Safe food shouldn't just be for the affluent - and they're sorta clueless when it comes to food that makes them barf
Market research sucks. With food, people vote at the checkout counter with their wallets. Sitting at home, talking to some annoying survey person who only calls when dinner is about to be served reveals … nothing, except the potential buying patterns of pissed off shoppers, wondering why they can’t just eat dinner without the phone ringing.
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A new national survey of more affluent consumers from strategic marketing communications firm Context Marketing, “Beyond Organic -- How Evolving Consumer Concerns Influence Food Purchases,” has found that most respondents are highly concerned about the safety of the food they buy and would pay more for food they believe to be safer or healthier.
The research also found that assurances about what a food doesn’t contain, such as pesticides or antibiotics, matter a great deal to these consumers, along with ethical claims that reinforce quality and safety perceptions. …
While respondents confirmed that low price is a major influence on most food purchases, 60 percent said they would pay up to 10 percent more for food they think is healthier, safer or produced according to higher ethical standards, and 14 percent said they would pay a premium greater than 10 percent.
But right now, all that is available at retail is products that hint at enhanced microbial food safety and offer ... nothing.
Market microbial food safety so consumers can choose.
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Stick it in to tell if a hamburger is safe - with a thermometer; color and poking and pieces of metal are unreliable
Sorenne did not sleep last night.
There was seemingly nothing to console her, and I was up much of the night.
But I’m getting some payback now as she enters the third hour of her nap, and decided a homemade hamburger with grilled corn and salad would make a decent lunch for myself. Coupled with the season premier of Californication on the recorderer, I was set.
Except I didn’t have Californication because I can’t tape it until tonight because Amy just had to watch and tape the season premier of The Amazing Race in case she missed a minute of the zzzzzzzzzzzz action.
And then I got this how-to-cook-a-hamburger advice by the geniuses at epicurious, forwarded by my friend Mike.
James Oliver Cury reveals his burger snobbery by suggesting those in search of a medium-rare burger – whatever that is – avoid “low-end” eateries because high-end eateries use higher quality beef and “preparation methods are superior: clean, safe, reliable.”
Guess he’s never heard of The Fat Duck.
In a linked story about burgers, the poke test for doneness is promoted:
“Medium-rare is softly yielding, medium is semifirm, well-done is firm."
Another says he prefers the visual approach, judging by the juices:
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"When they start to come out of the top of the burger, it's medium. When the juices that have oozed out of the top get cooked (stop looking red and become a bit more clear), it's medium-well."
A tip-sensitive thermometer is the only accurate way to determine whether a hamburger has been safely cooked to 160F.
Sorenne woke up before I could finish this, so I changed the TV in the background to something more child-friendly than, No Country For Old Men – Goodfellas was on AMC -- and safely fed her some leftovers.
Local food is not inherently safer food
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.
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Barry Estabrook of Gourmet magazine is the latest to invoke 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.”
As soon as someone says there’s “no doubt” I am filled with doubt about the quality of the statement that is about to follow.
Foodborne illness is vastly underreported -- it's known as the burden of reporting foodborne illness. Someone has to get sick enough to go to a doctor, go to a doctor that is bright enough to order the right test, live in a state that has the known foodborne illnesses as a reportable disease, and then it gets registered by the feds. For every known case of foodborne illness, there are 10 -300 other cases, depending on the severity of the bug.


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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. 

Newsweek has an excellent article this week about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and its Disease Detective Camp, where teenagers learn how to form a hypothesis about a disease outbreak and conduct an investigation. The key lies only partly in state-of-the-art technology. At least half the challenge is figuring out the right questions to ask. Who has contracted the disease? Where have they been? Why were they exposed to this pathogen?
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. 

Safest food in the world: American cattlemen's edition
It’s been awhile, but Dr. Sam Ives, director of veterinary services and associate director of research at Cactus Feeders, Ltd., testified today on behalf of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) at a U.S. House Agriculture Committee Hearing on food safety that the U.S. has the safest food in the world.
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“There is no question that the United States has the safest food supply in the world and other countries consider the U.S. the 'gold standard.' Cattle producers support the establishment of realistic food safety objectives designed to protect public health to the maximum extent possible.
“…The U.S. has the safest food supply in the world, which is an achievement worth noting. Science is a critical component of the beef industry and through science-based improvements in animal genetics, management practices, nutrition and health, beef production per cow has increased from 400 pounds of beef in the mid 1960s to 585 pounds of beef in 2005. … The beef industry will continue to dedicate time and resources to ensure the safety of beef.”
