or two.

After getting a few more details from the reader, Bauer said,

“I figured that it might have been spoiled fish, since what was consumed was fried and any off flavors might have been masked. However, tracing it back for sure is extremely difficult.”

Depending on the pathogen, a person with a foodborne illness will either start vomiting within a few hours or have diarrhea within a few days. In either case, the last thing you ate is often not the culprit.

A friend of mine, who is now a dietitian, has been keeping a food journal since high school. If she’s ever hit with a foodborne illness—and goes to the doctor, has a stool sample tested, discovers which bug made her sick, and remembers when she started feeling bad—she’ll have an excellent shot at figuring out which food made her sick and where she ate it.

If a sick person can only remember the last place they’ve eaten, though, they’re not considering all the possibilities—including the most likely possibilities.
 

The National Peanut Board is joining Jif and Peter Pan in attempting to save American newspapers by investing in advertizing to woo back skeptical consumers.

In a press release and full-page letter in USA Today on Wednesday (thanks, Margaret – dp) peanut producer pooh-bahs announced they will set up shop in Vanderbilt Hall in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal March 4 and 5 to meet consumers, answer questions and give away samples of peanuts, peanut butter and other peanut items. The event kicks off the farmers’ efforts nationally to rebuild consumer confidence in products made with the crops they grow.

Roger Neitsch, Texas peanut farmer and chairman of the National Peanut Board — the research and promotion board funded by peanut growers, said,

“No one is more deeply disturbed by the recent salmonella crisis than the thousands of USA peanut farmers and their families. We may be peanut farmers, but we also are fathers, mothers, sons and daughters — and consumers. So we understand and share the concerns being experienced these days by families across America.”

But is recruiting celebrity chefs and athletes, while portraying farmers as producers of all things safe, really enough?

Noted science-and-society type, Dorothy Nelkin, noted in 1995 that, efforts to convince the public about the safety and benefits of new or existing technologies -- or in this case the safety of the food supply -- rather than enhancing public confidence, may actually amplify anxieties and mistrust by denying the legitimacy of fundamental social concerns. The public expresses a much broader notion of risk, one concerned with, among other characteristics, accountability, economics, values and trust.

As I’ve said before, the best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.

The makers of Jif and Peter Pan have already gone on record saying they will not disclose their own food safety test results.

Nelkin, D. 1995. Forms of intrusion: comparing resistance to information technology and biotechnology in the USA in Resistance to New Technology ed. by M. Bauer. Cambridge University Press, New York. pp. 379-390.

There was no way Tom Colicchio was going to let the brash Stefan take home the Top Chef honors; he made that apparent with the verbal dressing down of the Finn a few weeks ago.

Carla was all Carla and simply cooked herself out of any serious consideration.

That left Hosea as the champ. Steady, boring, even the food safety issues were minimal.

The most exciting part of the finale is that one of my favorite entertainment blogs, dlisted, picked up a picture I had created for a previous Carla post (below).

The Independent reports that Tesco, Waitrose and well-known health food shops have withdrawn tens of thousands of packets of edible seeds in one of the biggest product recalls in a decade after a survey found "unacceptable" levels of salmonella and E. coli.

One-in-50 packs of ready-to-eat seeds such as sesame and sunflower was found to be contaminated.

The study's authors pointed out that although there was no direct link to the contaminated seeds, 137 people in England and Wales fell ill from six sub-types of salmonella found in the seeds during the six-month study. Many more ill people are likely to have not reported their symptoms to GPs. The Health Protection Agency and the local authority group Lacors, which conducted the study, warned food manufacturers and retailers to improve hygiene during harvesting and drying of seeds.

The study was carried out because seeds – a popular snack among health-conscious shoppers wishing to avoid high-calorie chocolate and sweets – have become associated with at least seven outbreaks of salmonella in countries such as Germany, Norway, Sweden and Australia since 2000.

To gauge levels of contamination here, environmental health officers from 317 local authorities collected 3,735 packets of ready-to-eat seeds from 3,390 supermarkets, health food shops, convenience stores and market stalls between October 2007 and March 2008. They were analysed in 32 food laboratories.
 

Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of food safety at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the national salmonella outbreak linked to more than 2,600 peanut products could last as long as two years, adding,

“We’re really concerned. This is not over yet.”

That’s because peanut products, seemingly harmless as they linger in homes and the marketplace, can have a relatively long shelf life, officials said.

The national outbreak has now sickened 666 people in 45 states and is suspected of causing at least nine deaths.

Karla Cook writes in tomorrow's New York Times that the Peanut Corp of America-linked Salmonella outbreak's reach has not been limited to multi-national companies:

Small businesses in all corners of the United States bought potentially tainted peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America and are now part of one of the largest food recalls ever in this country. There is the chef in Las Vegas, for instance, who used them in protein bars, the packager of nuts and dried fruits in Connecticut, the cannery in Montana that sold chocolate-covered nuts and the ice cream manufacturer in New York State.

While big companies like Kellogg, Kraft and General Mills have the experience and staff to handle recalls, many small businesses have never had to deal with anything like this.
Some have had to keep employees on overtime or hire additional help to handle the recall-related work — records have to be searched to identify and track products, and replacement products manufactured. And company officials say they are spending a lot of time reassuring their customers.
“It’s not our fault this recall went through,” said Tom Lundeen, who co-owns Aspen Hills Inc., in Garner, Iowa, which makes frozen cookie dough for fund-raisers. “We do everything correct and we have an incredibly high level of quality control, and we still have to pay for the mistakes of P.C.A.”

Yep, exactly - this outbreak has demonstrated the complexity and interconnectedness of the food system -- which has largely been built on trust in suppliers or the results of their third-party audits.

Jenny Scott, a microbiologist and vice president of science policy and food protection for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group in Washington, said small businesses need to know their suppliers’ food safety culture and practices, and whether the suppliers are capable of doing the right thing. Last week, she helped teach a Web seminar for 60 participants, “The Ingredient Supply Chain: Do You Know Who You’re in Bed With?” 

Like it was straight out of the pages of barfblog -- although trying to assess the food safety culture and supplier practices is difficult, it's not impossible. Creating and fostering the openess and transparency of food production through marketing food safety, with companies opening their doors can help buyers make decisions.

Benjamin Chapman, food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, went further. “If you’re in the peanut butter industry, you need to be thinking about salmonella,” he said. Learning about suppliers is challenging when the supplier is not local, and the layers of the national food system are difficult to pierce.

The Southtown Star reports that 21 children and one adult have contracted E. coli at a Lemont day care in an outbreak that began earlier this month.

The Cook County Health Department has mandated all children and adults at the KinderCare Learning Center, 12404 Archer Ave., be tested for the bacteria.

The day care center has been allowed to remain open so the children have a place to go and not possibly carry the bacteria to other centers.

Three children associated with the outbreak - linked to a lack of handwashing - were hospitalized but have since been treated and released.
 

Amy and me and baby Sorenne are headed to Boston, leaving Manhattan (Kansas) at 3 a.m. tomorrow. And whatever stresses come along, it’s good to remember the basics.

Amy and me, we like to write, and we make each other better. We also surround ourselves with others who want to do things better.

Michael McCain (right, exactly as shown) may run a $5.5 billion a year company but Maple Leaf Foods has lousy writers. They’ve got the on-line thesaurus to find synonyms like stringent, thorough and rigorous, but the writers utterly fail to explain what this means.

Yesterday, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. reported a fourth quarter loss that narrowed on higher sales and helped by price increases, fluctuations in the Canadian dollar and contributions from acquisitions. Results, however, were impacted by the recall of meat products, contaminated with a strain of listeria bacteria, linked to the illness and death of several consumers.

Uh, 20 dead and at least 56 sick is not several consumers.

