The U.K. Food Standards Agency today reiterated advice on the safe cooking of burgers, following a report from its independent committee of experts on microbiological safety.

The Advisory Committee on Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF) report, commissioned by the FSA in September 2004, considered the differences between the recommended cooking conditions for burgers in the US and the more stringent requirements set by the Chief Medical Officer in 1998 in the UK.

Dr Judith Hilton, Head of Microbiological Safety at the FSA, said: 'The current UK advice that burgers should be cooked at 70°C for 2 minutes or equivalent is upheld by this ACMSF report. Advice to consumers remains the same – to follow manufacturers' instructions and make sure that burgers are piping hot throughout, cooked until the juices run clear and there’s no pink meat inside.'

Whoa. The only way to ensure that hamburger has reached such a temperature is to use a tip probe, instant-read digital meat thermometer. Research has shown that color is a lousy indicator of doneness -- some burgers turn brown prematurely before 70 degrees C is reached, others can remain pinkish well beyond 70.
 
To further complicate matters, an individual hamburger will cook at different rates throughout the burger depending on thickness and fat content.

In one study it was found that when the outer temperature of hamburgers reached a temperature of 71.1ºC, the inside was only at a temperature of 56.7ºC. To check a burger, grab it with tongs, insert the thermometer sideways into the middle of the burger and wait a few seconds. As Pete Snyder of the Hospitality Institute in Minnesota has documented, when done correctly, one can observe the hot temperature at the surface and, as the probe is pushed into the hamburger, the temperature goes down. As the probe passes through the cold spot, the temperature goes up again. It is critically important that temperature not be taken with a stationary thermometer, but in a dynamic manner by pushing  through the hamburger, so that a few Salmonella or E. coli in the middle of the hamburger are reduced.

As far as the "more stringent requirements in the U.K., the report states:

"Requirements for the cooking of ground beef issued by the US Food
and Drug administration (US FDA) specify that these products are cooked to
heatall parts of the food to a minimum temperature of 63°C for 3 min, 66°C
for 1 min, 68°C for 15 sec or 70°C for <1sec (instantaneous) (FDA, 1999). The US
Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service(USDA FSIS)
recommend that consumers use a thermometer to ensure that ground beef is
cooked to 71°C (USDA 2003).

I agree. Too bad the Brits don't.

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The Miami Herald is reporting that Timothy DeLong, president of Atlantis Foods, a Palm Beach County company that called food safety its No. 1 priority, was cited as pleading guilty to selling chicken, seafood and cheese products contaminated with a bacteria that may cause serious gastrointestinal infection, acknowledging that his company failed to notify clients that six shipments of food in 2003 were tainted with Listeria monocytogenes.

The story says that according to the two-count information charging DeLong, he failed to initiate a product recall or to tell customers that his Lantana-headquartered company shipped products before receiving the results of outside or in-house testing for safety.

On six occasions, an outside laboratory found Listeria monocytogenes in Maine lobster dip, salmon cream cheese and salmon spread, chicken salad and crab stuffing. But the government document said DeLong sold $50,000 of the tainted products.

In its website and in brochures, the company repeatedly pledged its commitment to top food safety standards, stating in one brochure that, "Food safety at its highest level is No. 1 on our priority list."

"Atlantis Foods is a supplier of high quality seafood, seafood salads, fresh soups, dips and spreads in the food industry. Atlantis Foods focuses on quality assurance, continuous improvement and providing maximum value through quality to our customers while expanding consumer identification throughout the United States."

Uh huh.

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Carly Weeks of the Ottawa Citizen reports from the opening of the Institute of Food Technologists annual meeting in Chicago that the North American produce industry is facing a massive uphill battle to prevent future outbreaks and food scares because it still doesn't know the source of many problems and what needs to be fixed.

David Gombas, senior vice-president of food safety and technology with the United Fresh Produce Association, was quoted as saying:

"At this point we really don't know what we would need to do to make produce safer. It's difficult to fix the problem when the source is unknown. … Now that we've recognized fresh produce as an area that's vulnerable to pathogens, now the research has to be done and we're playing catch-up."

Wow. Fresh produce landed on the public and regulatory radar after the 1996 Odwalla E. coli O157:H7 outbreak.

