Wash

  • Should pre-washed, bagged leafy greens be washed again at home? NPR says yes, many food safety types say no

    Posted: April 19th, 2012 - 10:09pm by Doug Powell

    Should bagged, pre-washed salad greens be washed again in the home kitchen?

    Many food safety types say no.

    During the idle but oh-so-smoothing brand of chat-chit practiced by National Public Radio that preceded a story about E. coli and Salmonella in leafy greens from Salinas, Calif., one reporter said, “I wash it every time but I don’t know if it actually helps.”

    Reporter Dan Charles responded, “It says prewashed but washing might help.”

    So might a lot of others things not fit for this family publication.

    A review paper published in Food Protection Trends in 2007 contained guidelines developed by a panel of food safety types and concluded:

    "… leafy green salad in sealed bags labeled ‘washed’ or ‘ready-to-eat’ that are produced in a facility inspected by a regulatory authority and operated under cGMPs, does not need additional washing at the time of use unless specifically directed on the label.”

    The panel also advised that additional washing of ready-to-eat green salads is not likely to enhance safety.

    “The risk of cross contamination from food handlers and food contact surfaces used during washing may outweigh any safety benefit that further washing may confer."

    When washing at home, "there's a risk that is the sink where you just washed your chicken," said Donald Schaffner, Rutgers University professor of food science, in a 2011 interview.

    Today’s NPR soothfest revisited what growers in California are doing to enhanced food safety and the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in spinach that killed 3 and sickened at least 200.

    Will Daniels, senior vice president for operations and organic integrity at Earthbound Farm, based in San Juan Bautista, told NPR, "I was at the center of the investigation and really took it very hard. It was just a real tough time to go through, and something that I don't ever want to go through again."

    Investigators found E. coli bacteria that matched the microbes that were making people sick on a ranch that was one of Earthbound's suppliers. But those bacteria were in animal feces a mile from the spinach field, Daniels says, "with no clear indication of what caused the contamination from a mile away to get into the spinach field itself."

    "Unfortunately, it looks like every animal is suspect," says Bob Martin, general manager of Rio Farms, in King City, Calif.

    Even birds. "Birds are a big issue! They carry human pathogens, and we can't put diapers on them. We can't dome our fields; there's nothing we can do, short of trying to scare them away.”

    Lettuce fields now have to be separated from cattle pastures, and throughout the valley, next to lettuce fields, you see white plastic pipes. Inside those pipes are mouse traps.

    And the birds? Vegetable buyers won't take anything from the area directly under power lines.

    "When it comes to food safety, if it's grown outdoors, forget it, there's no such thing as zero tolerance," says Bob Martin. "And everybody knows that, except for some food safety personnel of the big food buyers."

    Daniels of Earthbound Farms was further quoted as saying, "It is a true test-and-hold program, so we have to wait to get the negative results before we put it on a truck. Any positives go to the landfill.”

    There still are positives. Not very often, but every five weeks or so, one of these tests catches a sample that's contaminated with disease-causing E. coli or Salmonella.

    A table of leafy green related outbreak is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/leafy-greens-related-outbreaks.

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  • How to wash produce and what consumers say they do

    Posted: April 9th, 2012 - 2:56pm by Doug Powell

    Surveys still suck.

    But at least researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognize the limitations of self-reported food safety behavior, in this case applied to produce washing practices in the kitchen. From a recent paper in Food Protection Trends:

    “Although washing does not guarantee removal of pathogens if the item has become contaminated, it increases the likelihood that pathogens will be removed, compared with not washing or using washing methods that are not recommended. Soaking and use of any type of cleaner are not recommended washing methods. Soaking does not remove contami¬nants as effectively as rubbing or rinsing produce under running water. Cleaners not meant for produce can introduce chemical contaminants, and produce washes are considered no more effective than water. Unlike other types of produce, almost all bagged, pre-cut let¬tuce in the market place is pre-washed. For bagged, pre-cut lettuce that is labeled as pre-washed, additional washing is not recommended as it is not likely to en¬hance safety and introduces the op¬portunity for cross-contamination of the product with pathogens that may be in the home kitchen. …

