A Safe and Sustainable Valentine's Day
by Michelle Greenhalgh | Feb 14, 2010
A Valentine's Day Treat: Sustainable food advocate and accomplished chef, Nora Pouillon shares her thoughts on safe food
On the tail of another troubling slew of food recalls we come upon everyone's favorite Hallmark holiday, Valentine's Day.
In the Washington, DC area, no restaurant exemplifies safe food better than Restaurant Nora. For the past 31 years, sustainable food advocate and chef Nora Pouillon, has emphasized the importance of buying local and following the seasons for food selection.
"The whole philosophy of the restaurant is safe food," said Pouillon. "Food grown without any chemical additives is the only safe food, in my opinion."
At the restaurant, Pouillon ensures that she and her chefs handle food very carefully. "We know personally our farmers, we visit them regularly and we appreciate their efforts to raise and grow the food for us," she said.
In addition to farmer familiarity, cleanliness is a top concern. According to Pouillon, everything is cleaned and washed thoroughly then put away immediately and stored properly.
"We have a person on staff who cleans and puts away all the vegetables that are delivered every day with the dates marked on all the storage bins so we use them timely. The meat and fish cutter does the same. All meats and poultry are cut up as soon as they arrive, Cryovacced, dated and refrigerated or frozen," said Pouillon.
In April of 1999, Restaurant Nora became the first certified organic restaurant in the United States. In order to obtain and retain this certification, Pouillon and her staff make sure that 95 percent or more of everything on her menu has been produced by certified organic growers and farmers. "My insistence on organic, local and seasonal foods is exactly for health and safety reasons," she says.
As for Valentine's Day, Restaurant Nora offers a special themed menu for their customers. "We try to incorporate as much red as possible, for instance, we freeze a lot of red peppers from our farmer in the summer just for this occasion," Pouillon said. "We use beets, paprika, chilis, blood oranges, red peppers, raspberries, strawberries frozen for sauces. We even make a chocolate dessert with chilies."
Along with running her restaurant, Pouillon's dedication to safe food includes numerous projects such as establishing a farmer-to-chef connection, which introduces farmers to other local chefs to help boost their farms' economic viability, and initiating the first producer-only farmer's market in Washington, DC (known as Fresh Farm Markets), which has expanded to eight different markets around the city. Pouillon also serves as a board member of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs.
How does Pouillon decide where she wants to eat? "Before I choose a restaurant, I read the menu and look if the chef uses at least some organic, local and sustainable ingredients so that I am assured he is concerned about his food sources."
Another good way to gauge a restaurant's sanitary practices is to check out the bathrooms. "I follow the principle that Anthony Bourdain set," said chef Kati Gimes of Slow Food DC. "I look at the bathrooms of the restaurants and if they're not clean imagine how the kitchen looks."
Whether cooking at home or in a restaurant, everyone in the industry stresses cleanliness in the kitchen. Make sure to use separate cutting boards for raw meats and vegetables, wash everything with water and vegetables with food soap, if available.
Virginia cheese maker and cheesemonger Charlotte Hirst offers some characteristics she looks for when purchasing her food, "Local first, sustainable second, and organic third."
From all of us here at Food Safety News, have a Safe & Happy Valentine's Day!
Congress Finally Gets Tough on Food Safety
By Michael Weisskopf / Washington Friday, Jun. 12, 2009
Every few months, it seems, a new food-contamination scandal grips the nation, playing out in the same troubling way. Someone dies of a food-borne infection with a scary Latin name. The government recalls a dinner-table staple and traces its contamination to dirty irrigation water or a processing plant. Everything returns to normal until the next case of killer spinach or poisoned peanuts stalks the nation.
Despite the toll — 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations a year — Congress has typically been unwilling to strengthen controls on the growing, manufacturing and handling of food in the face of powerful industry resistance. But as profits and consumer confidence have plummeted with each new outbreak, the political climate has changed — so much so that earlier this week, a House panel reached unusual bipartisan consensus on the most sweeping reform of the food-safety system in at least 50 years.
The bill gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad new powers to regulate produce at the farm level and review corporate records on activities ranging from food-processing to pathogen-testing. Inspections that now occur an average of once every 10 years would take place as often as once every six months for certain items. Foreign governments whose companies send high-risk products to the U.S., like seafood from China, would be required to certify that those exports comply with U.S. health standards.
