NOROVIRUS FROM CONTAMINATED ICE

The problem is that Norovirus is very infectious. You only need to be exposed to about 100 particles to catch it, whereas in the case of seasonal flu it's around 10,000 - quite a difference. It's also a survivor. Norovirus can live outside the body much better and longer than many other viruses.

Virus-contaminated food is only one of the vehicles for catching it, but an important one. You can also inhale the virus from the air where someone has vomited, or

get sick from touching an infected surface, or a sick person. You can even catch Norovirus from contaminated ice, as occurred a few decades ago at a football game between University of Pennsylvania (where I went to graduate school) and Cornell, or, at a museum fundraiser for that matter.

Here's what happened (my source is the Centers for Disease Control - CDC report on the incidents). Within 48 hours of the University of Pennsylvania-Cornell football game in Philadelphia in 1987, a large number of band members from both universities, Cornell football players, and spectators, including visiting students and university staff and faculty, all started having symptoms of gastrointestinal illness, especially projectile vomiting and nausea. A smaller percentage had diarrhea, headaches, chills and additional symptoms. These were typical of Norovirus. Almost all had bought soda with ice from the stadium vendor.

Oddly, many of the Pennsylvania football team members became ill several days later. Apparently this team had used ice from a different source at the September 19 game, but had used the contaminated ice at practice a few days later.

Just a couple of days later there was an outbreak of gastroenteritis among 750 people who attended a museum fund-raiser in Wilmington, Delaware, not far away. The ice was traced to the same Pennsylvania ice supplier. It turned out that its wells had been flooded by a creek (obviously contaminated) following a torrential downpour of rain. Probably, in all, about 5,000 people became ill from this Norovirus contaminated ice.

There is no reason why this kind of outbreak can't happen again anytime, anywhere. And there's no way to know that ice is contaminated. Opt for a warm soda?

TSF

CONTAMINATED TEA TO BOLOGNA TO PIG EARS

An odd mix, isn't it? But these are the latest recalls of contaminated food (and drink). Here they are.

--Tea? Yes, nice herbal teas - in fact, one I drink regularly myself. Peppermint Organic Herbal Tea, produced by Aromatics Inc., Basin City, WA, is being recalled by RemedyTeas because it may be contaminated with Salmonella bacteria (No, this is not the first case of herbal tea recall because of contamination).

--Bologna products are being recalled by Zweigle's Inc., of Rochester, N.Y., because they could be carrying Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin, which can be fatal. The problem is apparently linked to a smokehouse failure. The bologna was recooked once the failure was discovered, but the toxin that built up in between wasn't destroyed. These Staph toxins are very hardy.

And finally - pig ears dog chews, recalled by Jones Natural Chews, because of Salmonella risk. Alright, I hope no one that reads this blog chews on pig ear treats, but we care about our dogs too, right? Particularly in America. And pig ears are about the most dangerous thing you can give to your dog. From nice healthy North American pigs? Oh no...the majority are imported. Maybe I should blog this sometime. Any requests? In the meantime, find another treat.

TSF

PEANUT BUTTER RECALL

This seems to be a bad week for anything "nuts." Not only do we have a recall of hazelnuts (nationwide in the US and fairly wide in Canada), but we also have contaminated peanut butter.

Unilever United States, Inc. has announced a limited recall of Skippy® Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread and Skippy® Reduced Fat Super Chunk Peanut Butter Spread. This time apparently the company itself found the contaminated product during routine sampling. It turned out to be Salmonella. No illnesses that we know of so far.

The affected product, which is packaged in 16.3 oz plastic jars, is as follows:

UPCs: 048001006812 and 048001006782 (located on the side of the jar’s label below the bar code.)
Best-If-Used-By Dates: MAY1612LR1, MAY1712LR1, MAY1812LR1, MAY1912LR1, MAY2012LR1 and MAY2112LR1 (Stamped on the lid of the jar.)

Oh well...maybe not quite as bad as E.coli 0157:H7 (the hazelnut contaminant - see previous posts), but can be very dangerous for children and the elderly.

TSF

AN NPR "SHOT" AT THE SAFE FOOD HANDBOOK

Well, you can't win all the time. Nor can you like every review of your book. The serious reviews of The Safe Food Handbook to date have been gratifyingly positive. The media ones are OK.

