With at least two people dead and 178 sick from Salmonella linked to cantaloupe in 21 states, Jim Howell of the Indiana Department of Health told growers improper food handling procedures may be to blame for a good portion of the illnesses.

“The American consumer doesn’t understand the farm,” he was quoted as saying by Associated Press. “They treat fresh produce just like it was packaged food. A big problem is that home economics is not taught in schools anymore. People don’t know this stuff. I have a daughter-in-law who can’t cook at all. I doubt she would know to wash fresh produce. More and more often the attitude is becoming, if it looks clean, let’s eat it.”

He went on to say he would like to hear suggestions about how to label the packaging to include directions for food safety.

“Most of the bacteria is on the surface. People just need to clean their produce before they eat it.”

Howell also suggested that cleaning a cantaloupe with soap, water and a very small amount of bleach is a good idea before ingesting it because the surface is so rough.

Not quite Mr. Health Type.

Bleach, maybe; soap, no.

There’s a lot of idiotic stuff in these quotes, if that is what he actually said. But I’ll refrain from judgment until real health types complete their investigation and issue their report.

Canadian government types remain hopeless about talking about food safety basics.

For all its talk of a single food inspection system, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency can do no better than say, “there have been several confirmed illnesses associated with the consumption of these mangoes.”

It’s up to Health Canada to say how many are sick, which they did on a Saturday afternoon. The PR flunkies probably were paid double-time to produce this gem.

“Table 1, below, shows where and how many illnesses have been reported to date. The Public Health Agency of Canada will update this table weekly during the course of the investigation.

Table 1. Location and number of Salmonella Braenderup infections
as of August 22, 2012
Location Confirmed cases
British Columbia 17
Alberta 5
TOTAL 22

“What you should do

“If you have the product, do not eat it. Secure it in a plastic bag and throw it out. Then wash your hands thoroughly in warm soapy water.

“Everyone can protect themselves against Salmonella infections by taking proper precautions when handling and preparing foods.”

Salmonella is in your hands; not the mango growers, distributers or retailers, but consumers.

Why do taxpayers pay to be reminded that foodborne illness is their fault – when it isn’t?

The press release also has some advice, like to protect yourself from Salmonella, “wash your hands thoroughly after feeding or handling pets.”

I’m not sure what that has to do with Mexican mangoes.

The paternalistic press release also says people should practice these general food safety precautions at all times. Those tips are about cooking temperatures for meat.

It’s still summer in Canada, most people will go back to sleep.

On Christmas Eve, 2009, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced some 248,000 pounds of tenderized beef were being recalled and was eventually linked to 21 E. coli O157:H7 infections in 16 states.

Needle or blade tenderized beef is typically used on tougher cuts of beef or pork to break down muscle fibers or to inject marinade into meat. About 50 million pounds of needle- or blade-tenderized meat is produced in the U.S. each month, according to a federal study, but it’s not required to be labeled.

All hamburger should be cooked to a thermometer-verified 160F because it’s all ground up – the outside, which can be laden with poop, is on the inside. With steaks, the thought has been that searing on the outside will take care of any poop bugs like E. coli and the inside is clean. But what if needles pushed the E. coli on the outside of the steak to the inside?

Luchansky et al. wrote in the July 2009 Journal of Food Protection that based on inoculation studies, cooking on a commercial gas grill is effective at eliminating relatively low levels of the pathogen that may be distributed throughout a blade-tenderized steak. But others recommend such meat be labeled because it may require a higher cooking temperature.

Today, members of the Safe Food Coalition wrote today to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urging him to immediately approve a proposal to label mechanically tenderized beef products. The proposal must be approved by the Secretary before it is sent to the Office of Management and Budget for review.

Without labeling to identify these products as mechanically tenderized and non-intact products, and information on how to properly cook these products, consumers may be unknowingly at risk for foodborne illness. Labeling of mechanically tenderized products would allow consumers to identify these products in the supermarket.

Based on estimates from the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s 2007 Beef Checklist, approximately 18% of all beef steaks and roasts sold in the U.S. are mechanically tenderized. This means that approximately 50 tons of mechanically tenderized products are produced each month.

USDA has known about this potential threat for many years. As early as 1999, USDA/FSIS publicly stated that mechanically tenderized meat products were considered non-intact products because the product had been pierced and surface pathogens could have been translocated to the interior of the product.

USDA/FSIS further stated, “As a result, customary cooking of these products may not be adequate to kill the pathogens.” At that time, USDA/FSIS said that they would not require a label for these products but strongly encouraged industry to label all non-intact, mechanically tenderized meat products with safe food handling guidance. To date, industry labeling of these products is rare.

In June 2010, the Conference for Food Protection petitioned FSIS to put forward regulations that would require mechanically tenderized products to be labeled.

The letter to Secretary Vilsack is available at http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/Comments.SFC.Vilsack.Mech.Tenderized.Meat8.23.12.pdf

As the salmonella-in-cantaloupe outbreak reached 178 sick in 21 states with two dead, California melon growers are really starting to lose it, frustrated after the second straight year of seeing their market potentially damaged because of food-safety issues far from the fields in the Golden State.

The Produce News reports that at this time of year, California is the major supplier of cantaloupes, honeydews and other melons, but this is also the time of year when regional and local deals are in full swing.

Western Growers Association, which represents most of the melon growers in California and Arizona, is calling for greater scrutiny by buyers as they purchase local and regional melons at this time of year.

“Western Growers contends that every cantaloupe grower and shipper must have strong preventive controls in place,” Executive Vice President Matthew McInerney told The Produce News Aug. 22. “For a broker, distributor, retailer, grocery chain or foodservice buyer to demand a vigorous food-safety and traceback program from California and Arizona cantaloupe farmers, but then purchase from a supplier without ensuring they have similar systems in place, is unconscionable.”

Who are these buyers? Pretty much everyone.

Anyone can talk a good food safety game; only a few do it.

“As grower-shippers, we are told — even demanded — to develop and validate adherence to a strict food-safety program,” said McInerney. “That is appropriate and we agree, but how do we reach those who fail to comply? Better yet, how do we get the entire supply chain to share that commitment on a consistent basis? The only way this tainted produce can get to the consumer is that we have enablers that empower less-than-appropriate practices because those buyers buy without question.”

A California cantaloupe grower-shipper who said that he could only speak freely if he was not identified said that he was “very frustrated that buyers are not holding small local growers to the same standards [that California growers are complying with]. I am unwilling to accept it, but I am powerless to do anything about it.”

He said that many buyers preach one thing but then act differently if they can get a better price.

“We became GSFI-certified this year at a cost of $50,000 to $60,000,” said the anonymous grower. “It is very frustrating that we step up to a higher level of food safety at a significant cost and yet we can lose our market because others don’t. I bet the operations that have had problems in North Carolina and Indiana are not GFSI-certified.”

That’s why it’s time to remove some of the faith and insert some data in the form of verifiable marketing of food safety at retail. The majority of farmers who make investments in food safety should be rewarded at the checkout counter – the only place consumers get to vote.

Meanwhile, Tim Chamberlain, who runs the 100-acre Chamberlain Farms fingered as one source of the current killer cantaloupe, said it stopped producing and distributing cantaloupe on Aug. 16, when the FDA alerted him that the fruit could be tainted.

Chamberlain said health officials haven't told him what may have caused the contamination, so the farm hasn't been able to take steps to fix the problem.

"We're waiting for the government agencies to tell us what to do," he said.

Chamberlain said he has had no other problems at the farm since it began operating in 1982.

A table of cantaloupe-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/cantaloupe-related-outbreaks.