At the center of the legislation is an effort to transform a slow and reactive government apparatus into a preventive food-safety system. Every processor or importer would have to implement plans to identify biological and chemical hazards in its products, like the salmonella discovered at a Georgia peanut plant linked to a national outbreak of the infection in 2008. Firms would be required to maintain strategies and procedures to prevent or stop such dangers. The FDA would set minimum requirements for plans and audit them, a government tool that may have headed off the peanut-borne bacteria that resulted in 700 reported illnesses and nine possible deaths.
"There were no regular inspections of the plant to see if they were meeting standards that FDA hadn't set," says Carol Tucker Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America, which is supporting the bill that, she adds, would fill in those regulatory gaps.
The sudden consensus on food-safety reform isn't necessarily the result of principled legislators standing up to moneyed interests. On the contrary, industry powers like the Grocery Manufacturers Association now support the new oversight, which reflects corporate anxiety over the volatile current system and a recognition that they need a government imprimatur to establish credibility with consumers. Peanut-butter manufacturers, after all, saw sales decline 13% in the wake of the salmonella outbreak, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The spinach industry lost more than $350 million after a wave of E. coli infections linked to California growers was implicated in five deaths.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans who rarely cross party lines went along with the Democratic bill marked up in the health subcommittee Wednesday. Sponsors had agreed in negotiations with ranking GOP member Joe Barton to lower the originally proposed cost of a new annual licensing fee for every food-manufacturing, -processing and -packing plant from $1,000 to $500, with a $175,000 cap per company — a reduction also sought by GOP allies in industry.
Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman calls the fees — which would generate about $160 million — a "critical breakthrough" to finance a newly empowered FDA. But consumer advocates are not happy about the 50% cut. "If FDA doesn't have the money, it's hard for them to do the number of inspections needed," says Foreman.
Waxman will need every vote to achieve his fast-track strategy, which calls for review by the full committee next week and the House before its August recess. The odds of passage there are considered good. Only then will the issue have a chance to get attention in the Senate, where a similar but weaker bill has already been introduced. Unless it gets bogged down by health-care legislation, the Senate is likely to approve some version of food-safety reform. The best assurance of stronger controls is the fear that inaction could lead to inevitable consequences. "What are they going to do," asks Foreman, "if there's another outbreak and they don't pass anything?"
Poultry Is No. 1 Source of Outbreaks, Report Says
(New York Times)
By GARDINER HARRIS
Feeling sick? If so, the cause might have been bad chicken.
Poultry was the most commonly identified source of food poisoning in the United States in 2006, followed by leafy vegetables and fruits and nuts, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report is the first effort by federal researchers to identify how most people in the United States become sickened by contaminated foods. Its findings, while not surprising, were welcomed by food-safety advocates.
“It’s a nice first step,” said Donna Rosenbaum, executive director of the nonprofit Safe Tables Our Priority. “The problem is that it’s based on a very small data set.”
After a concerted campaign by the federal Department of Agriculture to improve the safety of chickens, the number of people sickened by contaminated poultry in 2006 declined compared with an average of the previous five years, according to C.D.C. researchers.
But problems persist. Most of the poultry-related illnesses, the centers found, were associated with Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that commonly causes abdominal cramping and diarrhea usually within 10 to 12 hours after ingestion. The spores from this bacterium often survive cooking, so keeping poultry meat at temperatures low enough to prevent contamination during processing and storage is critical.
Researchers counted leafy vegetables, fungi, root vegetables, sprouts and vegetables from vines or stalks as separate categories. Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, noted that if all of the produce categories were combined, outbreaks associated with vegetables would have far exceeded those in poultry.
“We’re very glad that C.D.C. is finally coming out with good food attribution data,” Ms. DeWaal said. “It clearly shows the need for improvements, not only at F.D.A. but at U.S.D.A.’s food safety programs as well.”
A bill that would substantially reform the food safety program at the Food and Drug Administration edged a step closer to a vote on Wednesday during a markup session at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. A companion measure is being considered in the Senate. Margaret A. Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, said last week that she supported the legislation, although she had asked for some changes.
While poultry is the most common source of illnesses among the 17 different foods tracked by federal officials, the C.D.C. found that two-thirds of all food-related illnesses traced to a lone ingredient were caused by viruses, which are often added to food by restaurant workers who fail to wash their hands. Such viruses often cause what many people refer to as a “stomach flu,” one to two days of nausea and vomiting that is unrelated to the flu virus.
Salmonella, the bacteria found in nationwide outbreaks of contaminated peanut butter, spinach and tomatoes, was the second-leading cause of sole-source food illnesses, the centers found.