The same day, Maple Leaf announced that it is proceeding with a voluntary recall of approximately 1,100 cases of wieners produced at its plant in Hamilton, Ontario because the products were shipped in violation of the company's rigorous food safety protocols. …

Under Maple Leaf's stringent food safety protocols, the Company tests for listeria species, not Listeria monocytogenes. Six species of Listeria exist, but only one, Listeria monocytogenes, has any potential to impact human health. This is an extremely conservative approach as it treats any positive listeria test result with the highest level of corrective actions. Due to human error, a small quantity of wieners produced at the Hamilton plant that were quarantined under these routine enhanced procedures was inadvertently shipped to distribution centres and customers in Eastern Canada. All customers have been notified and product is immediately being removed from inventory or store shelves and returned to the Company.

Why is the Company capitalized? Will the Canadian economy shrivel if one questions the Company? And did Michael McCain call each customer?

"Unlike other situations, this event occurred as a direct result of human error and did not uphold our stringent industry leading protocols." said Michael McCain, President and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods. "Notwithstanding the exceptionally low risk this represents, Maple Leaf is committed to maintaining the most stringent standards and we intend to live by those standards so consumers can have absolute confidence in the integrity of our products. We are taking immediate action and will not condone anything other than strict adherence to our protocols."

That’s a lot of words to say we screwed up, again. But it gets better.

"As we have seen with the wide range of food products which have been recalled to date in 2009, as enhanced surveillance becomes more pervasive in the food industry, positive listeria findings and related recalls will occur more frequently. This should be regarded positively as it provides assurance that the industry and government are acting swiftly to protect public health", said Mr. McCain.

Who is we? What are these food products that have been recalled in 2009? The ones that contain peanut paste shit? Or just listeria ones? Who’s enhanced surveillance? Sara Lee’s Bil Mar unit had a listeria outbreak linked to hot dogs that killed 20 in 1998. Why is Maple Leaf bragging about enhanced surveillance 10 years and another 20 deaths too late?

Maple Leaf has implemented the most stringent food safety system in Canada.

Canada? Where they have visiting U.S. Presidents sign a guest book and worship their vengeful beaver gods with offerings of back bacon and doughnuts (go to 1:25 min in the video below).

As I said in the Toronto Star this morning,

"People, especially kids, eat ... processed hot dog wieners all the time (without cooking them) or just give them a quick zap in the microwave."

Michael McCain, since you’re the face of Maple Leaf, do you let your kids eat processed wieners straight out of the refrigerator? Should there be warning labels on packages of hot dogs not to eat them without cooking to a sufficient internal temperature?

A customer at the Nigerian Kitchen, 1363 W. Wilson, Chicago, called 311 after claiming to see staff using cooking utensils to kill mice.

The restaurant was closed Monday after city health inspectors found mouse feces throughout the restaurant, cockroaches crawling on a wall and wastewater backing up from three clogged sinks in the kitchen.

Inspectors also found a mop sink filled with dozens of tomatoes and green peppers -- cut and whole -- and ordered them discarded,

Chicagoans who believe a restaurant or other licensed food establishment is operating in an unsafe manner are encouraged to call 311.
 

Do you remember how you first heard about the latest round of Salmonella in the peanut butter?  Was it on the evening news, in the paper, or did you hear about it through Facebook or Twitter?  If you’re in the under 30 crowd you might fit into the latter category.  Social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are increasingly being utilized for up-to-the-minute recall information.

During the recent Salmonella outbreak, the United States Department of Health and Human Services - specifically the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - engaged in a heavy social media push to inform citizens about the health risks and product recalls.  As a result, the CDC Social Media Center was created as a central hub for harnessing the power of social networking to spread recall information.

Twitter is one of the sites currently used in the assortment of links.   Twitter allows users to “follow” one another’s “tweets” about what they do during the day.  The website is on the rise among medical professionals and there are accounts for all ranges of industry available.  Why not food safety?

Federal health agencies have been experimenting with new Internet tools, dubbed Web 2.0, that make it easier to deliver information directly to the public. The "Health 2.0" movement got a big boost with the arrival of President Barack Obama, who is pushing federal agencies to use the tools to make the federal government more transparent and participatory.

Current news about FDA recalls can be found @FDArecalls and public health updates from the CDC can be found @CDCemergency. The only snag is you have to sign up in order to receive tweets from the FDA, but hey, its free.  After all, you’re no one if you’re not on Twitter.

 

What is going on in the baseball spring training facilities?  MLB.com and ESPN.com reported yesterday that the Yankees Pitcher and big-time free agent signee, C.C. Sabathia missed time over the weekend with an intestinal virus.

Yankee's Manager Joe Girardi was quoted as saying: "He said he wanted to throw his BP and he ended up throwing up again"

C.C. came back on Sunday and reportedly looked pretty decent against Yankee sluggers Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira.

Sabathia had been scheduled to pitch Saturday, but he was unable to make it to the mound, fighting a virus that he acquired from his children, who had been ill earlier in the week.

Probably a good idea for the Yankees (and maybe all MLB staff) to take a look at our cleaning up vomit/norovirus food safety infosheet.

Update: Sounds like the Astros and Giants  also have some virus control issues.

Last week I dusted off some old slides to talk with an industry group about best practices in food safety. I got bored of hearing myself say the same thing about 10 years ago, but sometimes, it’s best to stick to basics.

Risk analysis is composed of risk assessment, management and communication. Over the years I’ve studied dozens of outbreaks of foodborne illness and concluded that a producer, or processor, or retailer needs to be excellent at all three—assessment, management and communication – and if they fail at just one, they will suffer the economic and associated hardships.

There is no doubt that Michael McCain and Maple Leaf Foods has practiced excellent risk communication since being fingered as the source of a listeria outbreak in Canada that killed at least 20 and sickened 60. I’ve said so from the beginning. I’ve also said that

it is impossible to judge whether Maple Leaf was practicing good risk management and assessment because no one will come clean on who knew what when as the outbreak was developing.

But that hasn’t stopped Canadians from gushing in a blindly patriotic way about how McCain set the ‘gold standard’ for reputational and financial management.

Maybe, but communications alone is never enough, just like science alone is never enough. And precisely because no one – government or industry – has come clean on who knew what when, it’s not surprising to hear

the Canadian federal government has delayed for months the release of notes on conference calls

held at the height of last summer's deadly listeriosis outbreak — a lag some experts say breaks Ottawa's own information laws.

At issue is an Access to Information request by The Canadian Press to the Privy Council Office for “all transcripts and minutes” of the crucial exchanges last August and September.

The Odwalla 1996 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in unpasteurized juice was also textbook risk communication, but the company was eventually revealed to have cut corners and ignored warning signs. Will Maple Leaf undergo similar scrutiny?

Below is an except from my 1997 book, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk, about the Odwalla outbreak.

Sometime in late September 1996, 16-month-old Anna Gimmestad of Denver has a glass of Smoothie juice manufactured by  Odwalla Inc. After her parents noticed bloody diarrhea, Anna was admitted to Children’s Hospital on Oct. 16.  On 8 November 1996 she died after going into cardiac and respiratory arrest.  Anna had severe kidney problems, related to hemolytic uremic syndrome and her heart had stopped several times in previous days.

The juice Anna — and 65 others who got sick — drank was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, linked to fresh, unpasteurized apple cider used as a base in the juices manufactured by Odwalla.  Because they are unpasteurized, Odwalla’s drinks are shipped in cold storage and have only a two-week shelf life.  Odwalla was founded 16 years ago on the premise that fresh, natural fruit juices nourish the spirit.  And the bank balance: in fiscal 1996, Odwalla sales jumped 65 per cent to $60 million (U.S.).  Company chairman Greg Steltenpohl has told reporters that the company did not routinely test for E. coli because it was advised by industry experts that the acid level in the apple juice was sufficient to kill the bug.

Who these industry experts are remains a mystery.  Odwalla insists the experts were the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  The FDA isn’t sure who was warned and when.   In addition to all the academic research and media coverage concerning VTEC cited above — even all of the stories involving VTEC surviving in acidic environments — Odwalla claims ignorance.

