The Canadian politicians investigating last year’s listeria outbreak that killed 22 were so frustrated by the lack of information from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada they have demanded a full public inquiry.

The Globe and Mail reports this morning that a report to be released Thursday will conclude that the two-month parliamentary study was unable to gather enough evidence to get to the bottom of the outbreak. The call for a public inquiry represents a rebuke to the government's own investigation into the issue led by Sheila Weatherill, who will release a report this summer.

The committee report will also call for an overhaul of the Public Health Agency of Canada so that it becomes more of an independent health watchdog. The committee further recommends that inspection reports at food processing plants be released to the public.

And since CFIA and others are stonewalling, what with their “we went public when we had hard scientific proof” and epidemiology-is –for-wusses line, we’ve put together a timeline that should help the investigators in their, uh, investigation.


Chronology of testing events prior to the August 17, 2008 public alert of possible contamination of Maple Leaf Foods’ deli meats by L. monocytogenes

And it took the Public Health Agency of Canada until Aug. 23, 2008, before they made a definitive link and then Michael McCain of Maple Leaf Foods went on his award-winning rendition of remorse.




 

Amy didn’t feel too good last night.  She thought maybe it was the damn-near raw tuna on her salad the other afternoon when we ventured to our nearest patio for some Sunday relaxation.

Probably not. But raw is not without its risks.

One summer day in August 2006, Anthony Franz went to a Chicago area hospital carrying a 9-foot worm.

He did not find it in his garden.

Franz is one of the few, but growing number of tapeworm victims in cities across the world who are discovering (or rediscovering) that some of the most popular fish can host parasites.

Although still rare, a study this June showed salmon tapeworm infestations tripled from an average of 0.32 cases per 100,000 people each year in Kyoto, Japan, to at least to 1 case in 100,000 people in 2008. As more people adopt sushi and undercooked fish diets around the world so too, has the worm spread. …

"Parasites are really a non-issue, it's not as big of a problem as time and temperature holding," said Pamela Tom, Seafood Network Information Center Director at the University of California, Davis. "People focus on methyl mercury, but in reality it's not as important as the bacteria."

Although it’s winter in New Zealand, back in North America it’s summer, and summer means flies. I distinctly remember eating dinner at my camp with sticky fly traps (pictured right) hanging above the dinner table, dead flies stuck to it, daring to drop onto my cob of corn.

Chicagobusiness.com reports that Dunkin’ Donuts on West Madison St. has had its food license suspended after a recent inspection reported a fruit fly infestation.

The Department of Public Health had cited the Dunkin’ Donuts on June 8 for the health code violation and gave the restaurant management a week to correct the problem. A follow-up inspection on Monday found “dozens of fruit flies” in the kitchen and dining area…

The location also was cited for a poorly maintained and overflowing garbage bin and gaps in its front door that were large enough to allow rodents and insects to enter the premises.

The restaurant will face a fine that could total $1,000 and will be required to appear at an administrative hearing on July 23.

Restaurant inspection results for Chicago are available online, found here or here, with the latest inspection for Dunkin’ Donuts showing as a pass in October, 2007.

I’ve taken to going to sleep about 10 p.m. and getting up about 4 a.m. That means Amy stays up later, feeds Sorenne a couple of more times, and apparently gets to listen to me babble in my sleep.

This is nothing new. I’ve given entire lectures in my sleep – and I’m just talking about with Amy, not classrooms.

I’ve written about the trauma of only having turtles as pets while growing up. And the recent story in the Baltimore Sun and the terrible response about how those tiny turtles are OK as long as little kids don’t put the entire turtle in their mouths apparently triggered some sort of response.

"I'm supposed to kill 6 of those f***ing flaming turtles"

Amy says she laughed, Doug started laughing, then said, "See, I'm wasting my resources when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to."

Amy, who likes to ask questions when I talk in my sleep, says,

"What are you supposed to be doing?"

"Keeping those f***ing new zealanders in line."

This probably had to do with the e-mails I was sending to New Zealanders Katie and Gary before I went to sleep. Or not.
 

Canning season is just about to start. I've never really done any home food preservation before. Growing up all I was really exposed to, canning-wise, was pickles, freezer jam and frozen peaches. All of which I loved to eat, but I always found ways to occupy myself while my mom and grandmother were making them for fear of having to help. My dad and grandfather usually golfed while this was all going down.

Golfing is sort of out of the question now that I have a nine-month-old crawling around the house, so I'm taking up canning. I'm heading out to Walmart this week to grab the Ball Home Canning Basics kit and start experimenting.

Maybe experimenting might now be the right word. I don't really want to experiment too much when the consequences can be so drastic. This week's food safety infosheet focuses on an outbreak from earlier this year in Spokane, WA. Reportedly a 30-year-old Washington State nurse and her two children became ill with botulism reportedly acquired from canned green beans. The nurse’s illness was so severe that she required a ventilator to breath for months.