But that doesn’t mean the U.S. has the safest food supply in the world. For a group so dedicated to science, perhaps they could provide some science to substantiate the claim?
Source food from safe sources - the missing component in food safety communications
Tomorrow is Canada Day, the celebration of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united Canada as a single country of four provinces. Saturday is Independence Day in the U.S., commonly known as the Fourth of July, a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Both occasions have turned into annual orgies of bad food safety advice on both sides of the 49th parallel.
OK, bad is a strong word. But the advice is certainly incomplete; and puts the blame for any outbreaks of foodborne illness squarely on the shoulders of consumers.
For example, “The government of Canada reminds Canadians about the importance of food safety during the summer months.” Compelling reading. And then a $5.5 billion-a-year company, Maple Leaf, can do no better than parrot government advice, which is convenient, since it says nothing about buying cold-cuts that won’t make people barf.
Maple Leaf’s so-called blog, which is updated about once-a-week, is entitled, Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership. What PR genius thought up this blog name? Shouldn’t they already be food safety leaders? I don’t want to be on a journey with them (and Journey is a terrible band) while Maple Leaf figures out food safety.
The U.S. is no better with its “Independence Day: Drills for the grill.” Seriously, who comes up with this stuf? Oh, and the U.S. Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education has a new leader, but the same incomplete messages (and same terrible title).
But change may yet happen. Given all the outbreaks – produce, pet food, peanut butter, that have nothing to do with consumers, it’s time any food safety messaging campaign included what the World Heath Organization has been advocating since 2002 – source food from safe sources (an evaluation of message effectiveness should also be a bare minimum and rarely happens).
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The U.S. National Restaurant Association encourages restaurant and foodservice operators to begin planning for the 15th annual National Food Safety Education Month, held every September and focuses on the importance of food safety education for the restaurant and foodservice industry.
This year's theme is "Food Safety Thrives When You Focus on Five."
Each week will focus on one of the five barriers:
Purchasing food from unsafe sources
Failing to cook food adequately
Holding food at incorrect temperatures
Using contaminated equipment
Practicing poor personal hygiene
Finally, a group starts to get it right. Now, about that evaluation …
Microbiologically safe food - regardless of farm size
Daughter Courtlynn spent her spring break with daughter Sorenne in Manhattan (Kansas).
Which is the only lede I got into foodborne illness, conspiracies and shameless exploitation of children.
The conclusion is this: Michelle Obama should use the White House garden to endorse microbiologically safe food, from around the corner or around the globe.
Phillip Brasher wrote in The Des Moines Register yesterday,
“In recent years, the federal government and the food industry have taken some significant steps to improve the safety of fresh produce. Those measures include stringent inspection standards for farms that supply schools and supermarket chains. The standards sometime restrict the use of compost and manure to fertilize crops and restrict how close cattle can be to fields.”
Stringent standards is not the descriptor to be used in the wake of the Peanut Corporation of America-AIB auditing fiasco. Worse, associations representing small-scale farmers have taken to the Intertubes to whine and conspiratorize about the end of family farming; that somehow standards for producing safe produce shouldn’t apply to small farms, or my garden.
The group that keeps getting cited for its threatening analysis of proposed food safety legislation is the ponderous Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which is run by the folks pushing raw milk. And some of those folks have, uh, interpretations of food safety that are not only wrong but dangerous to public health. Epidemiology does work, but not everyone likes the results.
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Back to my kids. Or Mason Jones, the five-year-old who died in the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales. Or Barack’s kids, since he cited them in a food safety chat. The food safety goal, for me, is to have fewer people barfing and dying. There is some microbiology and food science available to help achieve that goal. There is a lot of speculation, fairytales and unknowns about the providence of nature and immunology which can get in the way of that goal.
Michelle Obama, you are embracing local and fresh and natural foods and whatever that means. As I asked March 11, 2009, use the White House bully garden to embrace microbiologically safe food.
Local is not safer
Spring has sprung in Kansas. We all worked in the yard yesterday, and after a couple of cool nights later in the week, the first leafy greens will be going into the garden.
With spring comes the mantra, local is safer.
The idea food that is grown and consumed locally is somehow safer than other food, either because it contacts fewer hands or any outbreaks would be contained, is sorta soothing, like a mild hallucinogen, and has absolutely no basis in reality.