In terms of crisis management — and outbreaks of foodborne illness are increasingly contributing to the case study literature on crisis management — Odwalla responded appropriately.  Company officials responded in a timely and compassionate fashion, initiating a complete recall and co-operating with authorities after a link was first made on Oct. 30 between their juice and illness.  They issued timely and comprehensive press statements, and even opened a web site containing background information on both the company and E. coli O157:H7.  Upon learning of Anna’s death, Steltenpohl issued a statement which said, “On behalf of myself and the people at Odwalla, I want to say how deeply saddened and sorry we are to learn of the loss of this child.  Our hearts go out to the family and our primary concern at this moment is to see that we are doing everything we can to help them.”

For Odwalla, or any food firm to say it had no knowledge that E. coli O157 could survive in an acid environment is unacceptable.  When one of us called this $60-million-a-year-company with the great public relations, to ask why they didn’t know that E. coli O157 was a risk in cider, it took over a day to return the call.   That’s a long time in crisis-management time.  More galling was that the company spokeswoman said she had received my message, but that her phone mysteriously couldn’t call Canada that day.

Great public relations; lousy management.  What this outbreak, along with cyclospora in fresh fruit in the spring of 1996 and dozens of others, demonstrates is that, vigilance, from farm to fork, is a mandatory requirement in a global food system.  Risk assessment, management and communication must be interlinked to accommodate new scientific and public information.  And that includes those funky and natural fruit juices.

I never liked the band R.E.M. Everyone who thought they were cool in university was into the supposedly alternative sound of R.E.M. Their first single came out the year I started university as an undergrad, 1981. I was busy catching up on Neil Young and Rolling Stones from the early 1970s, and thought R.E.M. sorta sucked, especially the lyrical nonsense of frontman Michael Stipe. I liked the distorted guitar of What’s the Frequency Kenneth, and the mandolin of Losing My Religion, but the rest blows.

Mario Batali is a celebrity chef in New York who practices terrible cross-contamination when preparing food. I’ve got the video. And he’s showed up in barfblog.

His "Spotted Pig" restaurant in New York was found to have mice and insects. On two prior inspections, there were a high number of critical violations that required inspectors to come back for follow-ups.

So it’s no surprise Sara Barron dishes on her stint waiting tables at a New York eatery she nicknames "Hell," run by a celebrity chef she dubs "Luigi." Of all the celebs who routinely dine at Hell, says Barron, one - nicknamed "[Bleep] Waffle," after the time he demanded blueberry waffles, even though they weren't on the menu - particularly incited the wrath of the staff.

Page Six has learned that "Luigi" is Croc-wearing doughboy Mario Batali, who's been dubbed Fanta Pants because of his bright orange shorts. "Hell" is his eatery Babbo, and "[Bleep] Waffle" is Stipe.

And making overworked cooks run out to buy a pint of blueberries at 3 a.m. was far from Stipe's worst transgression. Barron tells of a time when he and a posse of 19 rolled into Babbo at 12:42 a.m., 42 minutes after the kitchen closed to the public. Stipe refused to directly communicate with Barron, instead delegating a member of his entourage to place his orders. He never said "please" or "thank you," never took his sunglasses off, and refused to go to the bathroom alone, according to the book.

By 5 a.m., says Barron, Stipe and his pals had rung up a tab of more than $2,000. The meal was comped by celeb-obsessed Batali, although Barron of course still expected a tip: "Four [hundred dollars] would be ideal - four would be 20 percent - but since they weren't being presented with a check and didn't seem mathematically inclined, figuring on two was best," she writes.

When the group extinguished its cigarettes and filed out, Barron discovered that they'd left zero: "[Bleep] Waffle had kept our staff of seven on our feet for five extra hours . . . and he did so without tipping."

Not tipping and acting like an asshole. So alternative.

Denver Broncos tight end Tony Scheffler went to the Pro Bowl to tag along with teammates Brandon Marshall and Jay Cutler but was admitted to hospital upon returning.

Testing revealed he was suffering from E. coli, a bacteria that affected his lower intestine. The tight end might have picked up the bacteria during a visit to the Denver stock show, if not during his Hawaiian trek.

Scheffler was released after a three-day hospital stay and is returning to normal.
 

The Calgary Herald reports that the number of complaints lodged by customers against food establishments in the Calgary region has jumped by almost six per cent in three years.

Figures also show a nearly 40 per cent increase in the number of restaurants, bars and grocery stores closed for food violations — ranging from thawing meat to mouse droppings in the kitchen — during the same period.

Last year, health inspectors temporarily closed 93 food outlets until they fixed the problems, according to statistics compiled by Alberta Health Services.

Rob Bradbury, director of environmental health for the Calgary region of Alberta Health Services, was quoted as saying,

“The numbers are huge. Our mandate is to protect public health. It’s a combination of our vigilance during routine inspections and input we receive from the public as a result of complaints.”

I picked up on that last theme during an interview with AM 660 radio in Calgary this morning, stating,

“The technology is out there – the blackberry I’m using to talk with you can take pictures and video. Just go on youtube and see the videos consumers have taken of yucky restaurant conditions.”
 

UK police officers were rushed to hospital after a suspicious substance was thrown through a car window. The Metropolitan Police said officers responded to reports of an "unusual smell" coming from a car with a smashed window in Enfield, north London.

They saw an unknown brown substance inside and those who came into contact with it were taken to hospital.

The officers were released when the substance was identified as HP sauce.
 

The Pennsylvania Department of Health is warning consumers who purchased raw milk from Dean Farms in New Castle, Lawrence County, doing business as Pasture Maid Creamery, LLC, to immediately discard the raw milk due to potential bacterial contamination.

Recently, individuals who consumed raw milk purchased from Dean Farms were found to have gastrointestinal illness due to Campylobacter, a bacterial infection. Since January 23, a total of six confirmed cases of Campylobacter infection have been reported among raw milk drinkers in four unrelated households in western Pennsylvania. The investigation is ongoing.

The Department of Health today recommended the owner stop selling raw milk for human consumption, and the owner has agreed to stop selling at this time. In cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, the dairy is providing raw milk samples to be tested for bacterial pathogens.
 

72-year old David Maupin, right, passed away after contracting Staphylococcus aureus intoxication from an Easter dinner he ate at a Louisville restaurant, according to Wave 33 TV.

On March 23, 2008, Maupin, his wife, brother, and sister-in-law all ate Easter Dinner at the Claudia Sanders Dinner House. Two days later he died.

The restaurant was closed for three days. After an investigation by the North Central Public Health Department, it was determined that hams being served that day were contaminated with the Staphylococcus aureus. Toxins produced when the bacteria grows causes food poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bob Silverthorn, Jr., the Maupin family’s Attornery, said,

"[Y]ou just don't expect to go to your Easter Dinner or whatever and then the next couple of days somebody is gone because of something they ate. “

He continued,

“You know when you do an autopsy, stool sample, death certificate, FDA examination of food products, it all ties this together. I think [the restaurant] is going to have a very difficult time in light of all the scientific data that we have and will be presenting."

Food handlers are usually the main source of food contamination in outbreaks, however equipment and environmental surfaces can also be sources of contamination with Staphylococcus aureus.

Often foods that are not kept at proper temperatures, not kept hot enough (60°C, 140°F, or above) or cold enough (7.2°C, 45°F, or below), provide a good environment for certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus to produce enterotoxins, which in turn cause intoxication if this food is ingested by humans.

The most common symptoms of staphylococcal food poisoning include nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps. The onset of symptoms is rapid, and usually runs a short course, however on rare occasions death from staphylococcal food poisoning has occurred.
 