I don't really expect much from a reviewer (and I have been one myself) - just three things: 1) read the book; 2) spell my name correctly; and 3) balance the need to be witty and profile yourself with a fair take on what the book actually says.

The review by the National Public Radio (NPR) Health Blog ("Shots") is certainly the shortest to date: (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/12/28/132402841/5-health-books-you-dont-need-to-read-because-we-did)

Here goes speed dating meets literary criticism.
The Safe Food Handbook by Heli Perrret
Food is scary. "Risky food is everywhere." Deal with it.

By the way, I rather like the ambiguity of the NPR blog title "Shots" as it could mean a "shot of medicine", shooting down (as in a put-down), or "a shot in the dark." I do wonder in this case whether the reviewer actually read the book, or just "speed dated" it for a few minutes, before he indulged in his "literary criticism." In his hurry, he spelt my name incorrectly. I don't mind the "Dr." being left off as I don't use it 99% of the time anyway, but "Perrret" spelt - yes, with 3"r"s and one "t" is sort of cute, but not correct.

Whereas I like the fact that the review is punchy and witty, I wish it had also given a fair view of the book. The review says "food is scary." This is not an alarmist book. As Carole Marks, of the radio program "A Touch of Grey" recently said in introducing me on her program, it is an "empowering book." I was so pleased that she saw it as such. Yes, risks in food are mentioned, food group by food group, but always as a starting point for solutions. The consumer can take charge. And in fact, one of the mains reasons I wrote it is because I felt there was a need for a food safety book that is written by someone who loves food - growing it, cooking it and eating it.

I don't know about the final "deal with it" part of the review. It depends how you read that phrase. If you read it as "you can deal with it," then that's good. As the book says, you will never be able to avoid all the risks that could crop up in your food from time to time, but you will be able to avoid many of them if you are an informed consumer.

But there's the problem of the heading of the whole review "Five Books You Don't Need to Read Because We Did." I am afraid that is not going to help you be an informed consumer who avoids food risks. This review certainly does not give you the answers. And there's more to eating safely on a daily basis than avoiding Salmonella bacteria, and more to safe practices than washing your produce. Read it and you'll find out.

TSF

FOODS PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD NOT EAT

I have been promising to write this for some time, in response to a question. As someone said to me the other day, it seems that you have to eat well while you are pregnant, but at the same time, there are so many foods that are dangerous that you shouldn't eat. Yes, if you want to give birth to a healthy child - and who doesn't- you definitely have to be more careful.

From a safety point of view, pregnant women are wise to avoid foods that are more likely to carry those contaminants that can cause miscarriage, birth defects or developmental problems. The worst hazards in industrialized nations include the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella, the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, toxic metals such as mercury and dangerous industrial chemicals like dioxins and PCBs. This is of course, only a partial list.

Here are the foods you may want to avoid. To keep this short, I am not going to give a technical explanation here of each food, but may explain some in future posts.

• Raw eggs, undercooked eggs and foods containing raw or undercooked egg such as Caesar dressing, mayonnaise, homemade ice cream or custard, unpasteurized eggnog, Hollandaise sauce….
• Any unpasteurized dairy products, including raw cheeses, even if aged 60 days, as we are now discovering that this may not be enough to kill all bacteria. To be safer, it is better to avoid all soft cheese, for example, blue-veined cheeses such as Roquefort, feta, Brie, Camembert, and Latin-American soft white cheeses such as queso blanco, queso fresco, queso de hoja, queso de crema, asadero. (Eat hard cheeses like cheddar).
• Meat or poultry that is rare or undercooked.
• Deli meats, including hot dogs and salami, unless you re-heat them to a temperature of 165 degrees.
• Pate and meat spreads, unless they are tinned.
• Raw sprouts such as alfalfa, and fresh pre-cut fruits and vegetables (eat well-washed whole fruit and vegetables and cooked produce)
• Unpasteurized juices (including apple juice and apple cider).
• Vegetables grown in an area where cats roam around.
• Raw or undercooked shellfish of any kind (such as oysters, clams and mussels). Remember too that cooking shellfish well may kill the bacteria, but will not inactivate natural toxins that shellfish can carry.
• Raw fish dishes such as sushi, sashimi, ceviche, carpaccio, tartare, yusheng, kuai, mul-hoe and smoked fish.
• High mercury fish, especially shark, swordfish, king mackerel, tilefish. Eat other fish in moderation: a rough guide – no more than 12 oz. per week with preference to canned fish and smaller ocean fish. Five of the most commonly eaten seafood that are low in mercury are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish. *
• Fish that might contain industrial pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in their fatty tissues, such as bluefish and striped bass, and freshwater fish such as salmon, pike, trout, walleye from contaminated lakes and rivers.*
• Smoked seafood, often carrying the label of lox or nova style, unless you cook it well first (to at least 165 F degrees). Don't eat it as it comes out of the package.
_______

* This warning should already be heeded by women who are planning to become pregnant in a few years’ time.

