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.
Food science cafe
We had our first, monthly, Food Science Café, last night, and while numbers were small, I still believe that, if you build it, they will come.As long as it's useful.
Adrianna Deweese of the Kansas State Collegian wrote that Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at K-State, said the purpose of the monthly discussions is to talk about food safety and science in a different setting than a classroom.
Powell showed his meat thermometer to those in attendance, and said it is important to get a digital, instant-read, tip-sensitive meat thermometer, which costs about $12.
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"Lots of people use it for whole birds or roasts, but I think it's more important actually for the burgers and the ground beef," Powell said. "Ten years ago I would have never used one, but now I feel naked when I don't - I feel vulnerable."When he is asked at a restaurant how he would like his hamburger cooked, Powell said he responds he would like it "160," meaning he would like it cooked to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Food color often is a poor indicator of when it is properly cooked, Powell said. K-State food-safety research has found about 25 percent of tested hamburgers turned brown before they reached a safe temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, he said.
"We're always just trying to find one way to put information out and take information in," he said. "We're just always trying to find new ways to get it out there so we have fewer sick people."
The network also has several blogs at www.donteatpoop.k-state.edu and
barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu. Powell also wore a T-shirt Monday night that said "ne mangez pas de caca," which is French for "Don't eat poop."
"It's had more effect than anything else," Powell said of the message.
Angela Dodd, senior in food science, was quoted as saying Food Science Café discussions are
"a great way for students to become aware of what's going on in the media about food safety. Food pertains to everybody, and it's a part of everybody's life."
I didn't really like the long table set-up. Next month, we're probably going to do it in the on-campus bowling alley. Only place to get a beer at K-State.
Power from poultry poop, and a science oops
The first one, about using turkey manure appeared on Minnesota's TV KARE 11 website. Minnesota Governer Tim Pawletny was quoted as saying "There is gold in that there manure." The story suggests that 100 semi-truck loads of turkey manure provides the fuel to power 40,000 homes.
The $200 million 54 megawatt plant is owned by Fibrominn, a subsidiary of a British company that operates three similar plants in Great Britain.
The story says that for Minnesota turkey farmers it's a dream come true; free trucking and a small payment for manure. What interests me is how this power-from-poop impacts biosecurity practices and controlling animal diseases. I wonder if and how the trucks are cleaned between loads, and what would happen if avian influenza (high or low pathogenic) appeared in Minnesota.
The second story that I loved today appeared in Saturday's New York Times and was about state and federal biologists in Colorado recently learning that they may have been protecting the wrong species of fish for the past 20 years.
It seems that the biologists have been trying to restore the rare greenback cutthroat trout to Colorado waters, but were actually saving the similar but more common Colorado River cutthroat trout.
A three-year study led by University of Colorado researchers and published in August found that out of nine fish populations believed to be descendants of original greenbacks, five were actually Colorado River cutthroat trout.
Tom Nesler, state biologist was quoted as saying (maybe the best quote I've seen in the past month or so) “Hey, science happens.” New developments in DNA testing have illuminated the problem, Nesler was quoted as saying that "Up until a year ago, no one could tell us the difference between the two."