SunHerald.com is reporting an outbreak of Salmonella at a maximum security prison in Jackson County, Mississippi:

The state Health Department is currently trying to determine what food could’ve caused a salmonella outbreak at the maximum-security jail this week.
The outbreak sent five inmates to the hospital, though only one remains hospitalized, officials said.
Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd said the inmates started getting sick, suffering mostly from diarrhea and abdominal cramps, on Monday, with two the inmates experiencing a low-grade fever. The sheriff said the jail gets its food from an international food services company.

He said the ingestion of peanuts or peanut butter has been ruled out as the possible cause of the illness. He said, so far, officials believe the potentially life-threatening bacterial infection could’ve been caused by some lettuce that the food services company provided and the inmates ingested.
The Sun Herald updates this story in Thursday’s edition.

Lettuce and leafy greens have most often been associated with pathogenic E. coli in outbreaks, but food handlers have been known to shed Salmonella without showing symptoms.

Elizabeth Payne, of the Ottawa Citizen's editorial board, writes that when the president of Peanut Corp. of America was hauled in front of a congressional hearing in Washington last week, Canadians should have been paying attention.

And cringing.

Few things have underlined the gap in the way our two countries approach food safety like the sight of company president Stewart Parnell sitting with arms folded while a congressman, in a theatrical flourish, offered him some of his company's tainted peanut products. Mr. Parnell's company is at the centre of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened 600 people and may have killed eight in recent months.

On this side of the border, Michael McCain of Maple Leaf Foods was named Business News Maker of the Year -- a year in which his company was found to be the source of a listeriosis outbreak linked to 20 deaths and hundreds of illnesses. To be fair, Mr. McCain took responsibility in a way that Peanut Corp. executives did not. He deserved recognition for his compassion and efforts to reassure a rattled public that it was safe to go back to the deli counter.

But that should not be the end of the story. The aggressive effort in the U.S. to quickly get questions answered about the tainted peanut outbreak there is instructive.

Payne goes on to say that already Americans know more about the mechanics and timeline of this salmonella outbreak than Canadians do about the gaps and failures than may have exacerbated the listeriosis outbreak.

Nearly seven months later, Canadians still don't know exactly who knew what when. There have been no answers to the crucial question of whether a quicker response could have saved lives and how a similar tragedy could be prevented or contained sooner. Until we know that, nothing has been learned from the 20 deaths. Instead of answers, we got a PR campaign, tasteless cold-cut jokes and a toothless and too-late investigation into what happened.
 

The folks that run Canada’s largest grocery store chain – Loblaw Companies --are apparently just learning about pest control. They are also learning that consumers can take pictures with their cell phones and can actually use those phones to call local health types.

The Calgary Herald reports that public complaints prompted health inspectors to visit the Westwinds location of the Real Canadian Superstore 17 times in just over a year before it was ordered closed Tuesday after the discovery of live mice, rodent feces and gnawed packaging.

Rick Holley, a microbiology professor in the University of Manitoba's department of food science, believes shoppers have every reason to be squeamish at the thought of mice scampering over produce or gnawing on potato chip bags.

"Mice are vectors for salmonella. They carry it and shed it not unlike chicken, cattle or hogs.”

Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said,

"People might think, 'What's the big deal about a little mouse poop?' But it's an indicator there could be a whole lot else going on.”

The incident comes weeks after a Loblaws store in Toronto -- part of the same company as the Superstore chain -- was shut down after a "heavy infestation"of mice and rats, including droppings on sandwich counters, was found.

Company spokeswoman Inge van den Berg said the two occurrences have prompted the store to revamp its pest control procedures.

A story in Sunday's Washington Post details some of the inner-workings of Peanut Corp of America's operations. One of the interviewees, David Brooks, a former buyer for a snack company, spoke to the culture of the family business:

Even as PCA was rapidly expanding, a former buyer for a major snack manufacturer said the Parnells found success by operating a low-cost business that relied on the cheapest peanuts they could find. They used minimum wage labor and a bare-bones front office.

"The old man [Hugh Parnell Sr.] used to look for distressed situations: Someone over-inventoried or had peanuts from last year that they had to move," said David Brooks, who was a buyer for a snack company that refused to purchase from Parnell because of concerns about sanitation and what he called the "culture" of the family business. "He would aggressively look for these, making phone calls, hunting people down. Stewart grew up in that and was the same way."

On three occasions in the mid-1980s, Brooks inspected PCA's Gorman plant to determine whether to buy its peanut products, he said. Each time, he gave the plant a failing grade.

"It was just filthy," said Brooks, who has since retired from the food business. "Dust was all over the beams, the braces of the building. The roofs leaked, the windows would be open, and birds would fly through the building. . . . It was just a time bomb waiting to go off, and everybody in the peanut industry in Georgia, Virginia and Texas -- they all knew."

Parnell ran PCA from a converted garage behind his home in a wooded, upscale suburb. Earlier this week, kayaks and a covered powerboat sat in the driveway next to the two-story building. A sun-faded banner with a picture of a squirrel hangs nearby from Parnell's house reading "Welcome to the Nut House."

Earlier this week I was on the Gil Gross Program, AM 810 San Francisco, talking about food safety culture, barfblog and our ideas on marketing food safety. Gil was all over the marketing to consumers idea.

Gil got that even if there was more oversight and inspection that something else is needed to push food safety along and was running with the idea that consumers can pressure industry to share more info -- and demonstrate their food safety culture.  I told him that there are lots of consumers looking for and able to handle more information about food safety, just saying that "we have a good food safety system" isn't good enough anymore.  It's time for companies doing a good job on food safety to back it up and open their doors (post test results, put up web cams) and recapture some of the lost trust.  You can listen to the interview here.

And for your weekend peanut butter-related YouTube clip, here's a somewhat creepy video of a The Marathon's 1961 hit, peanut butter (watch until at least 13 seconds into it for the creepiness).

In an op-ed published on Marler Blog today titled, The market for peanuts: Why food in the U.S. may never be safe, Denis W. Stearns seemed to list three reasons why there is little economic incentive for producers to make food that is safer than that of any other producer.

Stearns argued that the culture pervading Peanut Corporation of America was a perfect example of those ideas at work.

1. To begin with, there is no such thing as a “free” market for food…

Consumers want safe food, but cannot tell if a food is hazard-free before purchase and therefore cannot discriminately buy only safe brands.

Stearns referred to a New York Times article that described “the array of poor work conditions and safety flaws” hidden behind the plant’s walls that was not perceived in its products until hundreds were sickened.

2. [R]egulations can impose a predictable cost that companies can meet, but need not exceed.

An incident/outbreak linked to one producer can turn consumers off the entire product-category, regardless of how far above and beyond regulations unassociated producers go to ensure safety.

In the same vein, George Akerlof was quoted as saying “there is an incentive for sellers to market poor quality merchandise since the returns for good quality accrue mainly to the entire group…rather than to the individual seller.”

3. Finally, there is the important issue of traceability—or, in the case of the United States, the stunning lack of it.

If it is not likely that an incident/outbreak will be traced back to the producer responsible, the possibility of making a profit from a contaminated food may be greater than the chance they’ll get caught.

Stearns cited e-mails by Peanut Corp. president Stewart Parnell in which he directed that contaminated produce be shipped: "I go thru this about once a week. I will hold my breath .... again."

Stearns closed with this:

[A]t this point, after outbreak after outbreak after outbreak, is it possible that finally, once and for all, the case for the effective regulation of the food industry has been incontestably made?

I can only hope so.

Because until the market for peanuts—and other food—is made to work for the benefit of the public health, the big profits will continue to go to the companies that cheat, cut corners, and do not care.
 

The Denver Department of Health says three more cases of E. coli have been discovered in the past week in an outbreak believed to have started at the National Western Stock Show, bringing the total number of cases to 23.

Many of the cases are in children along the Front Range, from Boulder to El Paso County.

Several of the sick children go to day care and at least two of the cases appear to have happened after ill children came into contact with other sick children, according to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE).

It is unclear how the E. coli first spread at the Stock Show.
 