HALF A BILLION SUSPECT EGGS

One thing we should never assume is that new food safety legislation is going to have an instant effect. Take eggs. Yes, the FDA has this year issued a new egg safety rule, meant to seriously reduce the chance that shell eggs could contain Salmonella bacteria - the main contamination risk in eggs. In fact, the majority of big U.S. egg producers and transporters are already doing most of the things proposed, and have been for years. Can they do better? Sure, there is always room for improvement, and hopefully, the legislation will help.

But if egg producers and egg transporters are being careful, how come more than half a billion eggs all over the U.S. have just been recalled because they could be contaminated with Salmonella bacteria? Everyone seems to be blaming the huge Iowa egg producers - Wright County Egg farms, and Hillandale Farms. Certainly, there is a chance that they slipped up. Let's face it, the violation record of Wright farms is not exactly great. If they break employment laws, maybe they have also been breaking the safety ones. And, there have been reports of rats...

But it could simply be that they were very unlucky. Maybe the chicks they bought were already ill, or the hen feed they bought was contaminated, or something else. The last think a food producer of any kind wants is a recall of their food products. The trouble is that bacteria are probably smarter at surviving than we are at catching them. Salmonella bacteria are proving to be one of the best. They are cropping up in almost every kind of food we eat - even in dry spices.

So, don't hold your breath and wait for things to get better. No matter what government does, or food producers and distributors do, things will never be perfect. There will always be a bad egg somewhere.

This is one type of food in which we consumers can really control our risks.

RAW IS RISKY.

COOK YOUR EGGS WELL.

Bon appetit

TSF

SCARY INGREDIENT RECALLS

These days, recalls of widely used food ingredients are becoming quite common. Remember the PCA peanut product one in 2008-9 that went on for months and months? I kept thinking it was over, and then suddenly, yet another potentially contaminated food product would pop up under recalls. It eventually affected over 2,000 food products in 17 different food categories and made at least 714 people ill in 46 states. There was also a powdered milk contamination that year, as well as a pistachio one (less frequently used as an ingredient than peanuts) which received less publicity, but also affected many different companies and foods that use these as ingredients.

There have been problems recently with other common food ingredients as well. They including the 2007 melamine-containing wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate which contaminated our pet food and resulted in thousands of cat and dog illnesses and deaths - maybe 17,000 illnesses and some 4,000-6,000 deaths. The final numbers will never be known. Some of it turned up in our foods as well - though relatively little.

These types of food hazards are particularly scary for two reasons. One is that they can spread very widely and continue for months, creating a lot of havoc and illness along the way. Another is that they are so difficult for consumers to avoid, in part because of the nature of our industrialized food system, in which one company distributes to another which then may use these ingredients itself to make foods under different brand names -including house brands, or, distribute to still other food companies - or, do both. This can go on to create layers and layers of complexity and mystery.

At the present time, we have two such common ingredient outbreaks ongoing. One is in pepper (probably black and red - investigation is still ongoing - see earlier post), and the other is in hydrolized vegetable protein (HVP).

At present, some 153 food products are being recalled because of potential HPV contamination, including some very reputable ones, and house brand products such as those of Trader Joe's, Safeway and Publix. Here are some of the types of food products being recalled, all of which use HPV ingredients:

Bouillon Products
Dressing and Dressing Mix Products
Flavoring Base and Seasoning Products
Frozen Food Products
Gravy Mix Products
Prepared Salad Products
Ready-to-Eat Meal Products
Sauce and Marinade Mix Products
Snack and Snack Mix Products
Soup/Soup Mix and Dip/Dip Mix Products
Stuffing Products


And, by the way, except for that melamine case, the culprit in all these ingredient recalls has been one or other member of the Salmonella bacteria family. They seem to have an incredible capacity for survival.