    “This study has some strengths and limitations. One of the limitations is that the data are self-reported. We rely on consumers’ ability to both remember what they do and convey it accurately. Self-reporting is also subject to the de¬sire to give socially desirable responses; an observational study of consumer produce washing showed that far fewer consumers actually wash produce than report doing so in surveys. Also, the findings would have been more use¬ful if we had asked consumers why they washed cantaloupes and bagged, pre-cut lettuce. Finally, our survey suffered from the increasingly common problem of low response rates for household sur¬veys, although this does not necessarily bias the survey results. Some of the main strengths of this study are the sampling method, large sample size and weighting strategy, which allows our findings to be representative of the population. This allows us to make comparisons at the population level.

    “Food Safety practices should be¬gin on the farm and be rigorously ap¬plied along the entire chain so that food products are safe for human consump¬tion without the need for extraordinary measures. Consumers, however, are the critical endpoint along the food supply chain. Educational efforts with respect to product washing should focus on explaining why it is important to wash hard rind produce such as cantaloupe be¬fore cutting, but not rewashing produce that is ready to be eaten.”

    The abstract is below:

    Consumer vegetable and fruit washing practices in the United States, 2006 and 2010
    Food Protection Trends, Vol. 32, No. 4, Pages 164–172
    Linda Verrill, Amy M. Lando 1 and Kellie M. O’Connell
    Vegetables and fruits may become contaminated with pathogens anywhere along the farm-to-plate continuum. Therefore, the FDA recommends that vegetables and fruits that have not already been washed be washed by the consumer before slicing or consuming them. The FDA included in its 2006 and 2010 Food Safety Survey a series of questions about purchasing and washing of strawberries, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and bagged, pre-cut lettuce. The Food Safety Survey is a telephone survey tracking consumers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to food safety. In 2006, of those who buy these products, 98% wash strawberries, 97% wash tomatoes, 57% wash cantaloupes and 54% wash bagged pre-cut lettuce. Overall, for both years, more women than men wash cantaloupes, and more men than women wash bagged pre-cut lettuce. Cantaloupe washing declined from 2006 to 2010 for men, while lettuce washing increased for women in the same period. Targeted education campaigns should emphasize the importance of washing produce, especially fruits with hard rinds.

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  • Slippage and snot happens: wash your hands of these food safety myths

    Posted: February 15th, 2012 - 6:53pm by Doug Powell

    snot.kid_.hands_.jpg

    Sprouts are not a health food. But there’s lots of other food safety myths. USA Today's Elizabeth Weise spoke with food safety experts to pull together a list of the most common food safety myths.

    * Mayonnaise is a death trap.

    Actually, mayonnaise is an ingredient "with penicillin-like properties," says Don Zink, senior science adviser for the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Md. Mayo is a homogenized mixture of oil and water, with egg white to stabilize it. The salt and vinegar or lemon juice makes the tiny droplets of water suspended in the mixture deadly to microbes. So for a safer salad, don't hold the mayo. Putting in more mayonnaise only makes it safer, he says. No, not forever, but certainly long enough for a picnic.

    • Pink pork is a no-no.

    Not any more. Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture revised its decades-old guidelines and now says that pork, and all whole meat cuts, have to get to only 145 degrees internally, not the 160 the agency had previously suggested. That means a pork roast can have a rosy interior, not the dead gray of your mom's roast. The change comes because despite everything you were ever told, there's no trichinosis in commercial pigs. The parasitic disease is caused by eating raw or undercooked meat infected with roundworm larvae. It was a problem years ago, but no longer exists in commercially grown pork, according to the National Pork Board in Des Moines.

    • You can smell when food's gone bad.

    Microorganisms divide into two main groups, those that cause spoilage and those that cause disease. There's some overlap, but many bacteria that cause disease don't cause overt spoilage. "You could have loads of E. coli or salmonella or listeria in a food and it would not appear to be spoiled or have any off-odor or flavor," says the FDA's Don Zink. The only real way to judge the safety of a food is by what you know about how it was prepared and stored.

