Food Safety Talk 74: Lait de Poo

Don and Ben start the show by talking about the drastic weather in Raleigh, NC and Freehold, NJ. They quickly changed topics to beverage preferences, including Starbucks and eggnog. Ben notes he is not a fan of eggnog although his grandparents used to drink consistently. Ben also reminisces about other old-timey eating habits including pickled beets, and buttermilk. Don will stick with eggnog plus whiskey during the holiday season. Ben shared his excitement about a Sloan concert that he recently attended with his wife. Ben also mentioned a thoughtful gift that he received from his wife: a poet (Matthew) wrote a poem for Ben on the topic of barf and Ben was very thrilled. Don also shared his excitement as well as he recently celebrated his birthday, and Merlin gave him a shout out on his podcast.

Twenty minutes in, food safety talk officially began and Ben commented on a blog post where the interviewed the research chief of ABC Research laboratories. She was interviewed about raw honey and recommended honey pasteurization to prevent infant botulism. Ben disagreed with her statement, and noted that pasteurization does not destroy the spores present in honey. Don supported Ben and added that pasteurization is even less effective in low water activity foods like peanut butter or honey. According to this fact sheet, honey is pasteurized to reduce the likelihood of fermentation and crystallization over time.

Don turned the topic to Ebola in the US, and mentioned Peter Sandman’s post on The public health establishment and the quarantine debate. Sandman complained about how the US handled the Ebola issue. Ben agreed with some (not all) of the post and concluded that risk talk should always be frank.

From Ebola the topic turned to Hepatitis E as an emerging foodborne disease.  A UK article stated, 1 in 10 sausage carries the risk of Hepatitis E, which seems high to Ben and Don. Don thought that Hepatitis E in the UK might be a worker sanitation issue. Both guys were intrigued by the apparent low risk of Hepatitis E in the US. Peer reviewed research published in Epidemiology and Infection states that Hepatitis E is associated with unprocessed sausage, and 90% of British pigs have exposed to Hepatitis E and produce antibodies. Cooking suggestion including cooking for 20 min at 70 °C or better yet, using a thermometer.

Don mentioned a recent contact by a local company asking about safe practices for cooked brown rice preparation. Although the company had a detailed and meticulous workflow, additional information (like product time and temperature) would be needed to insure control of Bacillus cereus, according to Ben.

The show concluded with talk about the Month-Long Poop Cruise, the verdict in the Peanut Corporation of America case and the food safety mess in Pro Sports. 

FST 74: Lait de Poo

Don Schaffner

Food Safety Talk 31: The Christmas Holiday Spectacular

Ben was in a holiday mood after spending time in Florida and catching up with friend of the show, Michelle Danyluk. He also met up with Doug Powell for the annual barfblog editorial team meeting and had lunch with Bert Mitchell. The guys exchanged their holiday MP3 picks, including Sloan’s Merry X’mas Everybody and Jonathan Coulton & John Roderick’s Christmas in Jail. Some non-Christmas and non-food safety-related ramblings included The Good Lovelies, The Comic Book Club of Ithaca, Doctor Doom, Teen Titans, the comiXology app, and Saga.

The guys then talked food safety communication and Ben praised this system for restaurant inspection disclosure, as well as jurisdictional approaches (such as this one in Plano) that provide access to restaurant inspection histories. Don was excited about "Variability Among States in Investigating Foodborne Disease Outbreaks", but felt let down as there was little information about the reason for this variability. Ben and Don wondered whether it had to do with the caliber of epidemiologists – or was it related to how hard they were looking for foodborne illness problems and the things that define their food safety culture?

The discussion then turned to smartphone apps, which was prompted by Ben’s barfblog article about a soon to be released app by Food Sentry. The guys were curious about what they’d be getting for the subscription fee and how rankings were magically created, and noted that some of the information is already publically available through the FDA’s Product Recalls app and others. The serious discussion about risk rankings quickly degraded into poop-a-licious fun with the Poop the World app. While Don was a little freaked out he was pleased that the app included a hand washing reminder. Ben was wondering whether the data could be used similar to Google’s Flu Trends to identify and track food borne illness outbreaks.

The guys then talked about several food safety related papers, including a paper co-authored by Don entitled “Fate of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella on fresh-cut celery”. The second paper was “Efficacies of Sodium Hypochlorite and Quaternary Ammonium Sanitizers for Reduction of Norovirus and Selected Bacteria during Ware-Washing Operations” and Ben wondered what the implications for cleaning up after a vomiting event in a restaurant setting are (like the one Ben lived through in Episode 22). The article “Outbreaks of Acute Gastroenteritis Transmitted by Person-to-Person Contact – United States, 2009-2010” blew Don’s mind as he found at that the CDC was not tracking person-to-person transmission of acute gastroenteritis prior to implementation of the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS) in 2009.