Katie Filion will be giving a departmental seminar this afternoon about restaurant inspection disclosure systems, research needs, and how to make them better. Katie’s been accepted into graduate school at Kansas State beginning in May 2009, and is working in my lab until then.

For those in Manhattan (Kansas), Katie’s talk is at 3:30 p.m. in the Practice Management Center, 4th Floor, Trotter Hall, Kansas State University. The slides Katie will be using are available below.

barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/uploads/file/Show me the score - Feb 2009.ppt

After e-mails released in today’s U.S. Congressional oversight and investigation subcommittee hearing revealed the sentiments of Peanut Corp. of America's president, Stewart Parnell, toward the company's microbial testing, the Associated Press reported,

Parnell sat stiffly, his hands folded in his lap at the witness table, as Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., held up a clear jar of his company's products wrapped in crime scene tape and asked him if he would be willing to eat the food.

"Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectively decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U.S. Constitution," Parnell said.

After repeating the statement several times, he was dismissed from the hearing.

Sammy Lightsey, his plant manager also invoked his right not to testify when he appeared alongside Parnell before the subcommittee.

As the hearing opened this morning, the Atlanta-Journal-Constitution reported,

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, admonished company executives sitting in the crowd, saying they could invoke their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify, but that doesn’t protect them from justice if they’re found guilty of wrongdoing.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, was quoted as saying, “This company cared more about its financial bottom line than it did about the safety of its customers.”

According to the AP, the president of one company that tested products for Peanut Corp. spoke to the House panel.

Charles Deibel, president of Deibel Laboratories Inc., said his company was among those that tested Peanut Corp. of America's products and notified the Georgia plant that salmonella was found in some of its peanut stock.

While Peanut Corp., the state of Georgia, and the federal government come under fire for letting salmonella get into roasted peanuts and those peanuts get into hundreds of products, a debate is stirring on the value of revealing the results of microbial testing.

Doug and Ben want manufacturers to show their results to the public, but Georgia's Senate Agriculture Committee just wants them to tell the state.

The Associated Press reported two days ago that the Senate Agriculture Committee was discussing a bill that would "require food makers to alert state inspectors within a day if internal tests show a contaminant in a plant."

According to a New York Times article that day,

Dr. Steven M. Solomon, an official in [FDA's] Office of Regulatory Affairs, said the agency has viewed such disclosures as a “double-edged sword” that might inhibit some companies from testing in the first place.

An AP report yesterday said the committee's chairman, Sen. John Bulloch, "delayed a vote on the measure until later this week as he waits for more industry response."

Meanwhile, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin urged Congress to adopt similar requirements. He told members of a House food safety panel,

"We could have a strong law in Georgia, but if it's not followed by Congress, we could find ourselves in a position of driving out business."

History shows that companies caught without a culture of food safety don't stay in business, anyway. Smart companies know food safety is good business and should be happy to brag about it.

"It is clear that Peanut Corp. of America is not a producer that companies could — or can — rely on for a safe product.”

That’s what Seattle lawyer Bill Marler said after private lab tests show there may have been salmonella at a second plant operated by PCA in Plainview, Texas.

The Texas Department of Health said in a statement the plant temporarily closed Monday night at the request of health officials after the tests found "the possible presence of salmonella" in some of its products.

The Texas closing comes a day after the FBI raided the company's plant in Georgia, hauling off boxes and other material. Agents executed search warrants at both the plant and at Peanut Corp.'s headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., according to a senior congressional aide with knowledge of the raids.

Also today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control upped the sick form Salmonella numbers to 600 in 44 states, along with at least eight deaths.
 

Sometimes I fancy myself a bit of a headlines writer -- so much fun to take pop culture and puns and adjust it to the content.  An op-ed of mine was published in the Raleigh News & Observer today and the headline was great: Companies must come clean on food safety. I didn't write it.

Here's the op-ed:

RALEIGH -- Since last September more than 520 cases of salmonella typhimurium have been linked to products from Peanut Corporation of America. PCA's peanut butter and paste products are used by many food companies and in many products, including Kellogg's, NutriSystem and Luna bars.
It's unknown how salmonella made its way into the peanut butter, but it's a hardy pathogen, and in addition to peanut butter it's been associated with almonds, sesame seeds, tahini and chocolate.
The high-fat content of these foods protects salmonella from the environment and in the gut, so only a small dose is needed to make someone sick. If salmonella is in a product such as peanut butter, there's little that a consumer can do other than to cook the food (envision fried peanut butter crackers).
More than 800 products have been recalled to date, highlighting the interconnectedness of our food system and showing how one company's problem can quickly impact the entire industry (The always prepared Girl Scouts quickly announced that none of their cookies are made with PCA products).
There's now a climate of uncertainty over what to buy, eat and discard -- is all peanut butter unsafe? What about whole peanuts? Some consumers will be vigilant and check the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's searchable database (www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/salmonellatyph.html). Others will just stay away from peanut products altogether.
Naturally, there has been a push for greater oversight of the food industry, with more inspectors and inspections. President Barack Obama has used the salmonella outbreak to announce a review of the FDA's functions.
Inspection is part of the answer, but it's not as though inspectors have magical salmonella-detecting glasses.
Inspectors can help point out where there might be food safety system breakdowns, but what's more important is what happens when the inspectors aren't around.
Can a company identify and address risks associated with its products? Can company officials create an environment in which everyone values food safety and shares the same goals?
A crackdown on the food industry, and the resulting fear of getting caught, might work to change practices in the short term. A better long-term goal is to focus on creating a society that values food safety and compels folks to ask more questions where they buy food, whether at the supermarket, in restaurants or at farmers' markets.
A segment of consumers (especially peanut-butter-product eaters right now) is already looking for more information about food safety. Asking questions creates pressure on the industry to demonstrate a safety culture, where everyone within an organization has shared values about how not to make customers sick.
It's time for the really good companies to step up, open their doors and show everyone how they make sure that outbreaks don't happen to them. Not their inspection or audit results, but a compelling story of how they identify and control risks.
Recapturing lost trust in a chaotic post-outbreak atmosphere could be the biggest return on all our food safety dollars, especially if companies can back it up and start marketing their food safety efforts.
Ben Chapman is a food safety extension specialist at N.C. State University.

“With eight dead and almost 600 sick, it’s a time to be prudent.”

That’s what I told CNN Radio late last night in response to a question about the adverts placed by Conagra Foods Incorporated and J.M. Smucker Company in an attempt to bolster peanut butter sales, which have plunged at least 25 percent since the salmonella outbreak. Oh, and with baby Sorenne around (right, exactly as shown), anything after 9:30 p.m. is late.

“None of these companies are really coming out and saying this is what we do to ensure safety. They say, yeah, we test for salmonella. But are those tests public? They’re not. …

“If you’re a parent packing a lunch and you have all the hectic things going on in the morning, is it really realistic to say, hey, before you put that peanut snack cracker individually wrapped item into your kid’s lunch you’re going to go onto the Internet and check a Web site? I think that’s a bit much. I think it’s prudent to avoid this stuff until we see where this is going.”

The Birmingham Mail in England reported a couple weeks ago that half a dozen expired mice dropped to the floor next to diners at the food hall in a local Selfridges department store.

The rodents were victims of pest contol measures carried out after mice droppings were spotted in a back-of-house area during regular checks.

caterersearch, who reported the story today, says the mice fell out of the ventilation system.

The surprised diners were refunded and the company apologized in a statement for any distress caused by the fallen mice.

Pest control personnel were called out to clear away the remaining mice.

Additionally, a spokesman explained,

“Environmental health officers were called in to make sure the matter was dealt with and doesn’t happen again.

“At their recommendation we have now identified areas the mice may have been coming in and had those blocked off.”

The spokesman added there had been no more incidents and the food hall was open as usual as soon as these steps were taken.

