If food safety is so simple why do the so-called experts disagree? And who's an expert?
It’s food safety month in September, so expect to hear lots of sanctimonious statements about how simple food safety is if only the people would do things the right way.
But what’s the right way?
Food safety is not simple.
Anyone who says so is full of it.
And any food safety nerd knows there are major disagreements about all levels of food safety minutia.
Eating Well magazine asked 10 questions of some food safety types earlier this year and a bunch of stories are now on-line.. The differences in the answers reveal how un-simple food safety is, and how different people talk with journalists.
The Eating Well piece poses some questions, but doesn’t address the hard ones: Who is an expert (a word I hate)? Who is competent to offer advice about anything? Who am I to answer anything, to offer an opinion?
At bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com, we actually have a policy on how to answer questions, how we provide advice, and it’s being updated.
The magazine has its 10 commandments of food safety, but like fallen angels, commandments are open to interpretation. Judge for yourselves.
Your contestants are:
Ming Tsai, owner, Blue Ginger, his award-wining East-meets-West restaurant in Wellesley Massachusetts.
Bill Marler, managing partner and personal injury lawyer at Marler Clark.
Linda Kender, an associate professor in the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.
Richard Vergili, a professor in hospitality management at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA)
Catherine Donnelly, a professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Vermont.
Donna Rosenbaum, co-founder and executive director of Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.).
Marion Nestle, professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University.
Scott Donnelly, a product safety authority with more than two decades of food industry experience.
Douglas Powell, Ph.D, associate professor, food safety, Kansas State University.
Try to distinguish the wordy from the brief, the fact-based and the faith-based approaches to food safety. Match up the bios with the responses and spot the hypocricy.
Eating Well asked, do you always:
1. Use a “refrigerator thermometer” to keep your food stored at a safe temperature (below 40°F).
Tsai: At Blue Ginger, yes, and [a thermometer] is built in the Sub-Zero fridges we use at home.
Marler: Yes.
Kender: I check the temperature of my refrigerator once a week, especially during the summer months.
Vergili: Yes, unless I plan to use the food within a couple of hours.
Donnelly: Yes. I consider my refrigerator to be my most important food-safety device. Knowing the temperature of the refrigerator you use to store food is critical to keep food safe. Many refrigerators in the U.S. operate at unsafe temperatures, and the warmer foods are stored, the more quickly bacteria, including pathogens, can grow.
Rosenbaum: Yes. Appliance thermometers are easy to find in hardware stores. I recommend using one in the freezer as well. It is especially important to check the internal temperatures of secondary refrigerators/freezers kept in basements, garages or other places of more extreme room temperature.
Nestle: No. I live in a tiny apartment in New York and have a small refrigerator. Nothing stays in it that long.
Donnelly: No.
Powell: Fridges fluctuate and thermometers are the only way to acquire accurate data.
2. Defrost food in the refrigerator, the microwave or in cold water, never on the counter.
Tsai Yes.
Marler: Yes.
Kender: Mostly I defrost in the refrigerator, but there have been occasions that I had to resort to the cold running water method.
Vergili: No, I will occasionally let something begin to defrost on the counter when I am home. For example, today I had some frozen wrapped spare ribs sitting out for a little over [an] hour that [were] still partially frozen. [I] then seasoned and refrigerated [the ribs] for dinner tonight.
Donnelly: Yes. When defrosting any potentially hazardous food, particularly meats or poultry, it is important to make sure juices are contained by using sealed bags or containers. Juices can contain harmful pathogens which can contaminate surfaces and people coming into contact with these juices. Again, the warmer potentially hazardous foods are stored, the more potential growth for dangerous bacterial pathogens to levels which can cause disease.
Rosenbaum: Yes. This is especially important with meat, poultry & seafood. When defrosting meat, poultry or seafood in the refrigerator, however, it is important to make sure that it is on a platter or tray and cannot drip raw juices as it defrosts onto or into foods stored below.
Nestle: Not exactly. I don’t have much counter space so I’m most likely to leave it out in a bowl.
Donnelly: I rarely defrost. When I do, I leave the food out on the counter for less than 4 hours.
Powell: I defrost on the counter. I just don’t leave it there very long.
3. Always use separate cutting boards for raw meat/poultry/fish and produce/cooked foods.
Tsai: Definitely—especially because of food allergies, too, on cross contamination.