This is the same Dave Gombas who told an International Association for Food Protection symposium on leafy green safety on Oct. 6, 2006 in Washington, D.C. that if growers did everything they were supposed to do -- in the form of good agricultural practices -- and it was verified, there may be fewer outbreaks. He then said government needs to spend a lot more on research.

Huh?

Since we were on the same panel in Washington, I asked Gombas, why is the industry calling for more investment in research about the alleged unknowns of microbial contamination of produce when the real issue seems to be on-farm delivery and verification? Hiding behind the unknown is easy, working on verifying what is being done is much harder.

Seems like another case of saying the right things in public, but failing to acknowledge what happens on individual farms. Verification is tough. Auditing may not work, cause many of these outbreaks happened on third -party audited operations. Putting growers in a classroom doesn't work, and there's no evidence that begging for government oversight yields a product that results in fewer sick people.

Here are some suggestions:

• The first line of defense is the farm, not the consumer.

• All ruminants -- cows, sheep, goats, deer -- can carry dangerous E. coli like the O157:H7 strain that sickened people in the spinach outbreak, as well as the Taco Bell and Taco Johns outbreaks ultimately traced to lettuce.

• Any commodity is only as good as its worst grower.

Rules and regulations look pretty on paper. But they are not comforting to those 76 million Americans who get sick from the food and water they consume each and every year. Instead, every grower, packer, distributor, retailer and consumer needs to adopt a culture that actually values safe food.

The first company that can assure consumers they aren't eating poop on spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and any other fresh produce, will make millions and capture markets.


Check out our papers below:


Powell, D.A. and Chapman, B. 2007. Fresh threat: what's lurking in your salad bowl?. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 87: 1799-1801.

We also published a book chapter entitled Implementing On-Farm Food Safety Programs in Fruit and Vegetable Cultivation, in the recently published, Improving the Safety of Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

 Luedtke, A., Chapman, B. and Powell, D.A. 2003. Implementation and analysis of an on-farm food safety program for the production of greenhouse vegetables. Journal of Food Protection. 66:485-489.

Powell, D.A., Bobadilla-Ruiz, M., Whitfield, A. Griffiths, M.G.. and Luedtke, A. 2002. Development, implementation and analysis of an on-farm food safety program for the production of greenhouse vegetables in Ontario, Canada. Journal of Food Protection. 65: 918- 923.

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Once again, a public health official is blaming consumers for getting sick with E. coli O157:H7.

Dr. Judy MacDonald, the Calgary Health Region's deputy medical officer of health, told a press conference yesterday that 28 people have tested positive for Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Calgary, more than five times the number the city usually sees in a typical month, and said,

"At this point we have four to five clusters of these 28 cases. We still don't know exactly what the source may be for our cases and the investigation is ongoing."

However, despite not knowing the source, MacDonald added,

"There are simple ways to prevent this -- wash your hands before you prepare food or eat food, after you change a child's diaper, or after you've been to the bathroom."

Sure, consumers have a role to play. But not if the E. coli is linked to produce like lettuce or spinach. And everyone in the farm-to-fork food safety system has a responsibility to reduce risk -- in this case the quantity of E. coli O157:H7 on raw produce. The opportunities for cross-contamination are numerous, and it's not that easy to cook a safety burger.

Food safety is not simple. It's complex, and requires constant commitment.

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The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets this afternoon released a CONSUMER ALERT after Autumn Valley Farm announced possible Listeria contamination in its raw, unpasteurized milk.

Autumn Valley Farm, located at 1644 County Highway #39, Worcester, New York, 12197, holds a Department permit to legally sell raw milk at the farm.

While Autumn Valley Farm prides themselves on the cleanliness of their dairy operation and has been selling raw milk for the last 8 months without any previous violations, all raw milks sales have been voluntarily suspended pending further sampling.

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Julie Schmit and Elizabeth Weise report in USA Today this morning that retailers have been slow to pull Castleberry's products that may be infected with botulism. The Food and Drug Administration reported that out of 3,700 stores the FDA visited in recent days, 7% had recalled cans for sale. North Carolina officials visited 250 stores the past two days and found four of 10 still selling recalled products.

"People just don't seem to be taking (the recall) seriously," says Robert Brackett, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. He says consumers may be suffering "recall fatigue," given the rash of recalls the past year for spinach, carrot juice, lettuce, peanut butter, pet food and other products. "That's a real phenomenon. If people aren't getting sick or their family isn't, they think 'Oh, it's not going to happen to me.' "

Research shows that people stop paying attention to recalls if there are a large number in a short time span, says Douglas Powell, professor of food safety at Kansas State University.

