Pasta, crepes, mountains, and beaches. What am I doing in Winnipeg?
My wife and I recently returned from our 6 week honeymoon vacation in Europe. We spent three weeks in France, one week in Spain, and two weeks in Bella Italia. The scenery was breathtaking, the architecture unimaginable, the stench from unpasteurized cheese- priceless. My sister in law, who was also travelling with us in France, was quite taken away with a few of the unpasteurized cheeses offered. She later experienced severe cramps, headaches, nausea, bloody diarrhea, and ended up barfing away-exorcism style. After the second day of bed rest, she decided to visit the local hospital as the symptoms seem to have been worsening. The attending physician simply indicated that she had food poisoning. No samples were submitted, no food history, no information regarding foods she should be avoiding, nothing. Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock would have probably have given better advice. If the attending physician decided not to submit samples for analysis or obtain a food history, perhaps some food safety tips would have been appropriate like avoid unpasteurized cheeses.
Norovirus in frozen raspberries
Albert Amgar, a food safety consultant in Laval, France for the past 21 years and the provider of all things French and food safety for bites.ksu.edu, steps out in his first barfblog post.
National Food Safety Authority Evira recommends that foreign frozen raspberries always be properly heated before use. Norovirus epidemics have occurred in different parts of Finland over the spring and the cause is suspected to be foreign frozen raspberries used in cakes without heating.
Evira urges consumers and mass caterers to check the origin of frozen raspberries and to only use foreign raspberries after adequate heating in order to avoid food poisoning. Frozen raspberries of foreign origin should be heated for at least two minutes at 90 degrees Celcius.
The problem is well known. In 1995, scientists from Denmark reported that "imported frozen raspberries caused a series of norovirus outbreaks". But in the conclusions the authors noted, very friendly to their other European colleagues, "As Polish frozen raspberries are known to be exported to several European countries, it would be extremely surprising, if Denmark were the only country where there were recent outbreaks due to frozen raspberries.”