Marler: Yes.
Kender: No. I always wash, rinse, and sanitize my cutting board when switching proteins or going to a no cook product.
Vergili: No, I will thoroughly clean the same cutting board and use the same board for both raw and cooked products.
Donnelly: Yes, and I make sure to regularly clean and sanitize these boards after use.
Rosenbaum: I do, but this isn’t always practical. It’s more important to clean and sanitize cutting boards thoroughly between uses, even if you only use it for one type of item. Also, inspect your cutting boards from time to time. When they develop deep knife grooves it may be harder for cleaning solutions to reach and kill any bacteria present and then it’s time to replace the board.
Nestle: No. I wash the one I have in between [uses].
Donnelly: Yes. Or I clean and sanitize the same board.
Powell: No, but I clean cutting boards thoroughly.
4. Always cook meat to proper temperatures, using a calibrated instant-read thermometer to make sure.
Tsai: No, I love my burgers rare and my lamb and steak medium rare. I will be struck by lightning or chomped by a great white before undercooked meats get me!
Marler: Yes.
Kender: No. In my house we like our steaks medium rare and our burgers pink in the middle. No one in the high-risk category lives in my home.
Vergili: I have a preference for many grilled foods to be undercooked such as tuna and pasture-raised porterhouse pork chops.
Donnelly: Most of the time. When grilling, I purchase low-risk products (intact muscle meats as opposed to ground beef) and insure that the outsides of these products (where contamination resides) are well cooked. For poultry and roasts, I always use a meat thermometer.
Rosenbaum: Yes, I always use a thermometer. In regards to beef, it is impossible to tell when it is safe to eat without using a thermometer. The color of the cooked meat is a very inaccurate indicator for safety. Different types of beef require different cooking temperatures and the type of thermometer used may also vary. Very thin beef patties, for instance, are best checked with a thermocouple (a type of temperature sensor) while roasts and steaks can use a larger-gauge thermometer.
Nestle: I cook it hot enough but don’t use a thermometer.
Donnelly: No. I use visual cues based on experience.
Powell: Yes. Color is a lousy indicator. I feel naked without a thermometer.
5. Avoid unpasteurized (“raw”) milk and cheeses made from unpasteurized milk that are aged less than 60 days.
Tsai: No, I love the flavor of unpasteurized. See above for lightning and shark.
Marler: Yes!
Kender: Yes, absolutely. I also avoid unpasteurized cider and fruit juices as well.
Vergili: As a rule yes, but I have gone out of my way to buy “certified” raw milk on rare occasions and tasted cheese from a known cheese maker as well. Frankly, there are some questions surrounding cheese made from raw milk and listeriosis despite 60 days of aging.
Donnelly: I do not consume raw milk as I know this is a high-risk product, and most producers are exempt from requirements specified in the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance which greatly enhance milk safety. For raw milk cheeses aged for less than 60 days, if they are AOC or PDO cheeses which I am purchasing and consuming in Europe, I have great confidence in the regulations and production procedures/processes which include stringent microbiological criteria, thus I know these cheeses pose a low food-safety risk. Cheeses made by unlicensed manufacturers and distributed illegally pose a great public health risk and I would not consume such products.
Rosenbaum: Yes. I believe the risk inherent in any raw dairy product far outweighs any potential benefit. This is especially important for pregnant women to avoid as they are at risk for contracting Listeriosis from raw dairy products, which carries a high rate of premature labor and spontaneous abortion.
Nestle: Not always. If I know the supplier, I’ll take the small risk.
Donnelly: Raw milk cheese is safe; raw milk is not.
Powell: Yup. Not worth the risk, especially for pregnant women, and my wife had a baby six months ago.
6. Never eat “runny” eggs or foods, such as cookie dough, that contain raw eggs.
Tsai: No, again, shark and lightning. But at BG, we do use pasteurized eggs and egg whites for desserts (like sabayon and in the hollandaise we make once a year for the Greater Boston Food Bank's Super Hunger Brunch).
Marler: Correct.
Kender: I never eat runny eggs or anything that contains raw eggs. I even prepare my own Caesar salad dressing using pasteurized egg yolks.
Vergili: No, I will eat classic scrambled eggs which are a bit runny, as well as a poached egg cooked less than the 145ºF [that] the codes call for.
