Doug Ohlemeier of The Packer revisits an early Feb. 2012 meeting of tomato growers, shippers, repackers, buyers, regulators and auditors in Florida to pull out a few golden quotes.

Billy Heller, chief executive officer of Pacific Tomato Growers Ltd., Palmetto, Fla., expressed disappointment with what he calls “shower science,” the protocols auditors and customers come up with that may not be practical.

“The differentiation is that someone as a customer says they’re going to be different and will say if there’s a cow within the next galaxy, they’re not going to buy. I can live with almost all of it, but not the ‘shower thoughts.’ It shouldn’t be in there if they’re not supported by science. Opinions don’t work.”

In a discussion about birds roosting on electric poles near tomato field bins, Heller said Florida growers must deal with a variety of wildlife, including lizards and alligators.

If auditors regulate how close wildlife can be to fields, it should be a science-based rule, he said.

Drew McDonald, Salinas, Calif.-based vice president of quality and food safety for Danaco Solutions LLC, Highland Park, Ill., said each circumstance is different.

“What we don’t want to do is throw the baby out with the bath water and remove all poles and eliminate all birds. I’m not exaggerating when I say we had a customer saying there’s too much dirt (in the field). We can get a little crazy here but these are common-sense things. People agree they don’t want bird droppings on fresh produce, but what they disagree on is ways to prevent that.”

For Sushi Yasuda, the exalted Midtown shrine to the pristine purity of raw sliced fish, posting anything less than the top grade of A from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would seem like a skull and crossbones in the window.

But every time they pick up a knife, the restaurant’s chefs ignore the health code and risk seven inspection points — halfway to a B grade — by preparing food the way they believe it must be.

They make sushi bare-handed (washing their hands 40 times during the average dinner service) even though the city requires food handlers to wear gloves at all times.

“Of course we want diners to be protected, and we know the department of health has a monumental challenge,” said Scott Rosenberg, one of the restaurant’s owners. “But the craft of sushi requires a degree of precision and exactitude in making thousands of cuts — microslicing with speed, and in quantity — and the use of gloves makes that impossible.”

“We can get cited for it,” said Mr. Rosenberg, whose restaurant has an A despite a July demerit for barehanded slicing, “but we don’t use gloves.”

Glenn Collins of the New York Times writes that even as chefs and operators strive to avoid the stigma of earning less than an A rating, they navigate a gray area, balancing fidelity to their training and culture with adherence to health regulations. Many veterans of the city’s food wars find that the most intractable, agita-provoking problems are not such egregious violations as rodents, insects and filth, but subtler matters like handling food properly, or keeping and serving it at the required temperature.

Andrew Carmellini’s SoHo restaurant the Dutch has an A, and he cooks chicken the way he thinks is right, though the city specifies an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

“The formal temperatures are too high and make for a dry product,” Mr. Carmellini said. “You get a piece of cardboard that way. For chicken and pork, 165 degrees is too much, and I would prefer to cook it at a lower temperature for a longer time.”

And so he does, legally, when customers specify that it not be well done, and he has not received any 10-point violations for doing so. “But not every inspector is aware of the regulations,” he said.

Daniel Kass, a deputy health commissioner, said that the department’s regulations are based on “independent analysis regarding the state of the science, federal guidance and state rules, and then a determination is made about what is safe.”

Mr. Kass said the health department adhered to the New York State sanitary code, which specifies 165 degrees for poultry and pork, but “does not prevent a restaurant from serving undercooked meat to patrons who request it.”

He added: “When the department’s review of the science shows that lower temperatures are safe, it works with the state to try to change the rules.”

Science is only now catching up with the late 1970s wisdom of Herbert “Herb” Ruggles Tarlek, Jr.

During one episode, Herb, the outrageously dressed salesthingy on the awesome television series, WKRP in Cincinnati, proclaims that tasteless sells. That’s why he’s so good at advertising.

USA Today reports a five-year study to be released Tuesday by Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business found that, again and again, advertisements that try to simply "scare" consumers into actions — such as buying protective sunscreens or avoiding dangerous drugs — are far less effective than ads that also "disgust" consumers into taking the action. The best way to elicit disgust: Display totally gross images (see our infosheets).

"If you really want to get people to act, disgust is much more powerful than fear," says Andrea Morales, an associate marketing professor at Arizona State University who oversaw the study to be published in the June issue of the Journal of Marketing Research. "It may seem counterintuitive, but it works."

Perhaps that's why consumers have seen a recent slew of commercials with high gross-out factors.

