Alfalfa sprouts grown in Illinois have sickened at least 112 people in 18 states with salmonella since Nov. 2010, and many of those sick ate the sprouts on Jimmy John’s sandwiches.

On Jan. 3, 2011, in a separate outbreak, health officials fingered clover sprouts produced by Sprouters Northwest, Inc. of Kent, Wash. as the source of a separate salmonella outbreak that has sickened three in Oregon and four in Washington. Once again, the vehicle in at least some of the illnesses was Jimmy John’s sandwiches with sprouts.

In mid-Jan. 2011, John Liautaud, the owner of the Jimmy John's sandwich shop chain, said his restaurants will be replacing alfalfa sprouts with allegedly easier-cleaned clover sprouts, effective immediately.

Mr. Liautaud, perhaps you should inspect your suppliers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration did that at the Sprouter's Northwest facility and found:

• failure to take necessary precautions to protect against contamination of food and food contact surfaces with microorganisms and foreign substances;
• failure to clean food-contact surfaces as frequently as necessary to protect against contamination of food;
• failure to clean non-food-contact surfaces of equipment as frequently as necessary to protect against contamination;
• effective measures not being taken to protect against contamination of food on the premises by pests;
• failure to properly store equipment, remove litter and waste, and cut weeds or grass that may constitute an attractant, breeding place or harborage area for pests, within the immediate vicinity of the plant, building, or structures;
• failure to maintain buildings, fixtures, or other physical structures in a sanitary condition;
• failure to hold raw materials in bulk or suitable containers so as to protect against contamination; and,
• failure to maintain buildings and physical facilities in repair sufficient to prevent food from becoming adulterated.

The original table of North American raw sprout-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprout-associated-outbreaks-north-america-1990-2009.
 

The Xinhua News Agency reports a total of 248 people were arrested in China last year for involvement in food safety cases.

The country dealt with 130,000 cases involving food safety last year, including 115 criminal cases, according to a statement of the National Food Safety Regulating Work Office.

The cases touched upon such areas as production of edible agricultural produce, food production, food circulation, catering services and food exports and imports.

"No major incident occurred last year, and the overall food safety situation maintained stable," said the statement.

Last year also saw a nationwide crackdown on "gutter oil", usually made from discarded kitchen waste that has been refined, after media reports that it was commonly used by small restaurants.

A total of 191 officials were punished for failing to do their duty in food safety enforcement, with 26 of them fired, it said.

I used a variation of the headline in today’s Daily Mail, but it would appear there were additional food safety issues at this fancy-pants hotel.

The luxurious Mellington Hall Hotel, in Wales, describes itself as a ‘hidden gem’ nestling in 280 acres of beautiful parkland and serving only the finest food and drink.

But when environmental health inspectors arrived they found a ‘significant fly infestation’, mouldy strawberries and cream past its use-by date.

The Victorian gothic mansion, which boasts on its website that it offers ‘a combination of the finest food and drink savoured in elegantly furnished surroundings with an attentive and knowledgeable staff to make your meal with us unforgettable’, was closed immediately and deep-cleaned following the inspection last July.

But after a second visit this month also found mouldy food, it emerged that the chef was dyslexic and had been unable to read the use-by dates.

Lance Thomas and his wife Vanessa, with whom he runs the hotel near Church Stoke, Powys, Wales, were fined a total of £6,750 at Welshpool magistrates for the breaches of hygiene. They have now adopted a colour-coded system so that the unnamed chef can identify the food that is going off.

Court also heard health-types found trays of cooked meat and vegetables on the floor of the chiller, flies landing on food preparation surfaces and on open food left uncovered in the kitchen, and unwrapped brie on top of moldy strawberries.
 

The occasional relative will welcome my help in the kitchen. That’s Amy’s aunt Jean (right) as we prepped dinner in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago. We talked food safety and I complimented her on stringent thermometer use.

But many dinners with family or friends can be food safety nightmares. Cross-contamination is rampant, temperature control inadequate, and the source of ingredients suspect.

Someone called Grossed Out wrote the Toronto Sun to say her mother-in-law does not wash her hands.

“During our Christmas visit, she and I went grocery shopping. We returned and prepared the leftovers. She "re-mashed" the potatoes with her bare hands -- without ever washing her hands. … Is there any way to bring this to her attention without hurting her feelings?”

Columnist Amy Dickinson responds,

“This is extremely unappetizing, not to mention unhealthy. If your mother-in-law handled uncooked chicken or shellfish and then plunged her unwashed hands directly into a bowl of mashed potatoes, for instance, this could cross-contaminate foods and spread foodborne illness.

“If you were pregnant and contracted Listeria from these unsanitary practices, it could be disastrous. …

“Try saying: ‘Mom, I'm very concerned about hand washing in the kitchen and I notice you're pretty casual about it. Can you help me out here? I feel like I can't eat comfortably unless the cook washes her hands often.’"

Other suggestions?
 

An outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 first became public in Nov. 2010, and would eventually sicken at least 38 people in several U.S. states. Investigators believe the source was Dutch Style Gouda Cheese produced by Bravo Farms of Traver, California from raw milk and sold primarily at Costco and Whole Foods Market stores.

The artisan cheese maker temporarily shut down.

Bravo was forced to quarantined stockpiles of cheese, and -- no real surprise – of the 24 unpasteurized cheese samples investigators took, 15 tested positive for listeria and one tested positive for E. coli O157:H7.

