Sydney's wealthiest area, Mosman, ranked among the riskiest places to eat in New South Wales according to the Food Authority's annual report card, obtained by The Sun-Herald.

Overall, cafes, restaurants and takeaway shops in NSW received more than 2000 fines for hygiene offences over the past year.

Although NSW has established Australia's toughest hygiene compliance regime, one-fifth of the state's 20,000 registered food sellers continue to put the health of their customers at risk.

The NSW, shows food sellers failed more than 13,000 random inspections. That represents 26.3 per cent of the 50,005 inspections carried out in the 12 months to June 30, with some premises inspected three times or more.

More than 8000 warning letters were sent to restaurants and cafes by 153 local authorities. Improvement notices were sent to 1399 businesses and 2049 penalty notices issued.

The number of court prosecutions more than halved from 48 to 22 in 2009-10.

There are now nearly 1800 businesses on the state government's ''name and shame'' list.

Mosman - where the average annual income is $131,606 - ranks among the poorest for food hygiene.

Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan said he was pleased that fewer businesses had required re-inspection in the past year. The purpose of the report was ''so we can be alerted to where the problems lie and fix them'.'

A ''scores-on-doors'' scheme, revealed by The Sun-Herald in April, is being trialled in 20 council areas until Christmas. Participating restaurants display a simple A, B or C rating. It is hoped the prospect of a poor rating will drive owners to maintain high standards of cleanliness.

A new report from the American Academy of Microbiology provides a thorough overview of food safety from farm-to-fork, highlighting the many opportunities for disease-causing organisms and other food safety hazards to enter the food supply.

Global Food Safety: Keeping Food Safe from Farm to Table is based on a colloquium convened by the Academy in 2009, reviews the current state of affairs in microbiological food safety around the world.

An essential take-home message is that most foodborne illness is not recognized or reported. Unless the illness is severe enough to require a visit to the doctor or hospital, it is unlikely that the source and identity of the pathogen will be determined. Only if many people are severely sickened by a single product are breaches in food safety likely to be detected. It is virtually impossible to know how many people are made sick by food, which foods are at fault, which pathogens are most widespread or dangerous, and where those pathogens entered the food production system. In such a situation, where should research, prevention and education efforts be directed?

In this report, each step in our complicated food production and supply system is described, making it clear that providing safe food is a shared responsibility. Food safety is complex, and a perfectly safe food supply is an unrealistic goal. However, as this report explains, there are opportunities for improving food safety at each step of the production and consumption process and many areas where further research could help identify and quantify risks and generate solutions. The report also identifies food safety vulnerabilities that might be addressed through investments in new technologies or more effective education.

Here’s a suggestion: drop the education bit and strive for food safety information that is compelling, based on stories, and is rapid, reliable, repeated and relevant.

The full report is available at
http://academy.asm.org/images/stories/documents/Global_Food_Safety.pdf.
 

Alisha Lewis died in June 2010.

The 22-year-old spent her final week on Earth paying a matter-of-fact visit to a funeral home to pick out a casket, choosing the white lilies that would rest atop it, and setting aside the hoodie and sweatpants she'd wear as mourners said their last goodbyes.

It was abject fear that coursed through her mother's veins in early June 1990 when she raced to the Alberta Children's Hospital, her sick twin toddlers crying in their baby seats. The week before, she had stopped at a fast-food drive-thru and picked up fries and a cheeseburger, which she split in two and handed to her daughters in response to their pleading.

Valerie Fortney of the Calgary Herald (that’s in Canada) writes this morning that after being diagnosed with what was then called "hamburger disease" -- referred to today as E. coli infection-- Alisha and Aimee Lewis became little celebrities in the city.

The Herald ran stories and photos of their plight, and they were featured on several TV news broadcasts, mainly because the girls were said to have possibly contracted the disease from the fast-food establishment, although the Calgary medical examiner at that time expressed concern that the contamination might have occurred outside of the disease's normal incubation period.