A TV spot from the New York City Department of Health featured images of a soft drink turning into gobs of fat as a guy gulps it down. (Department officials say sugar-rich beverage consumption dropped 12% after the campaign.) A recent Febreze TV spot shows blindfolded volunteers sitting in an ultra-filthy room — but fooled into thinking that they smell something pleasant, thanks to the household odor killer. And a commercial for Colgate Total toothpaste shows a mouthful of icky-looking germs.

From 2006 to 2011, Morales and her colleagues oversaw five different studies. In each case, ads with the highest gross-out factor elicited far more cases of viewer willingness to take action than those without.

In one study, 155 undergraduate students viewed an anti-methamphetamine print ad showing a young man whose face is covered with open sores. It scored far more consumer interest than an ad with the same written copy, but which replaced the photo of the pock-marked young man with one of a coffin.

While consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow agrees with the premise — disgust attracts attention — she's not sure it always works. "Disgust is a hard-wired self-preservation emotion designed to keep us from doing things like eating spoiled food," she says. But, she asks, "Will our protective reaction against assaults of any kind cause us to avoid paying any attention to the ad?"

A small dead rodent in a bag of bananas; a bolt complete with nut and washer in meatballs; food contaminated with live and dead insects; a tooth; a false nail; pieces of metal; plastic rubber tubing; and a plaster.

Those were some of the 2,415 consumer complaints lodged with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland in 2011, compared to 2,126 in 2010.

Other complaints ranged from suspected food poisoning, to poor hygiene standards, to food workers handling money and not washing their hands before handling food. All complaints received by the FSAI were individually followed up and investigated by environmental health officers throughout the country.

FSAI Information Manager Edel Conway said the increase in complaints is a positive indication of people's heightened awareness of their right to expect high standards of hygiene and food safety.

Last year saw the FSAI launch its first digital communications campaign entitled ''See Something, Say Something!'' which aimed to raise awareness among consumers of its advice line service.

Those were among the 82 Enforcement Orders served for breaches in food safety legislation in Ireland in 2011, up from 73 in 2010, a 12 per cent increase.

There were also two instances in 2011 whereby the breach of Closure Orders led to High Court action being taken by the FSAI. The High Court’s decisions to uphold the Closure Orders were welcomed and should serve as a warning that non-compliance with enforcement orders will not be tolerated.

The onus is on each individual food business to ensure that all staff handling and preparing food are uptodated on best safety and hygiene practices. If any food business operator is unsure of what is required of them by law, they can contact our advice-line on 1890 336677, visit our website, www.fsai.ie or our facebook page www.facebook/fsai.

I don't know exactly what RadCon is, (it makes me think of the fanboy scenes from Kevin Smith's finest work, Chasing Amy) but it sounds, uh, rad. The gathering of Sci-Fi fans held in Pasco, WA, had gonzo movie making, a zombie nerd shoot and, less rad, a norovirus outbreak.

According to KVEWTV and TriCityNews Tribune, 40-50 of the 2000 attendees came down with norovirus.

Samples from ill attendees tested positive for norovirus, Benton-Franklin Health District officials said Friday. Some of RadCon's more than 2,000 attendees complained of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and came down with the symptoms and recovered rapidly.

One of the ill attendees, Laurel Anne Hill, commented on the TriCity Herald website about some of the discomfort:

"My husband and I weren't hit with the disaster until we reached our home in California on Monday evening.  At least we could share our misery in a multi-toilet residence.  If the bug turns out to be a Norovirus, I suspect it tagged us together on Sunday around dinnertime, when we were together and not in our room.  I think Norovirus can survive for 24 hours on surfaces and resist some sanitizing agents.  Did it wait for us on an elevator button or on that table in the bar?  David is fine now.  Alas, I'm not."

KTXS News reports that what started out as a good deed could have potentially bad consequences – after 40,000 pounds of contaminated chicken was mistakenly donated to charities in the Brownwood area two weeks ago.

After a rollover accident in Mills County, Texas, on February 10, 2012, Brown County Health Department received a report that 40,000 pounds of partially thawed and potentially contaminated chicken was being given away in Brown County.

Texas Department of Public Safety worked the accident scene until approximately 9:30pm and condemned the trailer load of chicken due to its partial thawing and possible health risks said Brownwood/Brown County Health Inspector Paul Coghlan. He explained that the chicken posed a hazard with consumption of either salmonella or food poisoning, both of which can be life threatening to anyone with a compromised immune system.

After the insurance company released the contents of the trailer to be disposed of on February 15th, someone from the company decided to take the chicken, not knowing of the health risk that it posed, to non-profit agencies such as Good Samaritan Ministries and the Salvation Army in Brownwood, according to Coghlan. Both of these agencies refused the donation because they are required to only buy or accept raw meats from licensed distributors. The man then went to local churches and donated many cases of chicken which were then passed on to individuals in need, Coghlan said.

