Any system designed to deliver safer food is going run up against some form of hucksterism – food and fraud have always gone together. That doesn’t mean a system is hopelessly flawed, it means make it better to weed out the cheats.

The New York Daily News reports that just weeks after city officials started forcing eateries to post sanitary letter grades in their windows, the News spotted a suspicious-looking letter A at a restaurant that didn't look grade-A.

Ming's Chinese take-out on 9th Ave. at 33rd St. had a "Sanitary Inspection Grade" on the wall beside its counter that looked like the ones that have started to crop up in restaurant windows. It had the city seal, the Health Department logo and a helpful reminder to call 311.

But a check of city records found that - sure enough - Ming's hadn't earned the prized mark.

To the contrary, though the take-out's last inspection in January came before the city started issuing letter grades, inspectors found serious health code violations. Among them: Evidence of mice, roaches and flying insects.

Inspectors also discovered that some hot food was stored at too low a temperature to be safe and that some equipment was poorly maintained.

A manager at Ming's refused to say where he got his fake grade, saying that a company came in and then sent the letter to him. He refused to name that company - or to explain why he posted a grade he hadn't earned. He also refused to give his name.

City officials say they haven't received any complaints of restaurants posting fake grades, adding they'll crack down on anyone caught cheating. Those restaurants could face a fine of $1,000.

A summary of egg-talk, almost one month into the salmonella-in-half-a-billion-egg recall that has sickened at least 1,500.

Risk comparisons are risky

The Iowa egg folks wrote at the beginning of the outbreak in mid-Aug. that “the chance of an egg containing Salmonella Enteritidis is rare in the U.S. Several years ago, it was estimated that 1 in 20,000 eggs might have been contaminated, which meant most consumers probably wouldn't come in contact with such an egg but 1 time in 84 years.”

Some industry-apologist lawyer wrote, “you and I are ten times more likely to die in an auto accident this year than to culture positive for SE as a result of eating eggs (which averages about 1 in 120,000 annually).”

These may be statistically accurate, but are of no comfort to those barfing. The American Egg Board estimates the risk of an egg being contaminated with salmonella at about 1 in 20,000. Holding my nose at one end and something else at the other and assuming such an estimate is accurate (and it’s a pooled estimate so is widely variable), if I make mayo or egg nog or dip into the pancake batter, I’ve upped the risk to 5-6 out of 20,000. If a restaurant is making mayo or aioli, dozens if not hundreds or thousands of eggs could be used, cross-contaminating the kitchen area and potentially sickening lots of people daily.

There’s a different risk exposure dealing with a few eggs at home and the thousands used daily in food service. Risk gets amplified real easy.

Simple messages aren’t simple

More than one misguided commenter has said, here are the facts – just cook your eggs.

Just cook it is an ineffective risk slogan, like, don’t do drugs, employees must wash hands, and, we don’t swim in your toilet so please don’t pee in our pool.

“If you are concerned, just make sure you cook your eggs to well done. If you have someone that is ill or on immunosuppressive medication, you should do this regardless of the source of eggs. In the meantime, my local stores don’t sell eggs with any of the recalled labels, so I had mine over easy this morning.”

I don’t have those special salmonella-vision goggles, and worry more about cross-contamination with those ubiquitous egg juices.

After FDA found piles of crap in Iowa farms linked to the salmonella outbreak, the Iowa Poultry Association said in a statement, the “Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) both state that thoroughly cooked eggs are thoroughly safe eggs. Consumers should know that salmonella is destroyed by the heat of proper cooking. Eggs should be cooked until the whites and yolks are firm. For dishes containing eggs, the internal temperature should reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Again, nothing about cross-contamination, which we know happens routinely based on hundreds of hours of video observation from food service kitchens.

Jennifer Perry, a post-doctoral researcher at Ohio State University had it more correct:

“Eggs are a raw product. Although it is rare to find Salmonella inside the egg, research conducted by U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists has demonstrated that the pathogen may be present on the exterior of about 8 percent of shell eggs, yet people treat them as if they’re sterile. They wouldn’t handle raw chicken breast the way they handle eggs, but they probably should treat the products about the same.”

