Food Safety Policy

Posted: July 15th, 2008 - 3:52am by Doug Powell

Experts investigating the contamination of Northampton's water supply with cryptosporidium have discovered the root of the problem - a small rabbit that found its way into a tank.Just a harmless little bunny rabbit, like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (right).A spokesman for Anglian Water said, "Following extensive investigations, we can now confirm that the source of the cryptosporidium in the water has been linked to a small rabbit, which gained access to the treatment process via a remote ancillary tank shortly before cryptosporidia were detected

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Posted: July 14th, 2008 - 6:17am by Doug Powell

“What’s kangaroo doing on a French menu? Have you seen a French kangaroo?”So asked the older woman as she perused the menu at one of Southbank’s eateries along the Yarra river in Melbourne, Australia.I’ve been to Melbourne many times over the years, including a brief solo trip last year once my visa was approved

Posted: July 14th, 2008 - 2:28am by Doug Powell

Wellington, New Zealand, may be home to Peter Jackson and the Ring things, may be where Bret and Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords met at school and were “formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo,” but I prefer to think of Wellington as home to the New Zealand Food Safety Authority

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Posted: July 13th, 2008 - 6:03pm by Doug Powell

The phone rang about 5 a.m. New Zealand time.The reporter started in about how she had some document, and a guy got fired and would I review it.I said, e-mail it, I don’t want to wake my wife, bye.Last week, it was reported that an employee with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was fired after sharing a document that supposedly outlines changes to food inspection and labeling in Canada

Posted: July 10th, 2008 - 3:12pm by Doug Powell

Amy’s convinced the coffee in our Wellington, NZ, hotel room has no caffeine, so I made an early morning run yesterday to the Starbucks around the corner.The coffee place was just opening and as I awaited my order, a load of prepared sandwiches arrived. The first thing the staff member did was insert a tip-sensitive digital thermometer into one of the sandwiches to verify that the proper temperature had been maintained

Posted: July 8th, 2008 - 3:25pm by Doug Powell

BBC News reports that Dr Layla Jader, of the National Public Health Service for Wales, said at the British Medical Association conference in Edinburgh that TV chefs are setting a bad example by failing to follow basic hygiene standards, and that programmes often did not wash vegetables before using them or separate uncooked meat from other food, raising the risk of food poisoning

Posted: July 8th, 2008 - 1:19pm by Doug Powell

Hot dogs, hamburgers, fries, pretzels with cheese, popcorn, and peanuts are all a part of the classic ballpark menu.  But as the baseball industry grows, new additions to the menu include peppery clam chowder served in a bread bowl dotted through with tender bits of clam; a fried catfish sandwich in a crisp, Cajun-accented crust; and a homey bowl of jerk chicken over rice, with a healthy dash of jalapeño hot sauce

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Posted: July 8th, 2008 - 12:28pm by Doug Powell

The award for the most silly statements in one media report that I’ve seen today – and I see a lot in one day – goes to North Carolina’s Asheville Citizen-Times.In the context of the on-going Salmonella outbreak, with 971 confirmed illnesses and at least 189 hospitalizations, Charlie Jackson, director of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, says people should not be too concerned, adding,“In the whole scheme of things, we have the safest food in the world

Posted: July 8th, 2008 - 4:10am by Doug Powell

A correspondent in France has provided a July 2, 2008, document published by the French Ministry of Agriculture regarding meat food safety.From cooking ”a hamburger to the center” (page 21) to “well-cooked” (page 12), the document is short on specifics, and absolutely wrong when speaking to an audience I particularly care about these days – pregnant women

Posted: July 3rd, 2008 - 11:13pm by Doug Powell

After telling Misti Crane of The Columbus Dispatch that I feel naked without a thermometer – when cooking – she came back for more, and asked if I would ever take a thermometer to, say, a Fourth of July BBQ at someone else’s place.Here's what Doug Powell does: He whips out the thermometer he's recently taken to carrying with him