Raleigh ABC 11 reports the possibility of a pathogenic E. coli outbreak at the  Emerald Pond retirement home in Durham, NC. It's early on, when information sometimes get's messed up, but the report says:

A spokesperson from the Durham County Health Department told Eyewitness News the department learned of at least four patients and staff members at Emerald Pond who have the bacterial illness.
Some strands (sic) of the bacteria can cause diarrhea, while others cause urinary tract infections, respiratory illness, pneumonia and other illnesses.
The initial report of E. coli cases was made over the weekend, but the Health Department is just beginning its investigation.
Emerald Pond has closed its dining room as a precaution.
The retirement home said it's cleaning the facility and "precautions are in place."

If the outbreak does happen to be pathogenic E. coli it could get messy for elderly individuals, and is often misdiagnosed.  In a 2006 article published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Reiss and colleagues write:

A growing pool of epidemiological surveys reveals that geriatric populations are at risk of severe manifestations of EHEC O157:H7 infections. A 5-year review of cases in Alberta, Canada, and in Scotland found that morbidity rates, defined as need for hospitalization, in those aged 60 and older were similar to or worse than those in young children. Of 703 patients requiring inpatient medical treatment in Alberta, Canada, during the study period, rates of hospitalization in persons aged 60 and older were nearly twice as high (68.9% of reported cases) as those of children younger than age 5.

Given the absence of fever, and often only the complaint of ‘‘bleeding per rectum,’’ it is not surprising that cases will be initially misdiagnosed as hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, or another source of painless lower gastrointestinal bleeding.

A review of nursing home outbreaks and epidemiological data indicate that nursing home patients are indeed at high risk for EHEC O157:H7 infection and related complications, although common perception may still place EHEC and associated HUS/TTP in the category of a pediatric infectious disease.

The mention of infected staff member(s) puts an interesting twist on things -- raising the possibility that an infected food handler is involved.

Guest barfblogger Don Schaffner sent Doug and I the below picture from one of his favorite blogs,  blame it on the voices. The picture, likely staged, reminded me of something similar I had seen before my food safety geekdom. 

During my first couple of years of university, I used to go to Retro Wednesdays at the Trasheteria, an-aptly named bar next to Sun-Sun's in downtown Guelph. There wasn't any Journey or Foreigner played -- it was early nineties retro with the Beastie Boys and Rob Base, with some Nine Inch Nails mixed in.  Pretty much the same stuff I still listen too.

One of those Wednesday nights, I hit the restroom and saw what I think was a lipstick mark, akin to the Rolling Stones logo, on the lip of the toilet. I returned to my table and sent a couple of my friends in to confirm.  I hadn't really thought of it until Don sent the pic, but maybe we need a "Don't kiss toilets" website.

Have Americans become so self-absorbed they have to call 911 when food is not to their liking?

First it was a dude in Jacksonville, FL, who called 911 because he didn’t like the way his Subway sandwich was prepared. He could have just called Jared.

Last year, someone called 911 because she couldn’t get a cheeseburger.

On Friday, a man in Boynton Beach, FL, was arrested and charged with abuse of 911 communication after calling to complain that a local Burger King in did not have any lemonade.

If I was going to call 911 on Burger King it’d be related to that mascot that looks like a creepy Thunderbirds-clone
 

Shelly Awl, a clerk at a gas station on Cheshire Bridge Road in Atlanta, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday,

“It’s so confusing. I wish they would communicate better what is safe and what is not.”

At a gas station in North Fulton, Karan Singh eyed with suspicion a pile of energy bars, cookies and snacks that had been laid at the check-out counter for purchase, telling a customer,

“I don’t think I should sell these to you. These might not be good.”

While many stores — particularly major supermarkets — appear to be keeping up with the recalls, smaller stores seem to be less consistent, according to some spot checks by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The salmonella outbreak linked to a South Georgia peanut-processing plant has spawned one of the largest product recalls in American history. The list of products that are off-limits has risen to 1,550, with new names coming out daily.

However, at Publix stores, spokeswoman Brenda Reid said recall alerts from suppliers and the FDA are immediately e-mailed to stores, which then have three hours to respond that they have removed the recalled item from the shelf. If it’s not accomplished, company managers continue to contact the store and will even send a representative there. District managers also check during their visits, she said.

The recalled item is also logged into the store’s computer, so if a customer finds one, the cashier will be alerted and will not be able to ring it up, Reid said.

Kroger stores are alerting customers who have a Kroger Plus Card of any recalled purchases through automated phone calls.

And in a feature tomorrow, the Journal-Constitution reports federal food regulators describe the 2007 Peter Pan peanut butter salmonella outbreak traced to a Georgia plant in 2007 as “a wake-up call.” But that realization did not lead officials to scrutinize at least one other peanut processor: the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely.

They didn’t even know the plant made peanut butter.

The FDA first learned of possible salmonella contamination at ConAgra four years ago — two years before officials traced hundreds of illnesses to Peter Pan.

In early 2005, an anonymous tipster told the FDA that ConAgra’s internal testing had detected salmonella in a batch of peanut butter the previous October, agency records show. Company executives confirmed the test results to an FDA inspector but refused to turn over lab reports unless the agency requested them in writing. The inspector left the plant, records show, and never again requested the reports.

Congressional investigators later learned that FDA policy discouraged written document requests. Federal courts, the FDA said, had ruled that if manufacturers turned over material in response to a formal request from the government, those documents could not be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution against them.

But in the vast majority of cases, investigator David Nelson told a House subcommittee in 2007, the FDA pursues neither documents nor criminal charges. Nelson termed the agency’s actions “nonsensical.”

The FDA cited no violations following the 2005 inspection in Sylvester, said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for ConAgra, which is based in Omaha, Neb. Long before the inspector arrived, Childs said, the plant had destroyed the contaminated peanut butter.

This is why when companies claim they test for Salmonella, like in this ad for Jif (upper left, thanks Barb) that ran today, it’s sorta meaningless without some sort of public disclosure or oversight.
 

I love living in North Carolina. The weather is awesome (it's going to be 70 on Sunday), the BBQ is awesome and, today, we have the best Hooters kitchen crew in the U.S.

Hooters Corporate put out a press release congratulating the Concord, NC franchise on having the 2008 Kitchen Crew of the year.  The press release says that the selection criterion was based on more than their ability to shake chicken wings. The crew was also evaluated on food safety awareness, performance and productivity.

Cool, positive consequences for food safety awareness. Although awareness doesn't always translate into practice, it's a start. It demonstrates to the staff in the organization that food safety is something they should all value (and a prize is a nice incentive).

The prize?  Some cash, a title belt and ....... custom belt buckles.  Awesome. 

The kitchen crew was presented with $10,000 cash, (to divide among the kitchen staff by tenure) as well as custom belt buckles and a HKCY title belt which will hang in the restaurant until next year's winner is announced. The crew will also receive a feature in Hooters Magazine. In total the Concord Hooters kitchen crew received $20,000 in cash and prizes between the annual and quarterly winnings.

"We have an amazing kitchen crew in Concord," said Skip Pray, Regional Manager for Hooters of America, Inc. "It is nice to see them share the limelight with the Hooters Girls and be recognized and rewarded for their hard work."

I've been to Hooters a few times. I've never really liked the food, but I guess that's not the point.  While I explore the state, I'm going to make sure I stop in Concord, NC and snap a pic of the title belt (and a pic of their inspection score).
 

In apparent good news for the rest of the American food industry, the folks at Peanut Company of America appear to be douchebags acting on their own after Food and Drug Administration types on Friday said the Blakely, Ga., plant actually shipped Salmonella-positive products without even shopping for a second negative result.

The company has denied any wrongdoing in the salmonella outbreak linked to at least eight deaths and 575 illnesses in 43 states. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. More than 1,550 products have been recalled.

Also on Friday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the recall of salmonella-tainted peanut products shows the need to modernize the U.S. food safety system and ultimately create a single inspection agency.

“We need a single agency that’s working in a modern framework. We don’t have that today.”