Industry and government suck at communication …

… and are apparently terrified to go public with information that could prevent others from getting sick. They also don’t seem to care about the trust lost when people find out information was available that could prevent others from barfing.

State and federal health agencies identified an Iowa egg company as a likely source of illness at least two weeks before the firm launched a massive egg recall Aug. 13, 2010, and the public got its first hint of a growing national salmonella outbreak.

CDC announced on Aug. 16, 2010, a four-fold increase over the expected number of reported isolates of this particular SE PFGE pattern.

But it wasn’t until Elizabeth Weise of USA Today put the numbers into context – 228 million eggs recalled, an increase from the normal 50 salmonella cases per week to 200 in June -- on Aug. 18, 2010, that the story began to garner national attention.

On Aug. 19, CDC said, about 1,400 people were sick: that got attention.

Yet there has been a vacuum of silence from government and industry surrounding this outbreak, a vacuum that animal welfare and political opportunists are all too ready to fill.

Chris Clayton of the Progressive Farmer wrote last week that as events have unfolded following a 550-million egg recall, groups created to be agriculture advocates -- agvocates -- have remained relatively quiet about the situation.

“These groups established by various producer organizations and allied industries to defend agriculture don't want to talk about how ag should respond to the recall and the large business at the center of the federal health probe and possible criminal investigation. … the groups created within agriculture to address perceptions about agriculture are shying away from talking about the DeCoster fiasco.”

FDA, other federal agencies and industry, do themselves a tremendous disservice by failing to clearly articulate how and when the public (and industry) should be informed about potential health risks. No amount of federal legislation or lawsuits will fix this. Instead it requires a recommitment to having fewer people barf. And any company that wants to lead – especially with profits – will stop hiding behind the cloak of government inspection and will make test results public, market food safety at retail so consumers can choose, and if people get sick from your product, will be the first to tell the public.
 

Government officials have publicly expressed concern that public health has become a minor issue, consequences are meaningless, and the sale of dodgy food is on the rise.

How refreshing.

In what country would bureaucrats make such bold statements to potentially upset the ruling food safety oligarchy of industry, auditors and regulators? U.S.? Canada? U.K.? Australia? Anywhere?

Kuwait.

Arba Times reports the Chairman of the Consumer Protection Society Attorney Faisal Al-Sebaie expressed his disappointed over the mediocre measures taken by the relevant authorities to protect public health from greedy traders, who sell spoilt or contaminated food products in the local market.

Al-Sebaie lamented the public health has become a minor issue for the concerned authorities, especially the ministries of Social Affairs, Labor and Commerce, leading to the spread of contaminated or expired food products in the local market.

He said no strict measure has so far been taken to prevent the distribution of contaminated or expired food items because the government has opted to remain silent over the unscrupulous activities of greedy traders.

He wondered why a country as rich as Kuwait cannot establish a modern laboratory to conduct tests on the imported food items.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General of the society Attorney Khalid Al-Dosri appealed to the government to immediately take strict measures against those proven to have violated the food safety regulations. He thinks the Ministry of Commerce is keen only on arresting the owners of small shops, which sell spoilt food products, while disregarding the violations committed by business tycoons.

Moreover, Chairman of the Social Committee at the society Khalid Al-Sebaei wondered why the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor dissolved the boards of directors of 13 cooperative societies allegedly for engaging in corruption and manipulating prices without putting them in jail. He urged the ministry to obligate the cooperative societies to submit financial and administrative reports quarterly to prevent, if not eliminate, the violations.

Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports that the salmonella-in-Wright and Hillandale-eggs outbreak that has sickened at least 1,470 in the U.S. left officials at Costco Wholesale Corp. scratching their heads. How had inspectors for Costco, who looked over the northeast Iowa farm where the chain bought eggs, not noticed the rodent holes in the henhouses?