The guys then finished off talking about some recent Kansas City Star articles about the beef industry, especially one about problems with needle tenderised beef, as well as the recent barfblog article about a paper on food safety and social media.

Don was excited that Chuck Haas and Aamir Fazil are now listening to the podcast and he invited listeners to comment on the discussion during the show. They guys also urged listeners rate the podcast on iTunes.

In the after dark, Don told Ben about the Spaceteam app, which he wants to play with Ben and Mike Batz (like these guys). And planning a Skype call between the guys and Andreas in Australia was proving a little difficult, because of the time difference.

Food Safety Talk 31: The Christmas Holiday Spectacular

Food Safety Talk 21: Food Safety Consultant to Apple Nerds

The guys are still having some problems with Skype though maybe some of it is related to Don hitting the permanent mute button.

Don prepared for his colonoscopy with the Suprep innards-cleansing purple sponge kit. He couldn’t stomach the diarrhea inducing preparation and Ben thought he could have achieved the same effect with some of Lee-Ann Jaykus’ fecal-harvested norovirus. But Don longs for a magic pill instead of eating poop (or drinking Suprep).

The discussion then turned to the inter-relations between food safety, social networking and the Internet. Don explained that the Internet was an interconnected series of tubes invented by Al Gore. This surprised Ben. Don then briefly detoured by reminiscing about the dinner he and Kristin had with Merlin Mann at the House of Prime Rib while on a trip to San Francisco, where the WWDC Apple nerds overlapped with the ASM micro nerds. This led to the story how Dan Benjamin asked Don to talk some food safety sense into Andy Ihnatko and Dave Nanian.  This inspires Don to proclaim himself food safety consultant to the Apple nerds, truly a golden god.

Bill Marler retweeted a reference to Don’s post on barfblog about hand-washing which received some criticism from a be-sandeled curmudgeon for lack of credit. Maybe he could use The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator which (essentially) made Don an overnight Internet semi-celebrity thanks to a re-tweet by Merlin Mann.

When Ben (finally) got a word in he thought it was important to contribute to the food safety conversation on the Internet and for food professionals to know what is being talked about. Ben’s biggest challenge is finding the best way to engage with all the various social media outlets. Ben believes that people are only trusted if others can see they are real – such as Bill Marler as compared to USDA live tweet session about food safety “Ask Karen.”

While Ben and Doug’s twitter feeds are clearly food safety related, Don felt that his own was more random, such as asking Jesse Thorn for a link to the audio file for Jesse’s classic interview with Dick Dale. Don also uses Twitter as an outlet for his frustrations with a life in academe, but he was also curious about trying to socially engage random strangers reporting vomiting, diarrhea and food poisoning. Ben monitors some of these terms with TweetDeck, though he may switch to Hibari. Ben also pitched Lee-Ann on the idea of a team of graduate students engaging with those who are already reading and talking about foodborne illnesses and outbreaks as part of the NoroCore project.

Don recounted his recent appearance on Dr. Radio, a satellite radio show hosted by nutritionist Samantha Heller. He gave the podcast a plug, though the causal link with the growth in the FST podcast listenership is unknown.  Don did note that about 40% of blog traffic was thanks to links from barfblog. The guys were grateful to those who had left reviews, including Mike Batz, who struggles with multiple twitter personalities.

While Don knew that the guys from Car Talk were retiring, he found out from Jesse Thorn about a post written by Ira Glass about what public radio shows should do with the slot and the response to it. The success of Car Talk reminded Don of John Gruber and Merlin Mann’s South by Southwest Interactive 2009 talk about building a blog to be proud of. All you need is Obsession + Topic + Voice, something the guys are striving to perfect.

Another opportunity for a podcast plug will be Don’s IAFP webinar on “Making the Most of Your IAFP Annual Meeting: Tips for Students and First-Timers” Tuesday, 10 July 2012, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM (Central Time). Ben recalled FST Episode 0 (on StoryCorps) and their first IAFP meeting experiences. The guys then talked about what they do and don’t do at conferences. This includes leaving sessions if they are bored.

Finally, the discussion turned to music and Ben shared that wishes he was food safety’s Neil Young. Don agreed that Neil Young’s Americana was amazing, but that he hasn’t quite got into Sloan, like Ben and Merlin.

Food Safety Talk 21: Food Safety Consultant to Apple Nerds