The push for a single food agency is a political distraction: the only actions that matter are the ones that will reduce the number of sick people.
 

With at least eight dead, 575 sick and 1,200 products recalled because of Salmonella in peanut thingies, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee began hearings yesterday to figure out the peanut butter solution.

Some want jail time for company execs; more inspectors; public oversight of microbial test results; a single food inspection agency; better auditors, and so on.

Maybe the 1985 movie, The Peanut Butter Solution, had it right. Or late 1960s psychedelic band, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Or the B-side to the Jimmy Buffett tearjerker, He Went to Paris, from the 1973 album, A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, "Peanut Butter Conspiracy."
 

“They called me crazy at Masters and Johnson. But I’ll show them.”
The demented Dr. Bernardo from Woody Allen’s 1972 film, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).

A week ago I asked, with all the recalled products related to Samonella in peanut paste, what problems did the third-party auditors uncover and what was done about such problems?

A few weeks ago, Chapman and I wrote that,

Third-party audits are an incomplete form of verification that provide a limited view of a producer’s facilities and documentation but do not effectively reduce risk. …At some point, folks will figure out that all these outbreaks of foodborne illness – like Salmonella in peanut butter – happened at places that passed so-called independent audits.

Ten years ago, I told the Ontario greenhouse tomato growers they should have their own in-house food safety expertise to help farmers produce safe product and to market the program, with test results, to buyers and consumers.

They said I was crazy.

This morning, the N.Y. Times and USA Today are reporting that Peanut Corporation of America, the Blakely, GA firm at the epicenter of the Salmonella shit storm, had “regular visits and inspections” of its Blakely, Ga., plant in 2008, not only by federal and state regulators but by independent auditors and food safety companies that made “customary unannounced inspections.”

Kellogg's auditor, the American Institute of Baking checked out Peanut Corp. of America's Blakely, Ga., plant in 2007 and 2008 and gave it superior ratings both times.

"That's frightening," says Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Andrew Martin of the Times writes that,

Peanut Corporation of America’s statement was released as food manufacturers and public health officials tried to determine how so many inspectors missed what some have said were obvious problems at the plant, including improper sanitation procedures, live roaches, mold and slimy residue on floors and equipment.

Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg, said,

Had Kellogg known of the problems at the plant that the Food and Drug Administration detailed recently, “we would have discontinued the relationship with P.C.A. immediately and would not have accepted any ingredients from them.”

Jim Munyon, president of AIB International, based in Manhattan, Kan., said the company would not have received a superior rating if his auditors had seen the filth the federal government described.

“It would mean that we didn’t see it on the day we were there. What goes on the rest of the time, we don’t know.”

He did say that AIB wouldn't see internal test results unless PCA shared them. "They show us only what they want to show us," he says.

Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said the salmonella outbreak at Peanut Corporation of America showed the “fallacy” of independent audits, which are commonly used to verify food safety, animal welfare claims and organic production methods. While the intent might be good, he said, the results are usually withheld from the public.

“Companies say they do all this testing. Great. Show us the data. They won’t. Given all the outbreaks, why should we believe them?”
 

VfL Wolfsburg's German Under-21 international Ashkan Dejagah is facing a "very long time" on the sidelines after being admitted to a specialist hospital in Hamburg to undergo treatment for hepatitis A.

Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath said,

"It is very unfortunate and he will be sidelined for a very long time. We wish him the swiftest of recoveries."

No word on how the virus was contracted – food, water or otherwise.
 

The Globe and Mail reports today that a rejected shipment of Peanut Corp of America's (PCA) chopped peanuts last spring led to the recall of almost 200 products in Canada and over 800 in the U.S.

The Globe article says:

A customer in Canada rejected the peanuts, an act that may have saved lives here, and prompted officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to turn their attention to sanitary conditions in the Blakely, Ga., peanut plant at the centre of the outbreak.

As Fred Willard so succinctly puts it in A Mighty Wind:  "I don't think so".

It's more likely that the 500+ illnesses and the 8 deaths linked to PCA's peanut butter products (not the customer-rejected peanuts -- in April 2008) led to the recall.

And overstating how great the system works (which happens all too often, akin to safest food in the world) when lots of other companies in Canada have used the peanut butter products is not all that reassuring.  I know there is a lot of anti-America sentiment around the economic stimulus/protectionism stuff, but a Canadian company rejecting that shipment did not save the day and halt this outbreak (which is still classed as active) or start the recall. Sure the rejected shipment is part of the picture, but no one got really excited before the Salmonella illnesses started showing up. 

That's right.

Green bean casserole is one of my favorite dishes.  Lots of people serve it as a side dish, but it always ends up being the main course for me.  It’s a typical staple at our family Thanksgiving dinners, so much so that I decided to bring my own GB casserole to Doug’s Canadian Thanksgiving.  I’ve never had any food safety problems (that I know of) with my casseroles, but unfortunately a woman in Utah had quite a nasty surprise when she went to make her GB casserole.  A dead rat head in the green beans ruined a Super Bowl green bean casserole in Texas.  Even more disturbingly, the company that produced the green beans is a repeat offender.  A can of Allen’s Italian Green Beans was found to contain a rat head back in June, along with another report in 2007 from Utah.

But don’t worry about the rat head.  It’s “commercially sterile.”  Though high temperatures for cooking (265 degrees) ensure that the product is free from bacteria, the appearance of rat heads in a vegetable product is unsettling for most consumers.  The fact that there have been three reports of rat heads in this particular brand of green beans should cause a big blip to appear in anyone’s food safety radar.

Unless Allen’s Canned Vegetables wants to start listing “dead rat” on it’s ingredient list, a thorough cleaning and inspection of the packing facility is in order.

 

Eat Me Daily looks like a decent enough food blog that found a chicken producer doing what I told the Ontario greenhouse vegetable growers they should be doing 10 years ago: if not marketing food safety directly, at least provide information for those who care, in the form of a url that the inquisitive type could follow up on at home.

So we were at the grocery store this weekend, and came across a Murray's Chicken with a sticker on it with a Farm Verification code, offering to let us "find out where this chicken came from and learn more about the family that raised it." … It even hooks into the Google Maps API to show you exactly where the farm is on a map. … Our code, 0289, revealed that our chicken was raised at 1020 Alvira Rd in Allenwood, PA 17810 by David Bowers. Hats off to you Mr. Bowers, that was one tasty chicken.

I agree with Eat Me Daily. Awesome. And one day, I will be cool.

Daniel Amey, 30, thought he had scratched himself until he noticed his finger was swelling up.

The Telegraph reported yesterday he was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered part of a scorpion's tail in his finger.

Mr Amey (right, photo from telegraph.uk.com), who works at The Food Company said,

"I put my hand in the box and thought I had cut it but by the time I was carrying the bananas, my finger had swollen up to twice its size and it felt like it was burning. The doctor was ex-Army and he knew straight away that it was a scorpion as there was a single impact wound from the sting. He told me that if it had been the other kind of scorpion from Africa, I would have been dead within 15 minutes.”

The greengrocer returned to work the same day but says he will be more cautious when unpacking bananas.
 

A former employee of the Georgia peanut plant at the center of a criminal investigation in a nationwide salmonella outbreak told CBS News he saw a rat dry-roasting in a peanut area.

Jonathan Prather, one of 50 people who lost their jobs last month when the Peanut Corporation of America shut down its plant in Blakely, told Early Show national correspondent Jeff Glor the facility is dirty.

"Roaches get up there in the dry roast. Some of them blend in with the peanuts. You'd never know they're there.” … (There were) "plenty of holes in the roof, throughout the roof. And when it rained, water just came through the whole plant."