While dairy products accounted for just 3 percent of traceable food-related outbreaks, 71 percent of these cases were traced to unpasteurized milk, the researchers found.
The findings resulted from an analysis of reports of food-related illnesses submitted to the C.D.C. by state and local health departments. Although the system is the best available, it is far from perfect. Most of the estimated 76 million cases of food-related illnesses a year go unreported in the United States. And of those that are reported, most are not thoroughly investigated. 6-12-09
US: Food companies try, but cannot guarantee safety
5/15/2009
Michael Moss
New York Times
The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.
Threatened with a federal shutdown, the pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. It also tried cooking the vegetables at high temperatures, a strategy the industry calls a “kill step,” to wipe out any lingering microbes. But the vegetables turned to mush in the process.
So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”
FDA: Plant Knew Peanuts Laced With Salmonella
FDA: Peanut company shipped products after receiving tests confirming salmonella
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON February 7, 2009 (AP) The Associated Press
Peanut Corporation of America knowingly shipped salmonella-tainted goods. As far back as 2007, salmonella-laced products were shipped by a Georgia peanut company that knew the peanuts probably were tainted and sometimes after tests confirmed that contamination, inspection records show.Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers' health.
Food and Drug Administration officials earlier had said Peanut Corp. of America waited for a second test to clear peanut butter and peanuts that initially were positive for salmonella. But the agency amended its report Friday, saying that the Blakely, Ga., plant actually shipped some products before receiving the second test and sold others after confirming salmonella.
In 2007, the company shipped chopped peanuts on July 18 and 24 after salmonella was confirmed by private lab tests,the FDA report said. Peanut Corp. sold products "on or after the positive salmonella results were obtained
More Bad News About Plastic Containers
By Naomi Lubick
Environmental Science and Technology, April 8, 2009
New research analyzing mineral water held in bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) raises questions about whether contaminants might leach from PET into the water where they mimic estrogen’s effects. In the study reported online in Environmental Science and Pollution Research on March 10 (DOI 10.1007/s11356-009-0107-7), ecotoxicologists Martin Wagner and J rg Oehlmann of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University (Germany) report evidence of the bottles’ estrogenicity from multiple tests, but they have yet to pinpoint the exact source.
Billions of bottles and food containers made of PET are sold every year. The plastic is considered safer than others that contain endocrine-disrupting compounds, such as polyvinyl chloride which is made with phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) and polycarbonate, which has been shown to release BPA into liquids at high temperatures.
For the new study, Wagner and Oehlmann used both a yeast-based assay and a reproduction test with the New Zealand mud snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum to tease out whether traces of chemicals in PET or other compounds mimic estrogen’s activity. The researchers tested 20 brands of mineral water sold in either glass or plastic bottles or both.
The yeast-based assay of different samples of mineral water showed that more than half the brands of water had “significantly elevated estrogenic activity,” the researchers note. On average, the effects seen were similar to those elicited by a dose of about 18 nanograms per liter of 17β-estradiol (a natural estrogen). For all but one brand, mineral water stored in plastic bottles had higher estrogenicity than the same water stored in glass bottles. And multiuse PET bottles meant to be refilled several times showed lower estrogenicity than the bottles meant for one-time use.
Study Finds Food-Wrapper Chemicals in Blood
By Ken Ward Jr.
The Charleston Gazette - WV, April 30, 2009
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A new scientific study has for the first time found a group of chemicals used in coatings on food wrappers in human blood.
Previous reports have documented low levels of certain perfluorochemicals -- those used to make commercial products like food wrapper coatings -- in the blood of the general human population.
But the new study, led by University of Toronto researchers, focused on chemicals that are actually used in food wrapper coatings and other consumer products.
The findings, published this week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, provide more information about how humans are being exposed to these toxic materials.
Learn2Serve News
July 17, 2007
Kentucky Food Establishments Get Online Food Safety Certification Option 360training announced today the approval of its online food safety management certification course in Kentucky. The course can be taken in lieu of a traditional live class in the Kentucky counties of Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Hart, Logan, Metcalfe, Simpson and Warren.
July 12, 2007
Going Safe on Food: Los Angeles County Gets Online Option for Food Safety Certification 360training, pioneers of the leading online food and alcohol safety program Learn2Serve, today announced the approval of its food handler safety course by the Los Angeles County Department of Public and Environmental Health (LAC)
June 7, 2007
New York State Liquor Authority Approves Online Server Training 360training.com announced today its partner, The Empire State Restaurant & Tavern Association (ESRTA), has obtained approval of an online alcohol seller server training in New York State.