    • You should wash produce and meat.

    This one seems like a no-brainer: Washing makes things cleaner, right? Wrong. People think they can make produce safer by rinsing it under the tap, but that's a holdover from the days when they carried in vegetables straight from the garden, still dripping with dew, dirt and the occasional slug. Bagged leafy greens don't need to be washed at all. "Just open the bag and put them in the salad bowl," says the FDA's Zink. They were already washed in a sanitizing solution at the packing plant and frankly it was probably a lot cleaner than your kitchen.

    Micro-organisms actually bond to the surface of the food item. "You are not going to rinse them off, it simply won't happen, they cannot be washed off," he says.

    All washing might do is "remove the snot that some 3-year-old blew onto the food at the grocery store," says the ever-forthright Powell at Kansas State. Washing "lowers the pathogen count a little, but not to safe levels if it's contaminated."

    Even though half the recipes involving meat tell you to rinse it off (especially chicken and turkey), this is unnecessary and actually dangerous, says Elisabeth Hagen, under- secretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Rinsing meat or poultry with water can actually increase your chance of food poisoning by splashing raw juices and any bacteria they might contain onto your sink and counters."

    • If the water touched your hands, they're clean.

    Think a quick rinse of your hands before you handle food is good enough? Nice try. A good hand-washing takes at least 20 seconds, says Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., who has written research papers on the topic. The real cleansing is done by the friction and force of rubbing your hands together, along with the soap. The temperature of the water doesn't really matter, as it takes 160 degrees to kill bacteria, which would be fine except water that hot would also give you third-degree burns. But warm water does make it more likely you'll spend the necessary 10 seconds scrubbing under vigorously flowing water. And then another 10 seconds of vigorous rubbing with a towel. "The friction rips the microbes off your skin," says Powell. If you really want to go for the gusto, invest in a nail brush. "Because if you had a Number Two and you experienced 'slippage' with your toilet paper, that's where the pathogens go, under your nails."

     

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  • Blame the consumer: E. coli O157 sickens 250 kills 1 in UK; FSA responds by telling consumers to wash veggies; just like cook your meat, it’ll be fine

    Posted: November 22nd, 2011 - 3:03pm by Doug Powell

    Potato and leek soup is a standard in my kitchen, using chicken stock made from the weekly roast chicken.

    I’m not sure what else leeks are used for, and they can contribute to some fantabulous gas, but they are a mess to clean: dirt and soil is engrained throughout the white part of the vegetable. I give them a rinse under tap water and then slice for soup. But the risk is with cross-contamination – leeks are grown in soil and whatever microorganisms are within the white bits are going to drip on the counter and elsewhere.

    Be the bug, follow the bug.

    The folks at the U.K. Food Standards Agency whose idea of science-based verification is to cook meat until it is piping hot, have apparently decided that E. coli O157:H7 – the dangerous kind – found on or in leeks, is the consumers’ responsibility.

    Almost two months after revealing 250 people were sickened and one died with E. coli O157:H7 phage-type 8 over the previous eight months, linked to people handling loose raw leeks and potatoes in their homes, FSA has today launched a new campaign reminding people to wash raw vegetables to help minimize the risk of food poisoning.

    No information on how 250 became sick over six months and the public wasn’t told, no information on farming and packing practices that may have led to such a massive contamination that so many people got sick, no information on anything: just advice to wash things thoroughly so that contamination can be spread throughout the kitchen.

    Today’s FSA announcement says, “The campaign is in response to E. coli outbreaks in Britain and abroad this year including one linked to soil on raw vegetables and another caused by contaminated sprouted seeds.”

    Washing sprouts does nothing, especially if the contamination is within the seed, as it most likely was in the E. coli O104 outbreak in Europe earlier this year.

    The campaign messages include:

    • always wash hands thoroughly before and after handling raw food, including vegetables;
    • keep raw foods, including vegetables, separate from ready-to-eat foods;
    • use different chopping boards, knives and utensils for raw and ready-to-eat foods, or wash thoroughly in between preparing different foods; and,
    • unless packaging around vegetables says ‘ready-to-eat’ you must wash, peel or cook them before consuming.

