App

  • Smartphone to brag about food safety?

    Posted: April 3rd, 2011 - 1:48pm by Doug Powell

    My colleagues have wonderful toys.

    I can’t complain, I prefer the 17-inch MacBook Pro because I write and edit and read a lot, but Chapman and Amy and Gonzo, they’re all about their iPads and iPhones and gizmos. They figure out how it works and then can explain it in Doug-speak if I need something.

    So I’m not sure how Food Quality magazine ended up asking me about the new NEC smartphone app for tracking produce pedigrees, but I suggested, why not make an app to promote food safety.

    “If you’ve invested a lot in food safety, why not brag about it?”

    According to the Food Quality article, the technology works much like fingerprinting, because the visible characteristics of most produce are as uniquely identifiable as a person’s prints. Growers can snap a photo of their fruits and vegetables as they’re harvested and give them a unique identifier. When NEC tested the system on 1,800 Andes melons, it claims, the error rate was just one in one million.

    According to a news release from NEC, the technology will eliminate the need for RFID (radio frequency identification) and barcodes and significantly reduce costs for produce businesses when it is released commercially within two to three years.

    “I think it would be an ideal way to show people your organization’s food safety commitment before an outbreak happens,” Dr. Powell said. “People buy organic, local, natural, sustainable because they think it’s safer, but it’s not necessarily so.”

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    app, Batman, food safety, joker, NEC, nicholson, Produce, smartpohne, tracking, wonderful toys
  • There may be an app for that: barcodes for background info on restaurant grades

    Posted: February 23rd, 2011 - 10:34am by Doug Powell

    I’ve always been a fan of layered levels of information: with food, most people just want to go shopping or eat out, others want minimal levels of info – like scores on doors for restaurant inspection, and some want the who-do-you-think-you-are routine for every tomato consumed.

    So now that New York City has embraced letter grades on doors, and discovered people like having access to information, the health department is considering adding bar codes that can be scanned by cell phones, allowing diners to see the violations behind the establishment's rating.

    There may soon be an app for that.

    Spokeswoman Erin Hughes told the New York Daily News, "The Health Department is exploring the possibility of putting bar codes on restaurant letter grades that would take consumers directly to a restaurant's latest [inspection] results."

    The Health Department puts the details behind the A, B or C grades online, but bar codes would make that information easily accessible at a restaurant's door.
    It's among a host of efforts the city is considering as it looks for ways to put more information in people's palms.

    "People can communicate and get information in ways that they never could before," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.

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    app, Bar Code, Disclosure, food safety, grade, restaurant inspection
  • Socializing for the holiday – food safety style

    Posted: November 24th, 2010 - 8:29pm by Doug Powell

    Michéle Samarya-Timm, a registered environmental health specialist with the Somerset County Department of Health in New Jersey (represent) writes:

    Thanksgiving Day, as its name implies, is a time to give thanks. Many of us will travel far and wide to be with those who are important in our lives – you know – those whom we have been texting and Facebooking all year. In Thanksgivings past, socializing meant gathering with friends, family, loved ones and straggler students to share good food and good times. These days, being social around the holiday dinner table also takes on the meaning of regularly corresponding to all and sundry (a.k.a. our extended friends) about the food, the people, the football game, and the current goings on.

    Modern technology and connectivity can be a wonderful thing for holiday fun.

    Through sites like YouTube and Hulu, we can relive our favorite virtual Thanksgiving food safety moments –

    “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” (WKRP) www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FXSnoy71Q4

    “I can't cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast.” (A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving)
    www.hulu.com/watch/193930/a-charlie-brown-thanksgiving

    “If I cook the stuffing inside the turkey, is there a chance I could kill my guests?” (The West Wing).
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TcGEcKjSu4

    Ever consider that the same modern technology and connectivity can also function as an essential ingredient to safely feed ourselves and others. No one wants to relive Thanksgiving dinner ad nauseum. Surely we all have stories about Thanksgivings that didn’t quite go as planned…Why take a chance that this year will top them all?

    With electronic media and the web, we have everything we need at our fingertips, through on-demand videos, online metasearches, and virtual recipe collections. This year, put your laptops and iPhones to good use and avoid kitchen and food safety disasters by expanding your social network to include a few essential friends.

    Share info on your favorite food safety apps with your loved ones – both those next to you and those virtually connected. Along with forwarding tidbits about Uncle’s Bob’s latest joke, or debating the aesthetic value of melting marshmallow peeps on sweet potatoes, you can help assure that while Thanksgiving gatherings may wreak havoc on the nerves, digestive systems won’t be affected.


    Selected web apps:
    Ask Karen: www.fsis.usda.gov/food_safety_education/ask_karen/index.asp
    Butterball mobile site: www.butterball.com/tips-how-tos/turkey-experts/mobile-site
    bites – Safe Food from Farm to Fork http://bites.ksu.edu/

    Traditional phone:
    Butterball Turkey Hotline: 1-800-288-8372
    Reynolds Turkey Hotline: 1-800-745-4000
    USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline: 1-800-535-4555
    Doug Powell: deliberately unlisted ☺ 785-317-0560

    Michéle Samarya-Timm is thankful for the many unnamed professionals who work to assure a safer food supply.

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    app, culture, food safety, Information, Turkey, wireless