This is getting scary.

Bon appetit!
TSF

From Cheeseballs to Italian Sausage

A kind of update to the previous post on ready-to-eat (RTE) foods. It drives home the point of how risky this type of food is.

The latest: a recall of about 1,240,000 pounds of ready-to-eat Italian sausage products by a Rhode Island firm. That is a whole lot of sausage. And it's not even Listeria bacteria. No, it's one of the common Salmonella bacteria again. Not as likely to cause death in the short term, but there is a chance that it will not only give you a few miserable days, but also leave you with longer-term health problems like reactive arthritis or something else.

And just a few days earlier, it was cheeseball time, recalled by a Wisconsin-based distributor who got their cheese from Parkers Farm, which has had to recall a lot of their products recently because of Listeria bacteria. The cheeseballs may also be carrying it.

What will be next?

Bon appetit (but avoid RTEs whenever you can)

TSF

BEEF'S TURN

Well, now it's beef's turn to come up contaminated with Salmonella bacteria. On August 6 the USDA announced that Beef Packers, Inc., based in Fresno, California, is recalling approximately 825,769 pounds of ground beef products that may be linked to an outbreak of salmonellosis. That is a whole lot of beef. The ground beef products were sent to retail distribution centers in Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah.

So, we just avoid eating it, right? No, unfortunately not, because we don't know what brand name they were sold under. The product was shipped in bulk, and then repackaged by other different companies into smaller packages with different names. Who knows what they all are. Besides, the 'use or freeze by' date has long expired. The meat was sent out on various dates in June, and the latest use-date was before mid-July. In other words, the chances are that it has already been eaten. That nasty bout of diarrhea, vomiting, fever etc. that you had a few weeks ago, that you thought was the 'flu - well, it could have been that medium-rare hamburger you ate (or, well-cooked one you made without using careful kitchen hygiene). To make matters worse, this is a particularly nasty member of the Salmonella family - Salmonella Newport because it is resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics. And that is not mentioning the risk of longer-term effects on our health, like arthritis and worse.

So, what do we do? Well, if you are presently eating in California, Arizona, Colorado or Utah, the safest approach is to only buy ground beef from a store that grinds up their own. Or, maybe skip eating any ground beef meals for a while altogether. Try a turkey-burger instead. It is better for you, and actually quite good, particularly if you throw some garlic and herbs on it, and maybe a pile of cream sherry-soaked sauteed red onions on top, served on an onion bagel...

Bon appetit,
TSF

NUTS TO YOU

Keeping up with frightening food events in our food supply is getting quite exhausting. One of the most annoying aspects is that just as you think you can forget about one of the outbreaks, you realize it is still out there. And contaminated products might still be out there too, waiting for us, innocent consumers, to pounce on them.

Take peanuts. The PCA incident that blanketed our country (and a few others) with salmonella-contaminated peanuts and peanut products should be well over by now. The plants have been shut down. More than 2,100 products in 17 categories have been voluntarily recalled by more than 200 companies, since January, 2009 (probably more, as the FDA information is at least a week or two out of date). Hundreds of people have become ill and some have died. But guess what, it's not over.

There have been more peanut product recalls in the last few days, including one yesterday. More or less ditto for pistachios. The most recent pistachio one - just four days ago. No wonder I could not get any at Trader Joe's on Wednesday when I wanted to make my usual favorite of herb cornish hen, stuffed with raisins and pistachios (I settled for pine nuts instead).

But back to peanuts. Yesterday's recall really illustrates the oddity of our so-called food safety system. Nuts for You of Preston ID is recalling Roasted and Salted Peanuts manufactured with peanuts bought from PCA. The product was distributed between March 15, 2008 and Jan 15, 2009.The sell-by date on the plastic bag of 'Nuts for You' was Feb 18, 2009 (more than four months ago) . Presumably the nuts were purchased sometime in 2007 from PCA's Texas plant to make these cute bags of salted peanuts sold at gift stores.

So here we are on June 25, asking consumers to send back products made of antique nuts (maybe two years old) that are well and truly expired and, are very likely to have also been well and truly eaten. The really bad news is that this type of pattern is not unusual.

Nuts to you, FDA. How are we supposed to escape bad food in America?

bon appetit!

TSF