Retailers may also not have heard about the recall, Brackett says, or they may be confused about what's been recalled.

I told Elizabeth yesterday that public communications about such undertaking must be rapid, reliable, repeated and relevant, and that the produce outbreaks of 2006 marked significant changes in how stories were being told on Internet-based networking like YouTube, wikipedia, and blogs.

Producers, processors, retailers and regulators of agricultural commodities not only need to be seen -- and actually -- responding to food safety issues in conventional media, they must now pay particular attention to the myriad of Internet-based social networking sites that allow individuals to act as their own media outlet. Further, proactive producers, regulators and others in the farm-to-fork food safety system will become comfortable with the directness -- and especially the speed -- of new Internet-based media.

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I love butter and I loved it long before living in Brittany where they claim to make the best butter in the world, naturally flavored with sea salt. It was in France that I learned to eat butter with my Roquefort cheese. I’m salivating at the very decadent thought… But after turning 30 I sadly had to slow down on my intake as my metabolism started to  churn instead of speed through fat.

Now it seems that North American foodies have caught on and butter is the new cheese. According to the July 25 Globe and Mail, “Long overlooked by gourmets, butter is being transformed from a supper table staple into Quebec's latest delicacy.” Gilles Jourdenais, who owns the Fromagerie Atwater – the largest cheese wholesaler in Canada, says that “Quebec's nascent artisanal butter scene is where cheese was 15 years ago, when no one believed local products could rival European imports.”

In Quebec, farmers are pasteurizing their fresh milk in small batches and at lower temperatures to “preserve herbaceous hints in the milk and fullness in the cream.” Unlike France that allows consumers to purchase raw milk butters with very high fat contents, “Canadian law restricts producers from serving raw milk butters, so they are required to pasteurize the milk.”

Maybe on our way through the Quebec countryside to the Laurentians in the next few weeks we’ll make a stop at a local creamery. I’m all in favor of the small-batch low-heat pasteurized butter, as long as the care put into it includes microbiologically safe practices. It’s like buttah. My 30-something metabolism will handle it.

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What apparently started a novelty dining experience to raise awareness for the visually impaired has now devolved into the newest category of food pornography.

According to the N.Y. Times,

"The trend seems to have started in Zurich and has since spawned permutations all over the world, with diners donning blindfolds, sitting in unlit rooms and, lately, being served by waiters in night-vision goggles. The idea is that by depriving one sense (sight), other senses are heightened.

"The first pitch-black restaurant, which opened in Zurich in 1999, had less frivolous intentions. The goal 'was creating jobs for the blind and handicapped people,' said Adrian Schaffner, the manager at Blindekuh, or Blind Cow.

"A project of the Blind-Liecht foundation, a support group for the visually impaired, Blindekuh has an all-blind wait staff who serve Swiss cuisine in total darkness."

But now, the Times reports that,

"in Greenwich Village, a group called Dark Dining Projects holds dinners roughly monthly at CamaJe Bistro, where diners pay $75 per person to be blindfolded inside a small bistro with red walls (not that anyone can see the décor)."

Does not being able to see the food make it psychologically safer? Or more daring?

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According to the Australian Chicken Meat Federation (ACMF), a myth has been busted by students from James Ruse Agricultural High School in New South Wales.  The myth is that Australian chickens grow bigger due to breeding and "not hormones, antibiotics or genetic modification"

The story via WorldPoultry.net reports that the school sourced and hand-raised 15 egg-laying chickens and 15 meat chickens as day-old-chicks from a commercial supplier.
All chickens were fed the same standard chicken feed product, made mostly from cereal grains and protein sources, obtained from a local feed supplier.
After six weeks, the average weight of the chickens bred for egg laying was 592 g while the average weight of the chickens bred for meat was 2388 g.

The conclusions are probably right, and breeding is a huge component in increasing size, but when you have 80% of Australians believing that something such as growth hormones are added to chicken I'm not sure it's best to look to school kids to assure the population.  I especially don't think you want to use statements like  "The truth is far less dramatic as was proven by this recent school project." as Dr. Andreas Dubs, executive director of ACMF was quoted as saying.

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