Quickly, though, they slipped from the public eye. But the struggle had only just begun.

While Aimee quickly recovered, Alisha continued to suffer, and later went into complete renal, or kidney, failure.

When she was finally released from hospital six agonizing weeks later, her mother, Amanda Lewis, was told she'd suffered permanent kidney damage and might need a kidney transplant. "They first told me both of them might not make it," recalls Lewis, who not long after the crisis married her partner, Roger McLaren, who with their mom raised her two girls and boys, along with his two boys from a previous relationship.

Alisha later developed diabetic and autonomic neuropathy -- a nerve disorder that can cause intense pain -- and also had to have a feeding tube installed to keep nutrients in her body after being diagnosed with gastroparesis, a condition that affects the ability of the stomach to empty its contents.

Knowing all of her young life that she wasn't likely to live to see age 25, Alisha made the difficult decision at the end of 2009 to end treatment. "She was sick of hospitals," says Lewis, "and she was sick and tired of always being sick and tired." Alisha gave up the painful tube feed, and began eating food again, although she often wasn't strong enough to keep it in.

On June 8, 2010 -- almost 20 years to the exact day of her contracting E. coli-- Alisha died surrounded by her family, and cradled in the arms of her younger, by 12 minutes, twin sister. Thanks to accelerated osteoporosis and other life-threatening ailments, she was, says her mother, a young woman with the body of an 80-year-old.

I’m not sure I understand the difference between crayfish and crawfish (wiki gives it a shot) but after posting about vibrio from crayfish, a devoted barfblogger sent this story from Las Vegas about the Hot and Juicy Crawfish.

KTNV reports the Southern Nevada Health District recently paid a visit to the restaurant and slapped it with 49 demerits, prompting its closure.

Inspectors found cooked crawfish being stored at the wrong temperature, live crawfish in a sink next to dirty dishes, dirty floors – including dead crawfish on the floor of a walk-in freezer - and dried food debris caked to shelves and "clean" kitchen knives.

Inspectors also say three employees were working without valid health cards, a requirement for anyone working with or around food, and a kitchen worker was cited for not properly washing his hands after handling the trash.

Open once again with an "A" grade after re-inspection, Channel 13 Action News stopped by Hot and Juicy Crawfish to speak with the manager about the restaurant's high number of demerits.

An employee interviewed by KTNV -- Channel 13 Action News -- said the owner was not available but subsequently added, “We're not the dirtiest restaurant in Las Vegas. It was a lot of little technicalities. “
 

Illnesses in seven more people have been tied by the Minnesota Department of Health to the consumption of raw milk from a farm in Sibley County.

The department said Thursday that three people were infected with campylobacter and four more with cryptosporidium.

The patients told Health Department investigators they had consumed raw milk.

The department says those that named a source named the Hartmann dairy farm near Gibbon.

The department say laboratory tests found the bacteria and the virus in most of the ill people was genetically identical to samples taken from the farm this summer.

Hartmann's farm was implicated in an outbreak of E. coli infections in May and June.
 

Forget Charlie Sheen; the Brits know how to properly trash a hotel room

Former England football legend Paul Gascoigne has booked himself into a Dorset rehab clinic after trashing a hotel room. According to a source at Gateshead’s Newcastle South Premier Inn, staff were horrified to find Gazza’s room covered in vomit and chicken curry. The former Newcastle and Spurs player drunkenly wrecked the room just two days after an arrest for suspected cocaine possession.

As well as curry and vomit on the room’s desk, television, floor and walls, staff found cigarette butts in the bed and ash piled in a corner. Allegedly, Gascoigne had been drinking in a pub before he called a taxi to take him back to the Premier Inn. On the way he asked the driver if he could borrow money to purchase more drink at a supermarket.

Another hotel guest reportedly saw Gazza at 8.30 on the Saturday morning still inebriated. The guest described the fallen football hero staggering into the fire exit and hitting his head on a window. Hotel staff then alleviated Gazza of his room key and dialled 999 for an ambulance.