Craig Wilson, who oversees food safety for Costco, said, "There are a lot of guys going, 'Hey, wait a minute. They're finding stuff and our guys were there and they didn't see it.' "

Critics – and I was one of them -- say many food-safety audits are designed to tell companies paying for them what they want to hear. The defunct Peanut Corp. of America had a glowing food safety audit from an outside firm before a 2008 salmonella outbreak in peanut butter that killed nine people and sickened more than 700.

U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors also missed the problems at Hillandale as well as at Wright County Egg, a producer that recalled 380 million eggs and supplied Hillandale with hens and feed.

The USDA employees, whose main job is to grade eggs on their condition and catch defects, don't check henhouses or look into farms' salmonella-prevention programs, a job the USDA leaves to the Food and Drug Administration.

The USDA employees do inspect conditions in packing facilities for companies that request and pay for the service. The packing facilities at Hillandale in West Union and at four more farms operated by Wright County Egg had all been audited by the USDA in 2009 or this year and received stellar marks - grades of 97 to 99 percent.

Several customers of R.W. Sauder Inc., an egg producer in Pennsylvania, have told the company they plan to add salmonella-prevention measures to their egg specifications, said Paul Sauder, the firm's president. Those buyers include a large supermarket chain and food service company, whom Sauder declined to name.

Buyers "had the perception that as long as the eggs were USDA-inspected, all eggs were equal. There is renewed awareness now," he said.

Salmonella in eggs is not new.

Seven children in County Armagh, who all attend Holly House nursery in Lurgan, have been infected with E. coli O157, the Public Health Agency has confirmed.

A mother whose child is at the nursery said,

"It is very worrying because of the seriousness of E. coli. But as far as I know none of the children seems to be very ill. I could not fault the nursery. They are managing very well and have provided lots of information and support."

"Locally, it is a surprise that an outbreak of E. coli has taken place," said SDLP councillor for the area, Mary McAlinden.
 

Elizabeth Weise of USA Today writes in a story just posted on-line that there is nothing small scale about Pearl Valley Eggs, deep in the heart of Illinois farm country. The egg farm itself, two miles south of the nearest town, is a neat collection of 350-foot- and 450-foot henhouses covered in white steel siding. They're linked by overhead pipes that bring in ground corn and soybeans from the farm's own feed mill and conveyor belts that take out chicken poop.

The farm employs 100 people and produces 800,000 to 850,000 eggs a day, seven days a week.

Yet, in the face of the nation's largest recorded egg recall, a total of 550 million eggs potentially infected with salmonella enteritidis, and revelations of filthy conditions at the two Iowa egg farms involved, many animal rights groups and organic supporters have pointed a finger of blame at industrial animal agriculture.

Ben Thompson, 30, who runs Pearl Valley Eggs with his father, Dave, who founded the business in 1987 and now houses 1.1 million Shaver chickens in seven henhouses, says since the Thompsons began testing a decade ago, the farm has never once had a positive test for salmonella enteritidis.

The story says there is a definite link between large flock size and salmonella. On average, large-scale U.S. layer operations with more than 100,000 hens per house are four times more likely to test positive for salmonella enteritidis than smaller houses with fewer than 100,000 hens, according to a paper set for publication in January in the journal Poultry Science. The report suggests that one reason might be that salmonella is transmitted in contaminated feces and dust, and higher densities of birds mean more of both.

At the same time, scientists caution that there haven't been good studies to show the rate of salmonella infection in equally large flocks that are cage free.

Jeffrey Armstrong, dean of the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University in East Lansing, says, "It is about management — each type (of production method) has its advantages and disadvantages."

At Pearl Valley, Dave Thompson says happy hens, safe eggs and making a profit are possible, but it takes a lot of attention to detail and spending 12 hours a day, seven days a week in the barns. "I take good care of my birds and my wife, and I put every penny back into the farm."