    Consumers, you are the critical control point for microorganisms that will rip out your kidneys. And you’ll be paying for the PR campaign to tell you to do better.

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  • This Housewife is banned from my kitchen; washing chicken is a cross-contamination risk

    Posted: November 6th, 2011 - 8:02pm by Doug Powell

    I don’t watch any of the Real Housewives of Whereverland, but Amy does.

    I don’t know the characters; I don’t care. But I like a good food safety yarn.

    Lisa of The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills, says, “I’ve sold thousands of chicken dinners in my restaurant so I’m perfectly qualified to teach Adrienne how to cook a chicken. I mean, it’s not rocket science.”

    Lisa and Adrienne wear gloves, spread bacteria everywhere, wash the bird, and then remove their gloves to stuff the birds with herbs and stuff.

    Lisa is amazed that Adrienne wants to wash her chicken with soap.

    I’m amazed Lisa the restaurant owner wants to wash the bird.

    Most government agencies now advise against washing chickens, but decades will pass before bad culture catches up.

    As a spokesthingy from the U.K. Food Standards Agency said a while ago,

    ''Washing raw poultry is a common kitchen mistake, and it simply isn't necessary. … By washing your raw bird, you're actually more likely to spread the germs around the kitchen than get rid of them.''

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  • Real Housewives, Really Gross

    Posted: October 18th, 2011 - 8:50pm by Amy Hubbell

    Author: 
    Amy Hubbell

     We’ve been away from our American television channels and DVR for a few months already, and I’ve had some odd cravings for bad television. So last night I loaded up the season premiere of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills only to watch some unsanitary behaviour and food safety mistakes.

    The entire episode was weirdly awkward, but when Ken, the stiff-upper-lipped British gentleman, claimed that therapy would make him feel weak, and then proceeded to let his little celebrity-pooch Jiggy drink from the very expensive crystal glass set before him, I cringed. Not to worry, it got worse. Once Jiggy had finished shoving his whole head into the glass, Ken picked it up and had a drink, too.
     
    Bad television? The Housewives never disappoint. In the outtakes for upcoming episodes, Lisa (Jiggy’s mommy) is demonstrating to Adrienne how to prepare a large bird. She says that first it needs to be washed. Adrienne has her own bird, follows Lisa to the sink, and proceeds to use hand soap on it. Lisa thinks this is utterly ridiculous, of course. I can’t wait to see the cross-contaminations continue.
     
    I’m no real housewife but I do know better than to wash my bird in the sink or to let my doggy drink from my glass at a dinner party.

     

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  • Is head lettuce safer than bagger greens; should those bagger greens be washed once home

    Posted: July 26th, 2011 - 9:11pm by Doug Powell

    "There is currently no scientific evidence to suggest that bagged salad is any more or less risky then a whole head of lettuce." Cutting any fresh produce creates a risk of bacterial growth.

    So says a spokeswoman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in a Wall Street Journal feature about reviving the prepared salad category; the food safety nuggets are left to the end.

    Scientists don't agree on whether bagged salad has a higher risk of illness than a head of lettuce. Some scientists say it does, because of the possibility that contaminated leaves will spread bacteria to thousands of other leaves during washing and packaging.

    For prewashed packaged salads, a second wash at home isn't recommended for preventing foodborne illness. Addressing the question in 2007, a scientific panel of food-safety experts found the risk of cross-contamination with other foods outweighed any possible benefit from washing packaged salad greens a second time at home.

    When washing at home, "there's a risk that is the sink where you just washed your chicken," says Donald Schaffner, Rutgers University professor of food science.