As soon as Coghlan received the report about the man possibly donating the contaminated chicken, he and Dr. James Hays began trying to find where the chickens were distributed. They also notified the Brownwood Regional Medical Center emergency room so that cases of food poisoning or salmonella could be tracked. The man who donated the chicken was located and he gladly cooperated, giving officials a list of places he left the chicken, Coghlan said. Brownwood Police were also called in to assist in the search and interview of possible recipients of the tainted meat.

“The man was trying to do a good deed, unfortunately some people don’t know how to handle meat safely,” said Coghlan. “I feel like we would have seen something by now if anyone was going to get sick from the meat; however it does still have potential to be dangerous.”

Coghlan stated that some of the people who received the chicken would not give the meat back; however, they were warned of the possibility that they may become ill if they consumed it. They were also given tips on how to tell if chicken is contaminated, to look for air in the packaging which signals decay, a slimy feel to the meat, or a foul odor when the packaging is opened.

Of the 40,000 pounds of chicken on the trailer, less than 3000 pounds have been accounted for and the public is still urged to dispose of this chicken if received.

The risk of cross-contamination seems grossly underestimated.

(although imperfect)

Those words, in parentheses, are the most important in a paper by CDC-types about self-reported consumption of pink beef, and impair the conclusions.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control used FoodNet data from a 2006-2007 survey of 8,543 respondents to conclude 75.3% reported consuming some type of ground beef in the home, and of those respondents who ate ground beef patties in the home, 18.0% reported consuming pink ground beef.

That’s a high number, but is pink hamburger correlated with cooking temperatures of less than 165F? Not always.

For purposes of the paper, pink hamburger is equated to undercooked and therefore potentially dangerous hamburger, except for the acknowledgement that color is an “imperfect” indicator for the consumption of undercooked ground beef.

The authors do mention in the paper that “color is not a reliable indicator of ground beef doneness, and thermometer use was not assessed so self-reported consumption of pink ground beef may not truly represent consumption of undercooked beef.

A series of studies beginning in the 1990s and led by Melvin “Hunter” Hunt of Kansas State University concluded that color is a lousy indicator of whether hamburger has reached a microbiologically safe internal temperature of 160F with something like 30 per cent of burgers browning prematurely, based on levels of different forms of myoglobin within hamburger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees, and has a thorough summary of the problems with color at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Color_of_Cooked_Ground_Beef/index.asp.

So why base a consumer study on color, which research concludes and U.S. and Canadian governments agree in the form of consumer advice, is unreliable? Guess it was easier.

The survey did further verify a long-standing observation that is apparently ignored by every local, state or federal agency that says rates of E. coli O157:H7 increase in summer months because more people barbeque: there’s no correlation with cooking. Instead, the correlation is with microbial loads in cattle, which increase in spring and summer.

“We noted a distinct lack of seasonality in the consumption of ground beef or pink ground beef patties in the home. This contrasts with the marked seasonality reported for E. coli O157:H7 infections in humans, which peaks in the summer months. These data suggest that factors other than seasonality in ground beef consumption, such as differences in food handling practices or increases in the amount of bacterial contamination on meat and other foods or environmental sources during warmer months, are responsible for the seasonal increase in E. coli O157:H7 infections. Shedding of E. coli O157:H7 by cattle peaks during the spring and summer months, corresponding to the period of the highest incidence of human infections. Others have suggested that fluctuations in E. coli O157:H7 prevalence in cattle may be linked to human infections. Our data support this hypothesis and suggest that further attention to pre-harvest food safety interventions may be warranted to decrease the numbers of organisms shed in cattle feces and, ultimately, decrease the number of human infections."

For those who think consumers need to be better educated to reduce incidence of foodborne illness, the survey found yet another link to trash such a notion.

“Although persons with higher education and income reported consuming pink ground beef patties in the home more often, this group consumed ground beef overall less frequently. These findings do not explain these patterns, but we speculate that the increased level of risky behavior among more highly educated and higher income respondents may be due to several factors. These persons may not prepare food at home as often as other groups and
therefore may be less practiced in appropriate safe food handling and cooking practices or they may prefer pink ground beef. Higher income persons have been shown both to have more confidence in the safety of the national food supply and to be more likely to use unsafe food practices than lower income persons. Persons that are more educated may also perceive themselves to be at less risk for foodborne illness and consequently be more likely to engage in risky behaviors. The increased willingness among this population to engage in unsafe food-related behaviors has been suggested to rise from more prevalent beliefs that they understand and can control food safety risks.”

Or, smart people can be dumb. Certainly applies to me (the dumb part).

The abstract of the paper is below.