Donnelly: Yes. I avoid consumption of raw eggs. There are excellent pasteurized egg products available to consumers which substantially reduce risks posed by pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria.
Rosenbaum: This is difficult to answer with the word “never” in it. My answer would depend on whether or not pasteurized eggs were used. When dining out, I always ask whether raw eggs were used in dishes such as sauces, mousses, tiramisù and dressings. If so, then I would avoid these foods unless I knew the facility was using pasteurized eggs. At home, pasteurized-in-shell eggs have become available in my area and I use these whenever I want to enjoy foods that would be risky if using regular eggs and not cooking thoroughly. Interested consumers can request that their grocers carry in-shell pasteurized eggs.
Nestle: Don’t be silly. I’m human.
Donnelly: Eggs should be cooked.
Powell: Nope.
7. Always wash your hands in warm soapy water for at least 20 seconds before handling food and after touching raw meat, poultry or eggs.
Tsai: Yes, definitely!
Marler: Yes.
Kender: I must admit that at my home I may not get through “Happy Birthday” twice before working with some food items, but absolutely always after working with raw meats and poultry!
Vergili: Yes, this is one of the easiest ways to prevent the spread of both pathogenic bacteria and viruses without compromising the culinary preference for a food.
Donnelly: Yes, and I prefer to use antibacterial soaps after handling these products.
Rosenbaum: Yes, or use hand sanitizer. It’s important to thoroughly clean the faucet handle if you’ve touched it after handling raw foods, too. Also, take along hand sanitizers when going to picnics and barbecues away from home where soap and warm running water would be hard to find.
Nestle: Wash hands, yes, but I don’t count seconds.
Donnelly: Yes.
Powell: Nope. 20 seconds is too long and water temperature doesn’t matter; but I do wash my hands routinely.
8. Always heat leftover foods to 165ºF.
Tsai: Yes.
Marler: Yes.
Kender: Never have leftovers at my home.
Vergili: No, as stated, this is one of the most misunderstood regulations. The recommendation basically pertains to leftover items in large volumes like chili or thick soups that need to be reheated slowly to ensure quality. A piece of beef previously cooked, such as a serving of prime rib, need not be reheated to 165ºF (it becomes more like pot roast).
Donnelly: Yes.
Rosenbaum: I do not generally use a thermometer for leftovers. I do re-cook soups and liquids until they boil, and heat other leftovers until they are steaming. It’s important to stop midway and stir food reheated in the microwave due to cold spots and uneven heating.
Nestle: I get them steaming hot, but don’t measure.
Donnelly: No. I use common sense.
Powell: Nope. 140ºF is sufficient if it has already been cooked.
9. Never eat meat, poultry, eggs or sliced fresh fruits and vegetables that have been left out for more than 2 hours (1 hour in temperatures hotter than 90°F).
Tsai: Fruits and veggies, fine. Meat and seafood, no! At BG, we are always very cognizant of the temperature danger zone; everything is refrigerated and/or cooled down properly.
Marler: Yes.
Kender: Never….especially during summer here in New England. I insist that all our outdoor activities, such as cookouts, have ice, and lots of it, that is used to keep the salads and other food items cold.
Vergili: No, if [it’s] at a group gathering, I would consider eating a raw vegetable or fruit that has been served unrefrigerated (assuming it hasn’t become oxidized, [which I find] unappealing).
Donnelly: Yes, Adherence to proper storage temperatures and the 2-hour rule are proven food-safety measures.
Rosenbaum: Yes. The rule in our house is, “If in doubt, throw it out!” I try to have several trays of the same food prepared when I entertain so they can be rotated and refrigerated in between.
Nestle: You don’t say whether these are cooked or uncooked or what the ambient temperature might be. Microbial growth rates depend on those factors.
Donnelly: No. I use common sense. 4 hours is the limit
Powell: did not offer a response (shurley sum mistake – dp)
10. Whenever there’s a food recall, check products stored at home to make sure they are safe.
Tsai: Yes.
Marler: Yes.
Kender: Yes. I receive recall notices at work and take that information home with me and always double check what I’ve purchased
Vergili: Yes, I would do that.
Donnelly: Yes. In fact, I just returned some cookie dough to a retail outlet for a refund.
