Confused Moms to Be
When I was pregnant with Sorenne in the summer of 2008, we spent a month in Canada while the Maple Leaf Listeria outbreak was, in retrospect, percolating in cold-cuts that were being consumed across the country.
If I hadn’t been informed by my food safety guru husband, I could have very easily consumed ready-to-eat deli meat on our car trip north, potentially putting my baby at risk. Sorenne turned out healthy, huge and wonderful. And we are thankful every day.
Several of my former students, friends, and family members are pregnant right now, and somehow I’ve become the expert on food safety during pregnancy. These women have expressed frustration and confusion about the conflicting information they read and receive from their doctors regarding what they can and cannot eat during pregnancy. While I generally think moderation and eliminating stress are priorities, there are a few food safety concerns that are definitely worth considering. I’ve already written on “What you can and cannot eat during pregnancy,” but in light of major outbreaks (and this is barfblog, of the 4 Rs), the information bears repeating.
Pregnant women should avoid:
- ready to eat refrigerated foods such as deli meats, smoked fish, hot dogs, sausages, pâté, and the like. If the food is shelf-stable (canned), it should be ok. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find canned pâté in Manhattan, KS during my pregnancy – but now it’s available at Hyvee.
- soft-serve ice-cream which has been suspected as a listeria risk
- soft cheeses (brie, camembert – pasteurized or not) and we are uncertain about blue-veined cheeses (I toasted or melted my cheese to alleviate my fears. Now this seems laughable since I’m not eating any dairy while I breastfeed.)
- and sprouts because they have been identified as a source of listeria and other pathogens.
Listeria is one of the main food safety concerns during pregnancy because it causes a high rate of miscarriage and stillbirths.
For further reading, consult the Bad bug book, http://www.foodsafety.gov/~mow/chap6.html and the CDC’s excellent site http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/pregnancy_gateway/infection_list.htm#protect
Investigative journalists still required for food safety - even if newspapers disappear
Toronto city councillor Brian Ashton said yesterday,
"I was stunned that the Toronto Star was able to – for the second time – expose a problem that the Board of Health seemed to be unaware of," referring to the newspaper's "Dirty Dining" series in 2000, which prompted public health to release restaurant inspection records. "The Toronto Star is becoming more like a board of health than the Board of Health."
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Food safety stories are increasingly the fodder of investigative journalists, regardless of media. We all eat, so we’re all interested to a point, although not everyone wants to go politico with every bite – sometimes it’s enough to not barf.
The recent Toronto Star series on the filth of soft-serve ice cream machines is an example of media setting the public health agenda.
Toronto Public Health is cracking down on more than 100 ice cream vendors after a Star investigation revealed hazardous levels of bacteria in soft-serve cones across the city.
Consumers can do the same thing – with pictures and video that can readily be captured by most cell phones. Send it to your local health unit.
Otherwise, D-listers like Tori Spelling (above, right, exactly as shown) set the agenda.
Soft-serve sucks in Belgium
Not just a problem for Toronto or Tori Spelling, Belgium also apparently has some issues with soft-serve and regular ice cream.
Albert sent along a link to a recent report by Test-Achats, a Belgian-based consumer group that anonymously sent researchers to 69 points of sale for ice cream and soft-serve in Belgium during the summer of 2008. Amy translated, and highlights of the report are below.
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“Attention was essentially directed towards touristic sites like the Côte, the Ardennes, and various country towns. They bought ice cream cones and soft-serve. While making the purchases, they took the opportunity to evaluate the hygiene at the point of sale as well as of the personnel, the place where the counter or the soft-serve dispenser was located, the conditions for rinsing the ice cream scoop, etc. Immediately after the purchase, and in appropriate sterile and temperature conditions, the ice cream was taken to the laboratory to undergo detailed bacteriological testing. …
Apparent cleanliness was rarely noted during our visits: only 18 points of sale received a good or very good score for this category. In 8 cases, general hygiene at the point of sale was simply unacceptable… and added to that was a serious lack in the staff’s personal hygiene. A serious problem that was already underscored by Test Achats: the ice cream scoop. It was only rinsed under running water in 6 of the points of sale. This is however fundamental for serving ice cream in good hygienic conditions. Too often, the scoop was left resting in obviously unclean water or it wasn’t, in any case, cleaned before service. Finally, it is unacceptable that the ice cream counter or the soft-serve machine be located in full sunlight, exposed to outside air or that the ice cream be accessible to or touched by clients. However, this was the case in 11 locations.