Foodborne illness is vastly underreported -- it's known as the burden of reporting foodborne illness. Someone has to get sick enough to go to a doctor, go to a doctor that is bright enough to order the right test, live in a state that has the known foodborne illnesses as a reportable disease, and then it gets registered by the feds. For every known case of foodborne illness, there are 10 -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.
Robert Brackett, senior vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and a darn fine scientist, told USA Today most foodborne illnesses don't get noticed because not enough people get sick to alert officials that an outbreak is underway. Undetected outbreaks are more likely with "local" products delivered in small quantities and sold in a small area.
Comparing local with all that other food brings in more tenuous links and numerous erroneous assumptions. 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.
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But the absence of data doesn’t stop doctrine. JoLynn Montgomery, director of the Michigan Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University of Michigan told the Detroit Free Press today that one solution that is catching on is buying locally grown foods.
"The less distance the food has to travel, the fewer people who touch the food, the less risk you have.”
Local can be microbiologically safe. But repeating ‘local’ while in some sorta peyote buzz doesn’t take care of the dangerous bugs. So wherever food is purchased or even grown, ask some questions:
• how are pathogenic microorganisms managed;
• is wash and irrigation water tested for dangerous bacteria;
• how is fresh produce protected from animal poop;
• what kind of soil amendments are being used and are they microbiologically safe; and,
• are you or your suppliers practicing great handwashing?
That’s a start.
Food safety education failures
Whenever a group says the public needs to be educated about food safety, biotechnology, trans fats, organics or anything else, that group has utterly failed to present a compelling case for their cause.
I cringe, and remember a Lewis Lapham column I read in Harper’s magazine in the mid-1980s about how individuals can choose to educate themselves about all sorts of interesting things, but the idea of educating someone is doomed to failure. Oh, and it’s sorta arrogant to state that others need to be educated; to imply that if only you understood the world as I understand the world, we would agree and dissent would be minimized.
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What nonsense.
Yet millions are wasted weekly on such campaigns.
Industry, government, academia, activists, they all resort to the same language when it comes to providing information: them folks need to get edumacated.
In the past year:
• the American Ag & Energy Council said it believed in promoting all the good the industry does through education;
• Shell Malaysia chairman Datuk Saw Choo Boon told Malaysians efforts should concentrate on educating the public to become twice as efficient in energy use by 2050;
• an industry type said food irradiation is safe, but its adoption by the industry would require a massive consumer education campaign;
• the U.S. beef checkoff supported the efforts of federal agencies in promoting beef safety through educational activities;
• the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education has it right in their horribly bureaucratic name;
• as does the U.S. Partnership for Food Safety Education, dedicated to improving public health through research-based, actionable consumer food safety education; and,
• retailers are joining the group effort to educate millions of consumers about food safety.
A long time ago, I wrote,
There is a dearth of scientific studies applying proven risk communication concepts to issues of microbial food safety. There is, however, an abundance of academic, industrial and government pronouncements on how to improve communications activities related to food safety, based on anecdotal evidence and almost always citing the need for “educated consumers” or “a better-educated public.”
Such proposals invoke a one-way, authoritarian model of communication that is characteristic of scientists and engineers in general. Further, exactly how this mythical consumer will become better educated remains a mystery. What is known is that the traditional approach of scientists clearly explaining the facts is “naive—and probably a recipe for failure. ... Effective communication
“Too often, risk communicators are more concerned with educating the public, rather than first listening to them and then developing communication policies.”
So it’s not surprising that the organic industry is also lacking in imagination and has launched a national consumer education and marketing campaign.
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The Organic Agriculture and Products Education Institute (Organic Institute) has launched "Organic. It's worth it."
"The mission of this campaign is to answer consumer questions about organic with the clear message that organic is worth it in every way from health care and economics to farming and the environment. It will increase consumer trust, knowledge and purchase of organic products," said Christine Bushway, president of the Organic Institute and executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the sponsor of the campaign.
Designed to be of service to families with young children at home, the campaign especially seeks to reach new mothers, the primary gateways to organic, according to OTA Marketing Director Laura Batcha, who developed the campaign with Haberman, the Minneapolis brand public relations firm, on behalf of the Organic Institute.
"Helping mothers make the connection between the personal health of their families and the health of the environment is key to this education and marketing initiative," explained Batcha. "It gives them the rationale they need to make the organic purchase."