April 9, 2007
HACCP School Edition - Finally in Online Format USDA and International HACCP Alliance Approve Online HACCP Training 360training's Learn2Serve HACCP food safety training program is finally in a convenient online format that specifically caters to school district kitchen staff. School districts are subject to the United States Department of Agriculture food safety training program, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP).
March 15, 2007
Vermont Department of Liquor Control Approves Online Learn2Serve Training 360training's Learn2Serve Alcohol Server Awareness Program (A.S.A.P.) has been approved by the Vermont Department of Liquor Control. In an attempt to decrease alcohol-related car crashes and underage alcohol-related deaths in Vermont, the state is focusing on various initiatives to increase alcohol safety awareness - one of which is alcohol safety training.
March 08,2007
24-Hour Student Enrollment Help Desk Launched In an effort to further expand the scope of services its large base of online learning customers, Learn2Serve today announced the creation of a new 24-hour, 7-day per week enrollment specialist help desk.
Food preparation and handling
Includes food safety resources for hand washing, food preparation and food handling for food service and retail establishments, pregnant women, infants, children, educators, and the general public.
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Consumer Advice and Publications on Food Safety, Nutrition and Cosmetics - Food Preparation
FDA. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
FAQs for Consumers: Food Preparation and Storage
FoodSafety.gov.
Food Preparation Fact File (PDF|45.3 KB)
Food and Drink Federation. Foodlink.(United Kingdom).
Food Safety Facts: Basics for Handling Food Safely (PDF|114 KB)
USDA. Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Food Safety Facts: Microwave Ovens and Food Safety (PDF|365 KB)
USDA. Food Safety and Inspection Service.
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University of Nevada.Department of Nutrition.
Use a Food Thermometer
USDA. Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Resources for food processing, food packaging, food preservation, food storage, post-harvest treatment and food technology. This includes pasteurization, irradiation, non-thermal processing technologies, and other technologies for pathogen control and food quality.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's food safety system is a "hazard to public health" and overdue for an overhaul, President Barack Obama said Saturday as he filled the top job at the Food and Drug Administration.
Obama used his weekly radio and video address to announce the nomination of former New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg as agency commissioner and the selection of Baltimore's health commissioner, Joshua Sharfstein as her deputy. Consumer groups applauded the picks.
The president also is creating a special advisory group to coordinate food safety laws and recommend how to update them. Many of these laws have not changed since they were written early in the last century, he said.
Obama said too many agencies are responsible for food safety, making it difficult to share information and stop problems from falling through the cracks.
The FDA does not have enough money or workers to conduct annual inspections at more than a fraction of the 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses in the country, Obama said.
"That is a hazard to public health. It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg," he pledged.
Hamburg, 53, is a bioterrorism expert. She was an assistant health secretary under President Bill Clinton and helped lay the groundwork for the government's bioterrorism and flu pandemic preparations
Long Shelf Life May Mean Continuing Hazard from Peanut Products
Statement of CSPI Food Safety Director Caroline Smith DeWaal
The tragic outbreak from peanut butter has already sickened hundreds of people and killed more people than the infamous 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak or the 2006 spinach outbreak. Given the long shelf life of these peanut products, this outbreak may sicken and kill many more if the Food and Drug Administration does not act to effectively remove contaminated products from stores and facilities that may have them. Yet, without mandates for recall and few inspectors, the agency's ability to protect the public is minimal.
This latest outbreak proves again that FDA is woefully inadequate to the task of protecting American consumers from unsafe food. It presently inspects low risk peanut butter plants rarely, or not at all, leaving the job to state inspection agencies. Although FDA is responsible for the safety of more than 80 percent of the food supply, the commissioner must divide his or her attention among drugs, medical devices, foods, and cosmetics. While additional funding could help, with food responsibilities divided between three centers within the FDA, there is no food safety expert in charge of both the policies and enforcement staff to implement needed changes. There is also no credible voice communicating to the public and the industry what can be done to prevent future outbreaks.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest calls on Congress to enact and President Obama to sign legislation to bring the food safety program at the Department of Health and Human Services into the 21st century. One bill sponsored by Representative Rosa DeLauro would create a new Food Safety Administration at HHS. That approach would bring the program elements together and put an expert in charge. Other bills being introduced in both the House and the Senate would create greater food safety authorities while keeping the same fragmented program in the FDA.