Though reliable data is often hard to access, other recent outbreaks linked to the potentially complicated processes of home preservation have contributed to the national burden of foodborne illness. Illnesses have been linked to home preservation in numerous states. As recent as September 2008, an Ohio man and his grandson were hospitalized as a result of botulism toxin poisoning caused by improperly canned green beans. In 2007 a Virginia couple died after consuming improperly canned foods that also contained botulism toxin.  There have been at least seven other outbreaks of botulism linked to home preservation practices across the U.S. since 1995. Improperly processed home-dried jerky products have also recently been linked to Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli outbreaks.

You can download this week's food safety infosheet here.

While watching Speidi on the View today, I saw a Huggies Pull-ups commercial about potty training. The mom in the commercial mentioned the need for her daughter to be potty trained before they go on a vacation. She goes further in mentioning all the supplies needed to teach potty training to her daughter: the child-sized toilet, the magic wand (an incentive for her princess of a daughter), and toilet paper. The mom failed to mention any sort of handwashing, whether it is with soap and water (preferred method after using the toilet) or alcohol hand sanitizing rub.

Other potty training tips can be found on the pull-ups website. These items include blogs for parents, DVDs, child incentives, and many others.

Researchers say that handwashing is learned during toilet training. Please, don’t eat poop, wash your hands.

Jay Rayner writes in the U.K. Observer today that, really bad food, is hot.

Greta Scacchi, who is pictured clutching a cod to her naked body (right, exactly as shown), will doubtless come to be seen as the seminal image for a particular moment, when the gruelling, knotty business of campaigning around food issues finally became sexy.

Where celebrities are concerned, it seems, food is the new fur. … Tomorrow, Paul McCartney and his daughters Stella and Mary are launching a campaign to convince the public to go meat-free for one day a week. Another movie, Food Inc, which looks at the excesses and foul side-effects of industrial food production has just been released in the US and will shortly arrive here. Plus there is a major investigation by environmental campaigner Tracy Worcester into the dark underbelly of the global pig-rearing business which is about to be screened on digital channel More4.

What marks out these campaigns is their sophistication. It began a couple of weeks ago with the news that Nobu, the global high-end chain of Japanese restaurants favoured by the glitterati, was still serving bluefin tuna despite it being an endangered species.
 

This is why I don’t give money to PBS, or as Stephen Colbert refers to them, State-sponsored Jazz. Reminds me of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: they’re morons.

Maybe not about everything, but about stuff I know about, they’re morons.

PBS is broadcasting this video about how to cook moist, well-done hamburgers. The cross-contamination is awesome, way to go cooks. These people have no clue, even though they talk about bacteria, they still contaminate the rest of the kitchen with their bacterial-laden hands, and then go on to tell viewers that color is a good indicator for food safety.

Color is a lousy indicator for food safety. Use a tip-senstive thermometer.

You want a moist burger? Cook to about 150F, let sit for 5 minutes while the temperature rises to 160F
 

I have a lot of respect for my friend Frank.

Anyone can be a poser and critic; Frank actually tries to make change.

Frank’s the head of food safety at Wal-Mart. He used to be head of food safety at Walt Disney in Orlando, and when I visited with Frank and his staff in Bentonville, Arkansas a couple of months ago, he was enthusiastically telling me about the challenges of providing safe food – that’s food that doesn’t make people barf – to millions of people on a daily basis.

“Disney was a challenge. This is a lot bigger.”

Frank’s even put his thoughts on paper, in a book called, Food Safety Culture, published last year.

Unlike Food, Inc., the movie version won’t be opening at theatres any time soon.

As far as I can tell, because I haven’t seen the movie and won’t until it comes on my cable movie channels, Food, Inc. is a little about food safety, and only because Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser figured out that if you mention food safety a bunch of times, it sells more books or movies (see the Colbert clip below). The rest is about all things perceived to be bad about food, like genetic engineering, animal welfare, and whatever else.

Frank has to provide safe food to millions of people every day … or he gets sued.

Some people, like Michael Pollan,  are journalism professors at Berkeley and can reiterate bullshit like grass-fed cattle have lower levels of E. coli O157:H7.

Dude, just cause it’s written a bunch of times on the Internet doesn’t make it true.

Some people are biology professors, like Dave Renter at Kansas State, who doesn’t make movies but does know that E. coli O157:H7 and friends are complicated, and show up in lots of places. Oh, and it was a grass-fed cow-calf operation that was responsible for the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in transitional organic spinach in 2006 that sickened 200 and killed four. There are many more outbreaks linked to biology rather than the politically convenient factory farming. Some people, like Frank, are actually responsible for delivering safe food.

Frank writes in his book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System, that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture.

Consumers at the local market, the stop-n-shop or the supermarket, can ask someone, how do I know this food won’t make me barf? While such talk may be socially frowned upon, it’s time to put aside the niceties and bureau-speak and talk directly about safe food.  Ask at Wal-Mart; ask at your local market. I know if Frank were there, he’d be able to answer.

Schlosser comers across as an idiot.