Of course, as the N.Y. Times points out this morning, organic has nothing to do with food safety. It’s a production standard, and a porous one at that. But consumers believe that organic is healthier and safer, according to surveys. The organic industry will never come out and say it’s safer, but they hint at it through marketing (see above).
So it’s a shock to some that Peanut Corporation of America plants in Virginia and Texas were certified organic, revealing the same Ponzi scheme of inspection and auditing that failed to catch Salmonella problems in the plants.
As the Times states,
Although the rules governing organic food require health inspections and pest-management plans, organic certification technically has nothing to do with food safety. …
A private certifier took nearly seven months to recommend that the U.S.D.A. revoke the organic certification of the peanut company’s Georgia plant, and then did so only after the company was in the thick of a massive food recall. So far, nearly 3,000 products have been recalled, including popular organic items from companies like Clif Bar and Cascadian Farm. Nine people have died and almost 700 have become ill.
The private certifier, the Organic Crop Improvement Association, sent a notice in July to the peanut company saying it was no longer complying with organic standards, said Jeff See, the association’s executive director. He would not say why his company wanted to pull the certification.
A second notice was sent in September, but it wasn’t until Feb. 4 that the certifier finally told the agriculture department that the company should lose its ability to use the organic label.
To emphasize that reporting basic health violations is part of an organic inspector’s job, Barbara C. Robinson, acting director of the agriculture department’s National Organic Program, last week issued a directive to the 96 organizations that perform foreign and domestic organic inspections that they are obligated to look beyond pesticide levels and crop management techniques.
Potential health violations like rats — which were reported by federal inspectors and former workers at the Texas and Georgia plants — must be reported to the proper health and safety agency, the directive said.
Wow. Organic inspectors have to be told by the feds that rats may pose a health risk and should be reported.
Arthur Harvey, a Maine blueberry farmer who does organic inspections, said agents have an incentive to approve companies that are paying them.
“Certifiers have a considerable financial interest in keeping their clients going,” he said.
OMG. Organic, like other food systems, is about making money.
Is there a better way? Yes, market microbial food safety and hold producers and processors – conventional, organic or otherwise – to a standard of producing food that doesn’t make people barf. That’s something shoppers will support, instead of being told they have to become better educated about someone else’s limited perspective.
If these people are experts, what's a consumer to do?
I cringe every time I’m called an expert.
I know a little bit about how to coach girl’s hockey, I know how to make graduate students cry, I know a few other things involving chocolate. I’m amazed at what I don’t know about food and food safety.
But we’re all experts cause we all eat.
The Boston Globe asked some alleged experts about their food concerns.
Dr. Anita Barry of Hingham, director of the infectious disease bureau for the Boston Public Health Commission, says she focuses on washing all produce and she only uses plastic-made cutting boards because wooden ones can have germ-trapped cracks.
Washing produce removes little in the way of pathogens – has to be minimized on the farm – and wooden cutting boards are fine.
Zach Conrad of Brighton, a former co-odinator at the nonprofit Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., believes that today's organic farmers take greater care around sanitation and safety issues.
Sorry Zach, absolutely no evidence for that.
Lilian Schaer has a unique theory on why there is an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with a Harvey’s restaurant in North Bay, Ontario.
“At Harvey’s, frozen beef patties are grilled once you place your order - and there is plenty of room for error in that process, especially if the restaurant is busy, there isn’t enough staff, or staff aren’t trained or supervised properly.”
So why aren’t there other outbreaks at Harvey’s across Canada? Lilian also says farmers are great and bad handling is where things go wrong. Today she called E. coli O157:H7 a virus. Lilian is a communications specialist, apparently trained at Guelph.
Gina Mallet reacted to the Michael Schmidt raw milk conviction today by saying
“Michael Schmidt's raw milk has never been found to have listeria or e coli, none of his customers have turned up in intensive care. People who buy raw milk know there's an outside risk of a pathogen in unpasteurized milk.
"But no one who ate the listeria laced deli meat and now, the e-coli burgers from a North Bay Wendy's knew they were dicing with death when they ate processed and fast food. … Fact is, and the government knows it, that the dirty human hand is a greater danger to our food than not pasteurizing milk.”
It’s a Harvey’s in North Bay. And Gina, you don’t know if Schmidt’s milk has made someone sick or not. It’s OK to say, I don’t know. The dirty hand? Sure, but I follow the poop, some of which is on the hand, some elsewhere.
Ensuring safe local produce
That’s according to a blog post at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which also notes the hospitals signed a Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge.