President Obama promised a "government that works." When it comes to food safety, fixing FDA's food safety program is an example of a "shovel ready" regulatory reform that could be done quickly and that would bring real benefits to American consumers
NaturalNews) The U.S. Health and Human Services announced, on June 18, 2008, progress between China and the U.S. stating, "strong and sustained cooperation by both nations to strengthen the safety of food products exported to the United States from China." The news release mentions a 'cooperative mechanism' between both countries related to 'safety or the gross deception of consumers'. Interesting since 'gross deception of consumers' is exactly what caused the pet food recall last year.
In my opinion, pet food manufacturers have no business utilizing glutens or any other form of grain to boost their analysis of protein -- dogs and cats deserve real meat proteins, but that's beside the point here. Progress in quality of Chinese exports and the eventual trust of U.S. pet owners is the issue at hand. I have far too many doubts to believe China has the capabilities to improve quality any time soon.
For starters, U.S. chefs for the Olympic teams found such a high level of steroids in chicken purchased from Chinese markets that they were concerned the athletes would test positive for drug use if food from China was served to our athletes. For the first time in history, the U.S. Olympic athletes will have a separate dining hall serving food from U.S. suppliers.
Then pet owners have the concern of the FDA's limited ability to properly inspect all imported shipments of pet food ingredients. Currently less than 1% of all import shipments are inspected. Even if the FDA had the manpower to properly inspect all imports, existing testing methods have proven they are weak at best. According to journalist Noreen O'Leary in her article The Global Diet, a former FDA employee states, "The FDA kept finding shipments of apple juice that was watered down" and insisted this be addressed, explains Hubbard. Instead, the company "added inulin, which is a chemical compound that appears to be the same as apples." It fooled the FDA lab test and came back as 100 percent apple juice. "Under the current system, that beverage could still be labeled and sold as 100 percent juice", he adds. This was in reference to a Chinese exporter.
Until many changes take place, pet foods utilizing imported ingredients from China remains at risk for another tainted ingredient causing a recall. The pet food industry could take a lesson from McDonalds or Walmart. This year McDonalds implemented a "See what we're made of" initiative that provides consumers with origin information of their ingredients. Walmart has introduced a Food Miles Calculator, which computes an item's total food miles to the consumer.
I doubt pet owners will see any such conscientious action from the majority of pet food manufacturers. However from the results of an informal poll, pet owners have overwhelmingly told me that an ingredient information system would definitely influence their pet food purchases. Listen up pet food producers... pet owners want to know where the ingredients in their pet's food and treats come from!
Until we get that (don't hold your breath), examine every bag or can before you open it. You are looking for tears or possible contamination of the packaging. Examine the product after you open it. Any change in smell or appearance just might be a sign there is a problem with the food. If you notice any change, before you feed it to your pet, call the manufacturer. Keep a close eye on your pet as well for any changes in behavior. If you notice changes, contact your Veterinarian.
News about Food preparation and handling and Food Preparation safety,Salmonella,Peanuts, Plastic Containers
News about Food preparation and handling and Food Preparation safety Salmonella,Peanuts, Plastic Containers,
TEXAS COFFEE Company Recalls Red Pepper Because of Possible Health Risk
9/1/2009
US Food & Drug Administration
www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm180995.htm
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The Texas Coffee Company, Inc. of Beaumont, TX, is recalling its 3 ounce and 8 oz. packages of Texjoy red pepper because they have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.
For the complete recall notice, please go to http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm180995.htm
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4.9 Million Pounds of Meat Added to E. coli Recall
by Helena Bottemiller | Feb 14, 2010
In another weekend recall announcement, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported yesterday that Southern California-based Huntington Meat Packing Inc. has dramatically expanded its January 18th recall over E. coli O157:H7 concerns.
The Class I recall now includes approximately 4.9 million pounds of additional beef and veal products, sold under three different brand names: Huntington, Imperial Meat Co. and El Rancho brands. The original recall, announced by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) about a month ago, included 864,000 pounds of meat.
According to public health officials, the recall has been expanded based on evidence collected in an ongoing criminal investigation involving the packing plant.
"Evidence shows that the products subject to this recall expansion were produced in a manner that did not follow the establishment's Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plan," said the USDA in a statement yesterday. "The investigation has uncovered evidence to show that the food safety records of the establishment cannot be relied upon to document compliance with the requirements. Therefore, FSIS must consider the products to be adulterated and has acted to remove the products from commerce."