Alison Young of USA Today reports today U.S. Department of Agriculture staff regularly on site at two Iowa egg processors implicated in a national salmonella outbreak were supposed to enforce rules against the presence of disease-spreading rodents and other vermin, federal regulations show.

Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said regulations are only as good as their enforcement, adding, "It goes back to the responsibility of whoever is producing the food. How do you establish a corporate culture where people pay attention to food safety?"

The USDA egg graders, part of an industry-paid program, were at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms at least 40 hours a week — including before the outbreak — inspecting the size and quality of eggs inside processing buildings.

Though USDA regulations say buildings and "outside premises" must be free of conditions that harbor vermin, the agency takes a narrow view of its responsibilities. Under the USDA's unwritten interpretation of the regulations, egg graders only look for vermin inside the specific processing building where they are based, said Dean Kastner, an assistant USDA branch chief in poultry grading program.

The agency interprets outside premises as only the area immediately around the processing building's loading dock and trash receptacle, he said.

Salmonella can be spread by rodents and wild birds. Outbreak investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week released reports documenting filthy conditions in and around egg laying barns at the two companies, including rodents, rodent holes, wild birds, flies and other vermin.

Hillandale Farms spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said the barns at its facility are about 50 feet from the processing building. At Wright County Egg, the laying barns are 50 feet apart and connected to the processing plant, said spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell.

Associated Press subsequently reported two former workers at Wright County Egg facilities, Robert and Deanna Arnold, say they reported problems such as leaking manure and dead chickens to USDA employees but were ignored and told to return to work.

The salmonella outbreak has led to a recall of about 550 million eggs.

Translated by Albert Amgar

Si il n’y plus de courant, que puis-je conserver ?

Les aliments qui peuvent être conservé de façon sécuritaire au-dessus de 5°C pendant quelques jours sont :

Les fruits et les végétaux frais non coupés,

Le ketchup, les condiments, les olives, les confitures et les gelées, la moutarde, la sauce barbecue, la sauce soja, le pain, les petits pains, les bagels, les gâteaux (sans crème, ni fourrage), les biscuits et les muffins et certains fromages à pâte dure.

Conserver les portes fermées de votre réfrigérateur et de votre congélateur aussi longtemps que possible pour maintenir une température froide. Vous pouvez recongeler de façon sécuritaire des aliments qui contiennent encore des cristaux de glace ou qui ont été conservés à 5°C ou en dessous.

Avec la porte fermée, les aliments dans la plupart des congélateurs vont rester en dessous de 5°C pendant au moins 3 jours, même en été.
La vitesse de décongélation dépend de :
• la quantité d’aliments présente dans le congélateur
• la nature des aliments
• la température de l’aliment
• la taille et l’isolation du congélateur
Remplir l'espace vide de votre congélateur avec de la glace pour aider à les aliments congelés à rester plus longtemps lorsque le courant est coupé.
Soyez préparé lorsque le courant est coupé
• Placer un thermomètre dans votre réfrigérateur et votre congélateur
• ayez un thermomètre digital sensible à lecteur rapide pour vérifier les aliments
• Ayez des aliments qui ne nécessite pas une réfrigération et qui peuvent être mangé froid ou chauffé avec un grill d’extérieur
• Congeler des poches d’eau pour en faire de la glace et aider ainsi à conserver froid les aliments dans les réfrigérateurs et les congélateurs
• Prévoyez à l'avance en préparant des glacières et en sachant où se trouvent de la glace sèche et des fournisseurs de blocs de glace
Les ouragans et les orages peuvent entraîner une coupure de courant et conduire à des problèmes de sécurité des aliments
Protégez vos aliments en étant prepare
 

Benjamin Chapman
Traducido por Gonzalo Erdozain
Resumen del folleto informativo mas reciente:
- Huracanes 
y tormentas 
pueden causar cortes 
de luz y problemas con los alimentos
- Esté preparado y proteja sus alimentos
- Ponga un termómetro en su heladera y freezer
- Prepare conservadoras y esté al tanto de lugares donde pueda comprar hielo seco y hielo en bloque
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