Ground beef consumption patterns in the United States, FoodNet, 2006 through 2007
Journal of Food Protection®, Volume 75, Number 2, February 2012 , pp. 341-346(6)
Taylor, Ethel V.; Holt, Kristin G.; Mahon, Barbara E.; Ayers, Tracy; Norton, Dawn; Gould, L. Hannah
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2012/00000075/00000002/art00016/
Infection resulting from foodborne pathogens, including Escherichia coli O157:H7, is often associated with consumption of raw or undercooked ground beef. However, little is known about the frequency of ground beef consumption in the general population. The objective of this study was to describe patterns of self-reported ground beef and pink ground beef consumption using data from the 2006 through 2007 FoodNet Population Survey. From 1 July 2006 until 30 June 2007, residents of 10 FoodNet sites were contacted by telephone and asked about foods consumed within the previous week. The survey included questions regarding consumption of ground beef patties both inside and outside the home, the consumption of pink ground beef patties and other types of ground beef inside the home, and consumption of ground beef outside the home. Of 8,543 survey respondents, 75.3% reported consuming some type of ground beef in the home. Of respondents who ate ground beef patties in the home, 18.0% reported consuming pink ground beef. Consumption of ground beef was reported most frequently among men, persons with incomes from $40,000 to $75,000 per year, and persons with a high school or college education. Ground beef consumption was least often reported in adults ≥65 years of age. Men and persons with a graduate level education most commonly reported eating pink ground beef in the home. Reported consumption of ground beef and pink ground beef did not differ by season. Ground beef is a frequently consumed food item in the United States, and rates of consumption of pink ground beef have changed little since previous studies. The high rate of consumption of beef that has not been cooked sufficiently to kill pathogens makes pasteurization of ground beef an important consideration, especially for those individuals at high risk of complications from foodborne illnesses such as hemolytic uremic syndrome.

The former big cheese at CFIA says the most significant food safety development in the last decade has occurred outside public law — the extraordinary growth in the role of private-sector traceability systems characterized by third-party audits.

Ron Doering, a past president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency who practices food law in the Ottawa offices of Gowling Lafleur Henderson, LLP, writes in his monthly column for Food in Canada that large processors and retailers are requiring their suppliers to undergo regular inspections by third-party auditors. Producers, ingredient suppliers and processors must no longer simply have their own quality systems and meet government regulations; now they have to sign onerous supplier warranty agreements and open up their businesses to multiple audits. But these systems and their audit schemes have gone through some significant growing pains that have served to seriously undermine their credibility.

Doering says part of the problem seems to be confusion about the role of the auditor.

David Rideout, Canadian food safety expert, SQF auditor and trainer, says,
“Third-party auditors have to identify objective evidence of compliance or non-compliance and understand that they are not doing second-party audits. My job is not to provide guidance and advice to the company; if I do, my manager rejects my audit, as SQF auditors must draw a clear line between third-party (non-consultative) audits and providing advice to the company, which is the role of second-party audits.”

The largest international effort to bring greater rigor and standardization to third-party audit systems is the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), started 10 years ago, but only with improved training, more rigorous certification and systems that audit the auditors can third-party audits regain the public’s confidence.

And, as food safety expert Doug Powell of Kansas State has said, “Third-party audits are only one performance indicator and need to be supplemented with microbial testing, second-party audits of suppliers, and the in-house capacity to meaningfully assess the results of audits and inspections.”

NATO has dismissed a claim by the Taliban that it killed five ISAF soldiers by poisoning their food.

While there was evidence of a "suspected attempt to tamper with food items" at a base in eastern Afghanistan, it was discovered before any troops could be affected.

An investigation is now underway to establish what exactly happened and whether the Taliban did indeed have any involvement.

A dining facility employee at a base run by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force alerted his supervisors to the possibility of tampering and they immediately took steps to shut down the facility before anyone was affected, FOX News Channel reported.

Earlier, AFP quoted an ISAF spokesman as saying lab tests discovered "traces of bleach" in fruit and coffee at the base in Nangarhar Province.

"There were no injuries, no fatality. The investigation is ongoing," Master Sergeant Nicholas Conner said, adding that NATO staff, Afghans and nationals from a third country worked at the dining facilities.

The Taliban claimed Monday that they had poisoned soldiers at a U.S. base in Afghanistan by recruiting a cook who worked there.

A NATO press release Monday said, "While there is a suspected attempt to tamper with food items that is under investigation, the suspected tampering was discovered before any troops could be affected."

"No one got sick," said Lt. Col. Chad Carroll, a spokesman for international forces in the east. He said that a dining facility worker told his superiors that food might have been tampered with, and when they ran tests they found "traces of bleach in a couple of foods."

"We do not know if this was intentional, if it was what the local worker was referring to, or whether it was simply spillage from cleaning," Carroll said.