Colbert and Stewart (Colbert Report and Daily Show) are paying too much attention to loonies like Glenn Beck. Real satire takes effort and this focus on Beck and Fox News just provides attention they don’t deserve.

So ignore the Glenn Beck endorsement of foodinsurance.com, and instead have fun with Colbert’s food insurance insurance, which, based on my understanding of foodborne illness and liability, is about exactly how the American food system functions when people barf.

“Foodinsurance.com has designed an emergency pack and emergency kits to give people at least two weeks of great food and clean water until more permanent solutions can be obtained. Many of the meals are freeze-dried, which means they will last up to 10 years and retain their nutritional value. Also, unlike other survival food solutions that require you to grind wheat or employ some other 18th century skill, Food Insurance meals come prepackaged as lasagna, beef stroganoff, and a host of other great entrees. And to top it off, this food comes packaged in a high quality backpack so you can grab it and go."

Ariz.-based Eurofresh Farms has, according to The Packer, developed a new food safety system, EnviroLock, that requires workers, and anyone entering produce-producing greenhouses, to pass through a sanitation facility before entering, wash and disinfect their hands and forearms, and don color-coded hospital-style scrubs, shoes, hairnets and gloves through the duration of their shift of stay.

That’s because anything that comes into contact with fresh produce has the potential to contaminate, is difficult to wash off, and outbreaks of foodborne illness are disastrous.

In Chicago, the Public School gardens are full of chubby tomatoes, heavy squash and fragrant basil but none of the produce ever finds its way into CPS lunchrooms. Instead, because of rules set by the district and its meal provider, the food is sold or given away.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the policies are in place despite the high obesity rate among Illinois children and experts' concerns that young people are eating few fresh vegetables.

And that’s the problem with these stories, playing safety off against local and little kids.

Why not teach kids about food safety; instead of complaining that local is magically immune to microorganisms, embrace and market the food safety advantages of local markets – but only if it can be backed up with data.

Put the rhetoric aside and combine microbiologically safe with local – that means answering the same questions the big, controlled access greenhouses have to answer to sell their produce to Walmart and Costco and others: know and test the source of irrigation water, pay attention to the quality of soil amendments, let kids know the importance of handwashing and how dangerous bugs move around.

Big or small, be the bug, and be safe.
 

Bon Appetit is a food porn magazine meant to titillate (it’s even in it’s name) and stimulate rather than inform, like most of what passes for food journalism.

This month, the so-called Conscious Cook has a brief piece, 5 Reasons You Shouldn't Hate On Microwaves.

Hate is a strong word. I like my microwave, especially for reheating, not cooking.

The author maintains that microwave defrosting reduces the risk of foodborne illness and that “defrosting frozen food by using hot water or leaving it in the sink can increase bad bacteria. To defrost fast, microwave food on low heat, then cook immediately. Stir contents halfway through heating for even warming.”

I cook a whole chicken about once a week. It’s inexpensive, and provides leftovers and stock for subsequent meals. If I’m defrosting a whole chicken in a microwave, I’m not going to stir it “halfway through heating for even warming.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Health Canada recommend thawing poultry by sealing in a waterproof bag and immersing in cold water. These same groups also used to recommend washing chicken bits, but decided the microbiological splash fest created by running water over raw poultry was a bad idea. To me, immersing in cold water and changing that water every 30 minutes is an additional route to microbial cross-contamination. The Aussies and the Brits agree, and do not recommend water immersion.

Depending on my planning, I use a combination of the counter and the refrigerator for thawing the bird. American and Canadian science-types say this is awful, and I’ll make everyone barf. The Aussies and Brits say counter-top thawing is fine, as long as it’s monitored – a week may be too long.

We have previously reviewed various thawing techniques and government recommendations. Whatever technique is used, be the bug, thinking in terms of cross contamination and growth, and use a damn thermometer to ensure the food has reached a safe internal temperature. Color is a lousy indicator and piping hot is just weird (so is Canada's Mrs. Cookwell).