The testing of 5 specific bacteriological parameters as well as the number of total germs gives a realistic image of the hygienic quality of the 70 samples analyzed. Fortunately the presence of Salmonella and Listeria was never detected, on the other hand, Escherichia coli (which can provoke enteritis or diarrhea) was detected in three cases. In two cases, staphylococcus was present, proof of a lack of the personnel’s hygiene. …
Throughout the years and through successive studies, the results are obvious: the hygienic quality of ice cream is getting worse: 35% of ice cream cones and 61% of soft-serve are bad to mediocre. This is a completely unacceptable situation."
Soft-serve safety redux
In part two of the Toronto Star's investigation of soft-serve ice cream safety reporters have stumbled upon a snack bar with an extraordinary amount of coliform in the treats. The biggest offender found during the blitz was the Kew Gardens snack bar (with coliform above 1000000 cfu/gram). When I was growing up, I probably visited that snack bar 10-15 times a summer.
When asked about the 1000000 cfu/g measure, Rick Holley, microbiologist from U of Manitoba responded:
"Oh my God. This is not good," With results this high, "the product is hazardous," said Holley, adding the spectre of serious health implications is also magnified.
"The real concern here is listeria," he said. "And it's going to happen."
After learning of the result on Thursday, [Kew Gardens snack bar] manager Danny Foulidis ordered the machine shut down and sanitized.
"We've always been a clean establishment. We've never had an issue. If there's something we need to change to make things better, it's not a problem on our part."
During the past week, Gerry Lawrence, food safety manager at Toronto Public Health, has fielded calls from worried residents asking how to tell if soft ice cream is safe.
His advice: "If I'm buying ice cream for a youngster, I don't think I want to buy it from somebody that has greasy hands or isn't wearing a clean smock or even a baseball cap."
Holley, a member of a federal advisory panel struck in response to the Maple Leaf Foods listeria crisis, chuckles at the suggestion that protection comes down to gauging the cleanliness of an operator. "That's not the complete picture. You might have one person of that kind of appearance who plays a very minor role in handling products that are risky, such as these are.
Great quote by Holley after a poor suggestion from Lawrence. Visual cleanliness isn't a good indicator of anything, especially whether someone is going to get sick.
"It really does require that the folks who are responsible for making sure that all of the licence requirements of these people are met are conscientious in what they do and look at the whole picture. Whether or not they have time to do that is another issue."
The Star goes on to report on one of the factors that could lead to soft-serve contamination, the infamous O-ring.
Health inspectors generally do not check the inner mechanisms of machines, and experts warn that's where the danger lies, particularly in a $1.85 rubber O-ring that seals an area around a drive shaft that spins the ice cream. Michael Minor, former president of the Ontario branch of the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors, said a worn ring can cause contamination to seep into the ice cream.
"Product that leaks from the refrigerated mixing vat into the back of the machine because of a faulty O-ring can be pulled back in to the soft-serve mix through reverse flow," Minor said.
Manufacturers suggest the rings be replaced every three months.
Minor is concerned some operators lack the knowledge or will to maintain their machines, which is central to assuring a safe product.
"This is not rocket science. It's not statistical analysis. This is a machine that needs attention and you need to understand it."
Holley and Minor both touch on one of the tenets of food safety culture: Operators need to know the risks associated with their products and how to manage them. Good operators know about sanitation, equipment maintenance and selecting good suppliers.