Holly Freishtat, Sustainable Food Specialist for Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, says,"Hospitals are changing the culture of food in healthcare by sourcing local produce, hormone-free milk, meat without hormones or antibiotics, sustainable seafood and through hosting farmers' markets, community- supported agriculture boxes for employees."
What's missing is any discussion about the microbiological safety of, especially, fresh local produce.
As more producers and suppliers adapt to meet the demand for local produce, here are some basic questions:
• where is the farm located
• what type of fertilizer is used;
• what is the water source and how frequently is it tested; and,
• is the produce harvested, stored and transported safely, by staff who practice outstanding personal hygiene.?
Beyond the questions, the real challenge, as I've said many times before, is,
"Whether your food comes from down the street or around the globe, you want to verify that producers and processors are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing."
How about sourcing food from the place that can boast the fewest number of sick patrons?
Hamburger Habits: Is Medium Safe?
I’m a reformed medium-rare hamburger eater. Before I met Doug, I always wanted my hamburgers pink in the middle and frankly had no clue that this was a potentially risky habit. Now that I’ve learned hamburger needs to be cooked to 160 F to be safe, however, I rarely eat hamburger unless Doug cooks it at home. That’s the only way I can assure that the cook is using a meat thermometer and knows how to properly do so.
Tonight, though, I’m in Buffalo, NY and I had dinner with two British friends in a rowdy Irish pub. While I intended to order salad, the pickings were few on the menu and I settled on a cheeseburger with fries. The waitress asked me, “How do you want that cooked.” Somewhat startled and without my food safety arsenal beside me, I said, “Medium.” I hate well-done hamburger because of the texture, but I wanted my burger safe. How could I tell her that?
My burger came and was very medium rare looking … very pink in the middle and done on the outside. I ate it. The whole thing. And it tasted good. And now I’m thinking about my foolish behavior and wondering if I’ll get e. coli. I know that color is a lousy indicator and I know it’s not likely I’ll get sick. But without the thermometer, how can you be sure?
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Knowing where your food comes from -- Doug Powell edition
A spate of recent scares about food -- from tainted spinach and cantaloupe to sprouts and carrot juice -- has made many consumers hyper-aware of the potential dangers of what they consume. For many, buying local seemed to offer protection against the evils of the food world.
A particularly harsh winter has put that myth to rest for many. Sooner or later, the grocery store and its shiny produce aisles full of strawberries, peppers, lettuce, oranges and kiwi beckon. Local, in this climate, has its limits.
Dr. Douglas Powell (right, not exactly as shown) says buying local is no guarantee against eating food that can make us sick."You have good producers and bad producers everywhere whether they are large or small, size doesn't matter."
Powell said he feels safe buying produce from large grocery stores that are big enough to demand high standards throughout their supply chains. Even then, problems can happen. When it comes to buying local, he asks questions, such as what kind of water is used for irrigation, how often it is tested and where the produce is grown.
The story says that Powell (left, not exactly as shown) is a Canadian who teaches at the University of Kansas and heads the Guelph-based Food Safety Network.I professorize at Kansas State University.
The International Food Safety Network is worldwide, headquartered on my couch in Manhattan (Kansas). If I'm heading some Guelph knock-off you'd think they could at least give me an e-mail address and not expropriate donations to cover shortfalls in their paper clip fund.
How to check if a turkey is cooked: "piping hot" is not sufficient
Same with the Irish.
For the home cook, the data is the tip-sensitive digital thermometer, and a recording of 160F for hamburgers, 165F for poultry.
For the U.K.'s Food Standards Agency, it's, "check it's piping hot all the way through."
I have no idea what that means.When I hear piping hot, I think of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
Seriously, the best the taxpayer-funded FSA can come up with is:
So make sure your turkey is cooked properly:
* check it's piping hot all the way through
* cut into the thickest part to check that none of the meat is pink
* if juices run out, they should be clear.
Wow.
One of the great things about the barfblog software provided by food safety dude Bill Marler is that we can see what people are searching for. Since Thanksgiving, people are repeatedly searching for, "Where to place a thermometer in a turkey."
So, not only are they using a thermometer, they want to know how to do it properly.
Don't ask the U.K.'s Food Standards Agency.
Or Ireland's safefood, which yesterday said it's safe to cook stuffing inside the turkey and,
"remember, always make sure your cooked turkey is piping hot all the way through, with no pink meat, and all the juices run clear."
But here are some tips. And some pics from our Thanksgiving turkey.
