Amy went to France the other day and I’ve got the 1973 classic, Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett running through my head (check the video below; now that’s a moustache).
But Amy’s worried about cucumbers.
This is a photo of her airplane meal.
For a continent that prides itself on traceability and farmers’ markets, the response to the E. coli O104 outbreak, which has killed 17, stricken 470 with severe kidney disease and sickened some 1,500, has been woefully inadequate.
And now, 10 days after the outbreak emerged, the Germans say it wasn’t Spanish cucumbers in some sort of European revisionist history (they’re good at that).
Here are the top-5 dumb things about the E. coli O104 outbreak; at some point politics may take a back seat to public health; but this is Europe.
Spain's agriculture minister Rosa Aguilar defended her country's fresh produce and said it is still unclear exactly when and where the vegetables were contaminated.
She even tucked in to some cucumbers grown in Spain on Monday to show they cannot be blamed for one of the largest E. coli outbreaks in the world.
What no one has mentioned is the on-farm food safety steps that Spanish and other growers, distributors and retailers take to ensure microbial food safety. An outbreak this huge is an opportunity to brag – if procedures are in place. But maybe that’s why no one is bragging.
4. Terrible journalism
Why has no one tried to track down the source and looked at food safety procedures? The New York Times, 10 days into the crisis went with, Outbreak of Infections, probably the worst headline ever. E. coli O104 is not herpes. Time magazine went with, don’t panic, but be concerned.
3. It’s a trade/money thing
Contrary to humanistic goodwill, most food safety trade issues have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with market access. That’s why Gerd Sonnleitner, the head of the German Farmers' Association (DVB), called for stronger regulation of imported vegetables and said there has been unwarranted fearmongering about German vegetable products.
“We have very strict rules over the entire chain on controlling and accepting what we think is right,” Sonnleitner said. “Unfortunately imports are tested much more laxly.
So why isn’t Sonnleitner explaining all the things German farmers do to enhance on-farm food safety?
No need. They’ve decided to sue German health authority the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Consumer Ministry for damages over warnings about eating vegetables made to the public in the wake of the E. coli bacteria outbreak.
2. It’s a small risk thing
More people die every day in car accidents than are likely to perish from the current E. coli outbreak. Yet we know every time we get behind the wheel of a car that we are taking a small risk. We don't, on the other hand, expect to die from eating a cucumber.
The left-wing Berliner Zeitung was the strongest proponent of the latter case, arguing that 21st-century consumers were so geographically and psychologically disconnected from their food production that they had only themselves to blame.
The right-wing Berliner Morgenpost pointed out that swine flu resulted in a much higher death toll than that caused so far by E. coli. And swine flu, ultimately, was seen as media hype.
Even the small risk posed by the bacteria could be avoided by taking sensible hygiene precautions. And if a person does get sick, they can see their doctor right away.
“Women prepare food more often, and it is there they could have come into contact with it, possibly while cleaning vegetables or other foodstuffs.”
In a German version of blame-the-consumer, the Robert Koch Institute has recommended people improve kitchen hygiene, making sure in particular that cutting boards and knives are clean.
It’s doubtful that 1,500 women practiced lousy kitchen cleanliness at the same time across Germany.
Posted: January 24th, 2010 - 8:57pm
by Doug Powell
Author:
Doug Powell
As the plane landed in Las Vegas, I barfed.
I’d been sent here to speak about food safety issues at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Mint Industry Research Council and, since their product is processed during harvest and the oil extracted by heat and then used primarily in toothpaste and chewing gum, I had little to offer.
Whether it was the turbulence throughout the flight into the record western U.S. rainfall – and we were at the back of the plane so we could get an extra seat for daughter Sorenne – or something else that upset my delicate constitution, there really is nothing quite like barfing into one of those paper bags provided in every seat jacket while a plane lands. In a rainstorm. In Las Vegas.
Workers at Harrah's are cleaning slot machines every two hours with a solution of water and bleach in an effort to control the outbreak. Door knobs, escalator handrails and restrooms are being sanitized hourly.
The night was spent zoning-bordering-on-hallucinating. I didn’t sleep. A bottle of Gatorade later, I was ready, and spoke during lunch about the need for growers of anything to explain and articulate their practices in a consistent and compelling manner, or face the wrath of a public wary of unsubstantiated food safety claims.
I still really like hanging out with food -- including mint -- growers. Mint Industry Research Council executive director dude, Rocky Lundy (above, with me, left), explained to me there were about 550 growers in 7 states with total acreage close to 120,000. That’s a lot of mint. But the numbers have declined somewhat from foreign competition. It’s a familiar tale.
Feeling better the next day, we decided to take in Jimmy Buffet’s Magaritaville restaurant. Sure it’s touristy stuff, but who doesn’t like Jimmy? (Chapman). And while the establishment did feature the usual, “Employees must wash hands before returning to work” sign (above, right), at least it was under the apt words from Jimmy’s underappreciated 1978 song, Manana:
Women and water are in short supply
(The next line is, “Not enough dope for us all to get high.” The song also contains bits about Steve Martin asking if anyone wants to get small, and Jimmy hoping that Anita Bryant never ever does one of his songs. So many cultural touchstones for 1978 in one song. Oh, and usually when I take pictures in bathrooms I do it when no one else is there because people might think it was creepy, but traffic flow – I said flow – was constant so took the pic anyone with the dude at the urinal and another, properly, washing his hands.)
Las Vegas also features a prominent letter-grade restaurant inspection disclosure system as shown in this picture from a Vegas-strip Denny’s. Promote that A (above, left).
Today it’s family, football and food in Vegas before a hopefully less eventful return to Manhattan.
And this is Sorenne watching the Minnesota-New Orleans game this afternoon, with a bunch of Minnesotans in Las Vegas.
Some employees at a U.K. hospital are saying the only buffet in a hospital should be named Jimmy (with an extra ‘t’ right, exactly as shown).
A new self-service buffet is making a pig’s breakfast of infection control at Coventry’s University Hospital, angry staff claim.
The help-yourself spread was unveiled at the hospital’s main restaurant last week and is open to workers, patients and visitors.
Shocked hospital workers say they were only warned about the change days earlier when a sign went up.
They claim the self-service system is a hygiene disaster waiting to happen.
Allowing sick patients to handle the food could quickly spread infections, such as the highly contagious norovirus sickness bug, staff say.
One angry worker told the Coventry Telegraph,
“I think it is disgusting. Patients have been coming in with catheters and drip tubes in and rummaging through the piles of toast. Who knows what infections they are bringing down from the wards.”
Craig Smith, spokesman for contractor ISS, said the self-service breakfast buffet was launched to offer its customers more choice after consultation with staff and visitors.
“It is not unusual to have a self-service restaurant in a hospital – it is in place in hospitals up and down the country.”
Posted: February 6th, 2009 - 7:26am
by Doug Powell
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."
But Amy’s worried about cucumbers.
probably the worst headline ever. E. coli O104 is not herpes. 
As the plane landed in Las Vegas, I barfed.
(The volume those bags can hold is amazing.)
I still really like hanging out with food -- including mint -- growers. Mint Industry Research Council executive director dude, Rocky Lundy (above, with me, left), explained to me there were about 550 growers in 7 states with total acreage close to 120,000. That’s a lot of mint. But the numbers have declined somewhat from foreign competition. It’s a familiar tale..jpg)
Women and water are in short supply.jpg)
Shocked hospital workers say they were only warned about the change days earlier when a sign went up.