    A table of leafy green related outbreak is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/Outbreaks%20related%20to%20leafy%20greens%201993-2010

     

     

     

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  • You can hold my koala but not wash your hands

    Posted: July 12th, 2011 - 4:57pm by Amy Hubbell

    Author: 
    Amy Hubbell

    Sunday in Brisbane (that’s in Australia) was a perfect chance to discover the local wildlife: kangaroos and koalas at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Emma and Sorenne were overly excited by the opportunity. When it was their turn to get their photo taken with the koala, however, I noticed the sign on the hand sanitizer station saying, “Out of Order. Sorry for any inconvenience.” As we exited the area into the food court, Emma grabbed some sanitizing wipes that were available (but unmarked and almost not noticeable) on a table and cleaned up Sorenne’s hands the best she could.

    After our afternoon “tea” (that’s Australian for “snack”), we headed into the Kangaroo Rescue area. For $2 I bought a rather large bag of kangaroo feed, and we proceeded to shove our hands into the faces of every kangaroo who passed by. Emma was brave and lay down on the ground to pose with one of the big boys. For me the highlight was either seeing a pregnant mommy ‘roo whose joey was wiggling about in her pouch or watching Sorenne’s face light up when the baby kangaroos ate from her hands (right exactly as shown).

    Upon exiting the area (which was filled with scrub turkeys, ducks, wombats, emus and feces in addition to the kangaroos), there was a handwashing station with ample running cold water and soap but no paper towel to dry hands. The park prides itself on reusing water, and there was clear signage indicating that all water in use was recycled except for handwashing, food preparation, and drinking water. I didn’t feel confident that they were able to separate distribution so well after realizing that handwashing wasn’t possible in the koala cuddling zone.

    Handwashing really isn’t simple, especially when the proper tools are not available.
     

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  • You can hold my koala but not wash your hands

    Posted: July 12th, 2011 - 4:56pm by Amy Hubbell

    Author: 
    Amy Hubbell

    Sunday in Brisbane (that’s in Australia) was a perfect chance to discover the local wildlife: kangaroos and koalas at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Emma and Sorenne were overly excited by the opportunity. When it was their turn to get their photo taken with the koala, however, I noticed the sign on the hand sanitizer station saying, “Out of Order. Sorry for any inconvenience.” As we exited the area into the food court, Emma grabbed some sanitizing wipes that were available (but unmarked and almost not noticeable) on a table and cleaned up Sorenne’s hands the best she could.

    After our afternoon “tea” (that’s Australian for “snack”), we headed into the Kangaroo Rescue area. For $2 I bought a rather large bag of kangaroo feed, and we proceeded to shove our hands into the faces of every kangaroo who passed by. Emma was brave and lay down on the ground to pose with one of the big boys. For me the highlight was either seeing a pregnant mommy ‘roo whose joey was wiggling about in her pouch or watching Sorenne’s face light up when the baby kangaroos ate from her hands (right exactly as shown).

    Upon exiting the area (which was filled with scrub turkeys, ducks, wombats, emus and feces in addition to the kangaroos), there was a handwashing station with ample running cold water and soap but no paper towel to dry hands. The park prides itself on reusing water, and there was clear signage indicating that all water in use was recycled except for handwashing, food preparation, and drinking water. I didn’t feel confident that they were able to separate distribution so well after realizing that handwashing wasn’t possible in the koala cuddling zone.

    Handwashing really isn’t simple, especially when the proper tools are not available.
     

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  • Gonzalo Erdozain: Real housewife of New Jersey or not, don’t wash your poultry

    Posted: June 7th, 2011 - 10:28am by Doug Powell

    The only positive thing about working on the couch while my wife watches Real Housewives of New Jersey is that sooner or later, they will screw something up, and I can blog about it.

    This week’s episode wasn’t any different. Teresa (right, exactly as shown), one of the many wives, was hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the family. After visiting a local poultry farm, and feeling sorry for the live turkey, she decided to buy a turkey that had been slaughtered the day before. The issue however is not animal welfare, but the food safety atrocity she committed next by washing her turkey in the sink –- this is somebody who has published two cooking books. It has been proven that bacteria can travel up to 3 feet from the sink, highly increasing the risk of cross-contamination.

    On a positive note, she was actually shown using a thermometer – it wasn’t digital, but at least she was using one.
     

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