Food safety guru Pete Snyder says, If you have stuffed the turkey, you must cook the stuffed bird until the stuffing is above 150F. This assures a 10,000,000-to-1 kill of Salmonella. At this point, the breast will probably be 165F, which is very safe, and the thigh will be about 185F, which is necessary to make this muscle tissue soft.
Sara Moulton on ABC's Good Morning America says:
The thermometer goes into the thickest part of the thigh and should not touch the bone.
The U.S. National Turkey Federation says to insert the thermometer 2 1/2 inches in the deepest portion of the turkey breast or into the inner thigh near the breast. Make sure the thermometer does not touch a bone. When inserting the thermometer in the turkey breast, insert it from the side. The thermometer is easier to read and more accurate than when inserted from the top.
And the U.S. Department of Agriculture says for whole turkeys, place the thermometer in the thickest part of the inner thigh. Once the thigh has reached 165 °F, check the wing and the thickest part of the breast to ensure the turkey has reached a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F throughout the product.The Brits are right to say that people shouldn’t wash their turkeys before cooking them -- a cross contamination nightmare -- but why they refuse to advocate tip-sensitive digital thermometers is baffling. And risky.
And these are happy people not barfing because I used a tip-sensitive digital meat thermometer, and didn't rely on "piping hot."
The Safe Food Café
President Jon Wefald likes to remind me that Kansas State University will not be getting a hockey arena any time soon. I even gave him one of our collectors T-shirts (left, exactly as shown) and he said, no way.Which is too bad cause one of our ideas to help finance the arena was the Safe Food Café, a restaurant and observational food service kitchen where we could videotape the food safety behaviors of employees and customers, and experiment with interventions.
Apparently the Dutch were listening in, and have come up with their own variation.
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The Associated Press reported that a new research centre -- dubbed the "restaurant of the future" -- at the Dutch university of Wageningen will track diners with dozens of unobtrusive cameras and monitoring their eating habits.
Rene Koster, head of the Center for Innovative Consumer Studies, said,
"We want to find out what influences people: colors, taste, personnel. We try to focus on one stimulus, like light," as overhead bulbs switched through green, red, orange and blue. This restaurant is a playground of possibilities. We can ask the staff to be less friendly and visible or the reverse. The changes must be small. If you were making changes every day it would be too disruptive. People wouldn't like it."
University staff who want to eat at the new restaurant have to sign a consent form agreeing to be watched.
The new research centre -- which cost almost 3 million euros ($4.26 million) -- was set up in partnership with French catering group Sodexho Alliance and other companies interested in using the restaurant to test their products.
Local = safe? Show me the data
The Montreal Gazette is the latest media outlet to plunge into the if-food-from-China-makes-us-sick-we-should-buy-local issue.Paul Mayers, executive director of the animal products directorate at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, was quoted as saying, "Continued globalization means our responsibilities continue to grow. Regulatory systems in different countries are at different stages of evolution. We realize not all countries have systems that are as developed as ours."
I'm not sure how developed the Canadian regulatory system is. The scientific expertise is there, but when it comes to sharing that information with consumers, the system seems far from developed.
Even the story notes that "the Canadian Food Inspection Agency doesn't release numbers on how many shipments it inspects or how many inspectors it employs. Nor does it track food-safety violations by country."
The story cites me, Doug Powell, an associate professor and director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University, as saying the food supply is as safe as it's ever been, adding, "It doesn't matter whether we get our food from around the corner or around the world." Powell said it's up to consumers to ask questions, but said increased government inspection is not the answer. "You can't test your way to a safe food supply," said Powell, who believes ensuring food safety is the responsibility of the private sector. "Making people sick is bad for business."
Actually, the rest of the quote was, "you want to verify that producers and processors are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing" but the reporter didn't seem to like that.
There is a growing assumption visible in media coverage and marketing, that local equates with safe. I was at the Manhattan (Kansas, that is) market with Amy last Saturday morning. Producers, large or small, should be able to describe their efforts to manage microbiological risks. Back in Guelph, Ontario, I used to ask the guy who sold fresh apple cider what he did to control risk (this, in the aftermath of the 1996 Odwalla juice-E. coli O157:H7 outbreak) and he could describe the small microbiological lab he had set up on his farm and the testing and sampling procedures he used. If consumers want unpasteurized cider, that's the kind of question and answer they might want to be interested in.
Regardless of the source, have some sort of verification that it is microbiologically safe.