Rosenbaum: Yes, and since recall information on food products is very difficult for consumers to obtain, my organization constantly looks for recalls and sends them in daily e-alerts to email inboxes. Anyone can sign up to receive them by sending a request to mail@safetables.org or go to our website daily at www.safetables.org to view them. Some stores post food recalls, while others send text messages or mailed notices. It is important for consumers to throw away or return for refund any product subject to a recall, as these products have either already made people sick or have a high likelihood of being contaminated. If you believe someone in your family has already eaten the product and/or gotten ill, you should keep the product and safely wrap and store it for the health authorities to test.
Nestle: I’ve never had a product involved in a recall except the can of recalled pet food given to me as a research gift for my book, Pet Food Politics.
Donnelly: I purchase locally grown, fresh foods.
Powell: Sure.
Top 5 food-safety questions journalists should be asking
The editor of Nieman Watch at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University tracked me down in Florida a couple of weeks ago -- it's not hard, I'm always plugged in, zing -- and asked me to pen the following, which he greatly improved with some editing. Below, Powell's take on the top-5 food-safety questions journalists should be asking.
Food safety is not a trivial issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that up to 30 per cent of individuals in developed countries acquire illnesses from the food and water they consume annually. Active disease surveillance by U.S., Canadian and Australian authorities suggests this estimate is accurate.
WHO has identified five factors of food handling that contribute to these illnesses: improper cooking procedures; temperature abuse during storage; lack of hygiene and sanitation by food handlers; cross-contamination between raw and fresh ready-to-eat foods; and acquiring food from unsafe sources.
There has been some excellent media coverage of microbial food safety issues since the 1993 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to Jack-in-the-Box that killed four and sickened over 600; there has also been some terribly misleading coverage.
Reporters interested in covering this important story should be asking these five questions:
1. Will more government involvement mean fewer sick people?
While the Internet and the mainstream media were all excited about the potential passage of new food safety legislation by the U.S. House in early August -- it passed -- I was hanging out with some food safety dudes at Publix supermarkets HQ in Lakeland, Florida. And I saw far more in Lakeland that would impact daily food safety than anything the politicians, bureaucrats and hangers-on were talking about.
When it comes to the safety of the food supply, I generally ignore the chatter from Washington, as well as the Internet commentaries and conspiracy theories. If a legislative proposal does emerge, such as the creation of a single food inspection agency, or the bill that passed the House – and just the House – I ask, Will it actually make food safer? Will fewer people get sick?
As the Government Accountability Office pointed out in a report a year ago, “The burden for food safety in most … countries lies primarily with food producers, rather than with inspectors, although inspectors play an active role in overseeing compliance. This principle applies to both domestic and imported products.”
Publix, with over 1,000 supermarkets, its own processing plants, and thousands of food products moving through its shelves, can’t afford the luxury of chatter. After a visit to headquarters in Lakeland, Fla., I went to the local Publix in St. Petersburg Beach to verify what I’d heard at HQ. Sure, the bosses know food safety, but do the front-line staff?
I ordered some shaved smoked turkey breast from the deli, and the sealable bag the meat was delivered in bore the following message:
“The Publix Deli is committed to the highest quality fresh cold cuts & cheeses; Therefore we recommend all cold cuts are best if used within three days of purchase; And all cheese items are best if used within four days of purchase.”
This was the first time I’d seen a retailer provide information to consumers on the accurate shelf-life of sliced deli meats. It didn’t require Congressional hearings; it didn’t require some hopelessly-flawed consumer education campaign; it required the company’s food safety officials to say, this is important, let’s do it.
Same thing with fresh fruits and vegetables -- the leading cause of foodborne illness in the U.S. for the past decade.
Late last month, U.S. regulators announced plans to strengthen safety protocols for fresh fruits and vegetables -- except those plans are simply extensions of plans published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1998. Plans and guidelines don’t make food safe: people do.
It’s nice that food safety is once again a priority in Washington and that politicians are trying to set a tone. But chatting doesn’t mean fewer sick people -- actions do.
Journalists can hold politicians, producers and industry accountable. There are lots of plans and proposals, but will any of them translate into fewer sick people?
2. Is local/natural/sustainable/organic/raw food really any better than other types of food?
A U.S. government extension agent with a PhD and at a prominent university e-mailed the other day to ask if I had any data on foodborne illness from farmers’ markets because she was preparing for a presentation and was, “trying to make the case that there are very few cases of foodborne illness from local foods relative to our globally based food system.”