According to the L.A. Times today, state and federal investigators found at least 50 live flies flitting around a processing area at Bravo. They also reported that a rabbit hopped out of a storage room, and a dairy worker scratched his chin then handled milled cheese with his bare hands.

On Thursday, U.S. marshals and Food and Drug Administration agents arrived at the cheesemaker and seized the Gouda, along with piles of Edam and blocks of white cheddar. All told, investigators have locked up more than 80,000 pounds of cheese. Prosecutors say it is all headed for the garbage disposal.

Worried that the cheese would somehow reach the public, and acting to shift the case from state to federal jurisdiction, the Justice Department used a civil legal mechanism to arrest a product — food — and essentially impound it.

Prosecutors filed a civil complaint in federal court in Sacramento last week that lists the cheese — not the farmers who made it — as defendants.

John Sheehan, director of the FDA's dairy division, said the inspections came from concerns "about raw-milk cheese made under artisanal conditions" and a flurry of nine artisan cheese recalls last year. As of October, the FDA had inspected 102 facilities, some big, some small. Of the 147 samples taken, 32 tested positive for listeria. The inspections continue.

Bravo, which is cooperating with federal officials, has been cleared to make cheese again. It's using pasteurized milk.

Veterinary student, masters of public health student, newspuller and occasional blogger Gonzalo Erdozain writes:

As a veterinary student at Kansas State, I get a lot of free food – pizza, BBQ, even fully catered meals. This past Tuesday, at our Bovine Club meeting, we had our food catered by Hy-Vee here in Manhattan, KS. To my surprise, and delight, I observed the delivery chef test each one of the lasagna platters with a digital thermometer, and write down each temperature on a temp. sheet. Our club’s president then signed the sheet and we went about our business. Today, I called Hy-Vee to ask a few questions. Here’s the scoop.

Everything they cook is up to par with the recommendations made by the Kansas Department of Health. I specifically asked about poultry, and the manager quickly answered, “we cook all our poultry to 165 ºF.” He explained that all hot foods must be over 141 ºF at the time of delivery, while cold foods must be bellow 41 ºF. If they are out of that range, they ask the customer whether to reheat it or make a new batch. They fill in the temp. sheet, have it signed by the customer and leave printed instructions to discard any leftover food within 4 hours due to food safety risks past that timeframe. Now that I don’t have to worry about food poisoning from these events, I can focus on not contaminating my food with formalin.
 

Of the 3,575 inspections recorded in 2010 in Newfoundland (that’s in Canada), 42 per cent of them were situations in which inspectors travelled to a processing facility or landing site, but no inspection was done because there was no fish there.

Provincial auditor John Noseworthy noted, “Given that 42 per cent of the inspections were situations where there was no fish to inspect, they probably might want to go back and revisit that, and determine if that's the best way to go about it. There doesn't seem to be any sort of plan."

Noseworthy also found enforcement officers did more inspections of cod than they did for shrimp, despite the fact that harvesters land five times more shrimp every year than they do cod.

Another major gap in the system is at Port aux Basques, from where 90 per cent of the province's exported seafood leaves.

Inspections there were only done seven hours per day, five days per week; of the 437 inspections conducted between January and November 2010 none were recorded in the provincial database.

The government responded the province's fishery is "intense and erratic," which makes it difficult to do the sort of planning Noseworthy is calling for.

Fisheries Minister Clyde Jackman pointed out that all the province's shrimp is landed in such a short period of time that it's tough to carry out a lot of inspections.
Because the season for cod is much longer, more inspections are done.

Derek Butler, executive director of the Association of Seafood Producers, said Noseworthy's report "reflect lack of a complete understanding of the industry."
Instead of more inspections and better scheduling, Butler said there should be less inspection.

He said meaningful quality control is done by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as well as European Union and American quality certification.
 

If I was a restaurant owner or a retailer, the everyday possibility of having a food worker tell me that they had Hep A would scare me. As the virus is shed in an infected person's poop for up to 30 days before she even shows symptoms, having the tools and carrying out actual handwashing limits the potential for illnesses much more than relying on not having ill staff handling food.

But, even if the infected individual was a superstar/champion handwasher, the likes of Jack Nicholson in As Good As it Gets, the business is going to take a hit.

As a safety precaution, and because post-exposure IGG shots are effective at reducing the likelihood of illness (for about a 14 day window), patrons are going to be lined up around the block waiting for an IGG shot and that doesn't result in great press.

Just like what Sierra Grill in North York (that's in Toronto, which is in Canada) is about to experience:

Customers who ate at Sierra Grill last Sunday are being advised to get vaccinated after an employee tested positive for Hepatitis A.
Toronto Public Health said anyone who ate at the Bayview Village restaurant on Jan. 23 may have been exposed to the virus. Public Health is holding three free vaccination clinics for anyone who ate at the Sierra Grill on that day.

Dr. Michael Finkelstein, Toronto's associate medical officer of health was quoted as saying, assuringly, the risk of infection is low. Kind of a weird and subjective message to add when asking folks to come by to get a shot.

 

The U.K. Food Standards Agency says to avoid norovirus, don’t eat oysters raw.

They, however, use a lot more words.

“Controls before and after commercial harvesting provide good protection against harmful bacteria, but it can be difficult to remove viruses from live shellfish. Thorough cooking will destroy these viruses but many shellfish are eaten raw or only lightly cooked so may still contain viruses when eaten. The FSA and the shellfish industry are continuing to work together to improve methods for removing viruses from live shellfish.”