Prather says it saddens him that many people have been impacted by the salmonella, adding he's speaking out now because his mother always raised him to tell the truth.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler told The Early Show Tuesday,

"... The problem is we don't have a system of preventive controls. We're always reacting in this country. It's always chasing the horse after it's out of the barn. …  We have the safest food system in the world, but that doesn't mean it can't be safer. And each of us has responsibilities. Making sure that our food is well-cooked, good hygiene, those things are still important. … (Our food is) certainly safe, but our system is broken. And it needs to be improved, and it needs to be improved quickly."

Not sure what the basis is for the good doctor’s safest-food-in-the-world bit. Are rats in the roaster part of the equation?

Chapman and I have thrown around the idea that one of the reasons Canadians seem complacent about foodborne illness – despite several high-profile devastating outbreaks – is the availability of public health care. If someone loses a kidney because of E. coli O157:H7 or a liver because of hepatitis A, the cost is borne by the system. In the U.S. those without health care coverage would be out $100,000 – at a minimum. So Canadian lawsuits are kept to a minimum, media coverage remains stagnant, and everyone goes back to sleep.

As Jim Romahn wrote in Dec. after a $27 million settlement for victims in the Maple Leaf listeria outbreak that killed 20 and sickened hundreds was announced, CEO Michael H. McCain is a wily strategist.

For $27 million, tops, he has bought freedom from a court case that could have proven highly embarrassing to Maple Leaf. The ongoing coverage could well have become the final nail in consumer confidence in Maple Leaf products. The lawyers were sure to ask who knew what and when. They were sure to ask about the degree of plant contamination as the company continued to ship products, failing to first hold them for testing and clearance.

What does that $27 million buy?

• Someone who was ill for up to 48 hours would receive $750

• Up to a week receives $3,000

•Up to two weeks receives $5,500

• Up to a month receives $8,000

• If listeriosis led to a secondary infection that didn't cause ongoing symptoms, such as meningitis or pneumonia, the settlement is $35,000

• If listeriosis caused sustained or permanent symptoms, the settlement is $75,000 plus $750 for each day of hospitalization

• If secondary complications affected the nervous system and caused “serious and permanent impairment of physical and/or mental function,” payment is $125,000 plus $750 for each day of hospitalization. A family member who was affected psychologically could receive $10,000.

• A death would lead to a $120,000 payment to the victim's estate. A spouse would be eligible for an additional $35,000, while children could receive $30,000, parents could receive $20,000 and siblings or grandchildren could receive $5,000. Funeral expenses up to $13,500 would also be covered.

• Anyone who “sustained psychological injuries or trauma for up to 60 days” after eating tainted meat, without any injuries, could receive up to $4,000.

• Anyone who was at particular risk, such as pregnant women and the elderly, but did not become ill could receive up to $6,000 for psychological trauma that lasted up to 60 days.

• If psychological symptoms lasted more than 60 days, compensation is set at $13,500.

• Those in the vulnerable group who experienced psychological symptoms for more than 60 days could receive $17,500.
 

Deciphering recall information is tough for the regular consumer.

Automated phone calls to shoppers have been appreciated. Pictures of products have also helped to clear things up.

But it seems that retailers need some assistance accessing and utilizing recall information to better aide consumers.

Recalled products were found on grocery and convenience store shelves after:
- Salmonella bacteria were discovered in Veggie Booty snacks,
- botulinum toxin was found in Castleberry’s chili,
- Topps meat was recalled due to E. coli contamination,
- Listeria monocytogenes was detected in Maple Leaf deli meats, and
- dairy products were found to contain melamine.

Growing up, my brother Skyler had an awesome Batman alarm clock. When it was time to get up, the Bat-Signal would shine on the ceiling and a voice would say, “Gotham City is in trouble; call for Batman!” It was a great call to action.

I think the citizens need another hero: The Recaller.

Along with a handful of producers, some grocery retailers have specialized personnel on staff to manage food safety issues.

Barry Parsons fills that role for the three Stauffers supermarkets in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

When he gets news of a recall, Parsons says,

"Twenty minutes to a half an hour and it's off the shelf."

POW. BAM. WHAP. The threat is negated.

My bother Jesse (currently a third grader) found a hero in Spiderman.

All the aforementioned recalls have shown that the production and distribution of food today has the power to reach and—positively or adversely—affect many, many people. And you know what Uncle Ben says about great power….

"There's a lot of responsibility being in the food business," Parsons said. "I really care about this.

"Because it could be a child. I've had children myself. Imagine if your child got sick. How would you feel as a parent? The elderly — they're susceptible. My parents are in their 80s. That really hits me."

That’s what I see as a culture of food safety.

The superhero I favored was a good guy from Kansas: Superman.

(At right: Dean Cain's costume from 'Lois and Clark' was on display alongside old mining equipment and [representative] boxes of stored film reels at the  Kansas Underground Salt Museum when Bret took me last year.)

The Pennsylvania Recaller says of his position,

"You've really got to be dedicated to it, and you've really got to have a sense of caring.

"You've got to say, 'No matter what's going to happen, I'm going to make sure my customers are safe, my employers are safe.'

"This is not something I do as a job. It's just what I do. It's who I am."
 

I first heard the term Vegemite near the beginning of the worst decade of music ever, in 1981’s hit, Down Under, by Men at Work.

He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich.

What’s a Vegemite?

This was the old days – before public access Intertubes and Google and Wikipedia.

I’ve since learned, and wiki confirms, that Vegemite is made from leftover brewers' yeast extract, a by-product of beer manufacturing, and various vegetable and spice additives. The taste may be described as salty, slightly bitter, and malty - somewhat similar to the taste of beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky, much like peanut butter. It is not as intensely flavoured as British Marmite and it is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite. Fred Walker's company first created and sold Vegemite in 1922.

The New Zealand Herald reports if the Australian Government has its way, Vegemite could be banished from supermarket shelves because of its high salt content.

A preventive health task force, set up by Canberra to examine ways of tackling Australia's obesity problem, has canvassed the idea of taxing foods high in fat, sugar and salt. Although its final report is not due until June, the Australian Food and Grocery Council is already warning that Vegemite is under threat.

The Australian online news website Crikey suggested the Vegemite controversy had been cooked up by the industry body as a pre-emptive strike.

Below, a fine example of just how bad popular music became in the 1980s. Oh, and did anyone catch the worst band ever, Journey, performing their 1981 – what a terrible year – power ballad, Don’t Stop Believin’ for Super Bowl tourists as part of the pre-game show in what could only be termed a tune-up for their upcoming State Fair extravaganza? And Springsteen sucked. He usually does.
 

WKRP in Cincinnati station manager Arthur Carlson once asked Andy and Jennifer to pose for a fundraising calendar, or something.

Arthur: This year’s theme? Surf City USA.

Jennifer: In Cincinnati, Ohio?

Similarly, I never thought of Chattanooga, Tennessee, as a beacon for raw oysters. But, the local health unit reports that three unassociated groups of people who ate oysters at The Boathouse Rotisserie and Raw Bar (located at 1011 Riverside Dr.) became ill. A total of 19 people reported illness after eating at the restaurant between Monday, Jan. 12, and Sunday, Jan. 18, and developed symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea 12-40 hours after eating. The majority of those ill reported eating raw oysters.

Following standard protocol, the Health Department conducted an investigation to determine the cause of the illness. The establishment fully cooperated with the Health Department’s procedures. Inspection of the restaurant along with interviews with and testing of foodhandlers at The Boathouse Rotisserie and Raw Bar did not implicate those persons or the restaurant as a source of infection.

Seventy-five percent of those tested were positive for norovirus. Confirmed by the Food and Drug Administration, the illnesses have been linked to raw shell oysters harvested off of the coast of Mississippi. Under advisement of the FDA, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources is advising consumers not to eat oysters harvested from Conditionally Approved Area 2 “C” Shellfish Growing Waters in Mississippi from Jan. 5-9. These oysters may be contaminated with norovirus. …

Oysters cultivated in coastal areas close to human activities can be contaminated by human sewage, which can spread different types of viruses, including noroviruses.