But the idea that food grown and consumed locally is somehow safer than other food, either because it contacts fewer hands or any outbreaks would be contained, is the product of wishful thinking.
Barry Estabrook of Gourmet magazine recently invoked the local-is-pure fantasy, writing: “There is no doubt that our food-safety system is broken. But with the vast majority of disease outbreaks coming from industrial-scale operations, legislators should have fixed the problems there instead of targeting small, local businesses that were never part of the problem in the first place.”
But whenever you hear someone say there’s “no doubt” in this field, you should be filled with doubt. Foodborne illnesses are vastly underreported. Someone has to get sick enough to go to a doctor, the doctor has to be bright enough to order the right test, the state has to have the known foodborne illnesses listed as reportable diseases, and so on. For every known case of foodborne illness, there are an estimated 10 to 300 other cases, depending on the severity of the bug. Most foodborne illness is never detected. It’s almost never the last meal someone ate, or whatever other mythologies are out there. A stool sample linked with some epidemiology or food testing is required to make associations with specific foods.
Maybe the vast majority of foodborne outbreaks come from industrial-scale operations because the vast majority of food and meals is consumed from industrial-scale operations. To accurately compare local and other food, a database would have to somehow be constructed so that a comparison of illnesses on a per capita meal or even ingredient basis could be made.
Then there are the whoppers that are repeated daily, somewhere, like this one by raw milk advocate Sally Fallon, who said, “Raw milk is like a magic food for children. … Without the green grass, you're missing a lot of vitamins. Also, it's much safer. When cows are eating green grass, you don't find pathogens in their milk.”
With such statements, public advocacy becomes public health risk.
The natural reservoir for E. coli O157:H7 and other verotoxigenic E. coli is the intestines of all ruminants, including cattle -- grass or grain-fed -- sheep, goats, deer and the like. The final report of the fall 2006 spinach outbreak identifies nearby grass-fed beef cattle as the likely source of the E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 200 and killed four.
A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf. Kids are often the ones that get sick.
And be wary of claims that food is local.
3. Is that food safety advice really accurate?
Everyone eats, so everyone’s an expert when it comes to food. Food, Inc. may be a popular movie among the foodies, but has some terrible food safety advice. Microorganisms that make people sick exist in whatever kind of food production and distribution system we smart humans come up with. But government, industry and academic advice can often be of limited use -- or wrong. Do people really need to wash their hands for 20 seconds -- or will 10 seconds suffice? It will. Does the water have to be warm? No. Are paper towels better than blow driers at removing pathogens? Yes, it’s the friction that counts. Food safety types argue about these things all the time. If someone says, “food safety is simple, just follow this advice,” don’t believe it. Question everything.
4. With all of the attention, resources and talk, why hasn't there been a reduction in the estimated incidence of foodborne illnesses in the past five years?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported in April 2008 that foodborne illness remains a significant public health issue in the U.S., with Salmonella infections increasingly problematic: “Although significant declines in the incidence of certain foodborne pathogens have occurred since 1996, these declines all occurred before 2004,” the CDC reported.
“Outbreaks caused by contaminated peanut butter, frozen pot pies, and a puffed vegetable snack in 2007 underscore the need to prevent contamination of commercially produced products. The outbreak associated with turtle exposure highlights the importance of animals as a nonfood source of human infections. To reduce the incidence of Salmonella infections, concerted efforts are needed throughout the food supply chain, from farm to processing plant to kitchen.”
The CDC data show existing efforts to reduce foodborne illness have stalled. Signs stating “Employees must wash hands” may not be the most effective way to compel good food safety behavior. New messages using new media should be explored to really create a culture that values microbiologically safe food.
5. Why don’t producers, processors, and retailers market microbial food safety directly to consumers?
There’s lots of marketing of food safety, but it is done indirectly. One of the reasons people buy organic/natural/local/whatever is they perceive such food to be safer -- in the absence of any microbiological data. Grocery stores say all food is safe, yet the weekly outbreaks of foodborne illness -- the ones that consumers hear about -- suggest otherwise. The best farms, processors, retailers and restaurants should brag about their microbial food safety efforts and accomplishments. With so many sick people each year, there’s an attentive audience out there.
Dr. Douglas Powell is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University. He also runs barfblog.com, a blog about food safety.
