EHA Group Food Safety and Epidemiology Blog

COVID-19 Holiday Season Safety Guide

The 2020 holiday season brings unique challenges never before seen. Faced with a pandemic, we are encouraged to limit gatherings to immediate family only. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published recommendations to help curb the spread of COVID-19. 

Small household gatherings are contributing to the spread of COVID-19. The CDC recommends limiting gatherings to immediate household members only. This means the people that live in your household on a day-to-day basis, which may include roommates. When non-household members travel to see you and visit bus stations and airports, they increase the risk of spreading COVID-19. Likewise, crowded shopping areas are strongly discouraged.

The CDC has made these recommendations: 

• Celebrate remotely with Face Time, Zoom or Skype. 
• Host outdoor, rather than indoor, gatherings as much as possible if the weather permits. 
• Check the COVID-19 infection rates in areas where attendees live because it is possible certain areas should be excluded. 
• Avoid holding gatherings in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. Ensure that 6-feet distancing can be obtained in the space provided. 
• Increase ventilation by opening windows and doors if possible. Use portable HEPA filters in each room if you can. 
• Ensure guests are seated with physical distancing in mind. Use more tables and less chairs. 
• Avoid singing or shouting, especially indoors. Keep music volume low to avoid needing to shout. 

In addition to avoid spreading COVID-19, it is important we practice good food safety practices to avoid spreading a foodborne illness. The following steps will help you handle food safely while navigating this pandemic. 

Thaw turkey completely in the refrigerator before cooking. This may take three days depending on the size of your bird. Alternatively, you can put your food under cold running water no greater than 70°F. Compared to a 40°F refrigerator, this will speed up the process. Never place food on the counter to thaw as bacteria can grow on the turkey and even double every 20 minutes under the right conditions.  

Handle raw turkey (or other meats) carefully. Wash hands, knives and cutting boards thoroughly immediately after use. The juices of raw meat or poultry can contaminate hands or utensils if not properly washed. Never wash a packaged turkey either, the splashing can cross-contaminate nearby surfaces. Wash hands after touching any raw turkey for 20 seconds. Do not substitute hand sanitizer for proper handwashing. 

Cook stuffing separately from turkey in a casserole dish (optional). There is no minimum cooking temperature for stuffing provided it is free of meat or turkey. Set the oven to at least 325°F and cook the turkey to a minimum of 165°F using a stem thermometer. Check multiple areas of the turkey, insert the thermometer completely into the center. Do not rely on a “pop-up” indicator which some turkeys are equipped with. Follow the directions printed on the turkey which likely indicate oven temperature and time to cook based on weight. For large birds, this may take three hours.  

Leftovers should be immediately cut into smaller pieces and refrigerated. The bacteria Clostridium perfringens grows in cooked foods left at room temperature. These bacteria are most commonly diagnosed around the holiday season (November and December) for this reason. Breaking the turkey up into smaller portions and using the freezer are excellent ways to speed up the cooling process. Keep turkey refrigerated for no more than seven days and then discard it. The less time the better, consider freezing cooked turkey. 

EHA Group Provides Food Safety Testing for BuzzFeed

EHA Group recently helped out BuzzFeed with a live video stream that they posted to their Facebook page. The video featured people at BuzzFeed breaking a Guiness World record for most burritos rolled in a minute, and EHA Group provided food safety services to ensure that the food was properly prepared and safe to eat.

You can watch the video here: BuzzFeeders Breaking Guiness World Records: Most Burritos Rolled In A Minute!

 

 

Training Food Service Employees

Approximately half of the foodborne disease outbreaks reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) each year are associated with restaurants. Currently, there are no federal-level restaurant food safety training or inspection requirements in the United States. As a result, food handler educational and restaurant inspections vary radically from state to state. The quality and intensity also varies. The FDA discovered a correlation between restaurant-related foodborne disease outbreaks with restaurant inspection frequency. Their conclusion was a substantial food handler training is necessary at the national level.

Study Finds Lapses in Food Safety Knowledge

The National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) produced a peer reviewed study of 729 food handlers at 211 suburban Chicago restaurants. The study was a year-long endeavor that lasted through 2010.  The mean overall knowledge score was only 72% and substantial knowledge gaps related to cross contamination, cooking, and holding and storage of food were identified in the test. Spanish-speaking food handlers scored significantly lower than English-speaking food handlers. Although certified food managers scored significantly higher than noncertified food handlers, their score was only 79%. How can food managers with such a low score spread food safety knowledge effectively to their staff?

New Hires Need Training

Often times, food service workers have little to no training. They are given on-the-job training and sent to work. Food service training is important as it helps provide high quality of work, great customer service, reviews in technology and new equipment, and helps the business stay ahead of the competition. Since the majority of foodborne illnesses are attributed to food service workers, and the top contributing factors are related to worker behavior, the importance of properly training food service workers are critical. Food service training varies and has the potential to activate new ideas, furthers the understanding of the job (and even cross-train) and further align the staff with the priorities of the kitchen.

Culture of Safety

Food safety training should embrace a culture of safety and awareness. A food safety “program” is not enough as there are countless issues that could arise in the kitchen where a person must have a genuine understanding on preventing conditions conducive to harboring food borne pathogens. This relates to the leadership and organization: leaders must have a positive attitude about food safety. They should speak on food safety as regularly as possible and lead by example (e.g. wearing gloves, wearing hair restraints). This willingness should foster questions and discussions which may ultimately challenge practices in place which may jeopardize food. There is more than one right answer to how a kitchen can operate.

Give Staff the Resources They Need

The purpose of training is preventive in nature. The leaders of an organization should be proactive. A strong team of like-minded individuals focused on food safety will ultimately strengthen the organization as a whole. This willingness to have a strong food safety culture in place before an outbreak begins must come from the top down. Leadership should have activities and practices outlined which are prohibited, but must make systems in place to allow employees to understand them and comply. For example, employees are not allowed to change their clothes in the kitchen so leadership should have a locker room that is accessible before they enter the kitchen. They must have the right equipment such as enough colored cutting boards or disposable gloves in stock for each staff member. There should be an open door policy where employees can bring concerns to the top without the threat of retaliation. The business is only as strong as its weakest staff member in the kitchen and it takes the work of everyone from the dishwasher to the executive chef to deliver safe food. 

Changes to Nutrition and Labeling

Nutrition labels are getting a face-lift. If you are like most consumers, the content of your food, especially the nutrition information, is very important to you. Even when we know the foods we eat are unhealthy, we look for vitamins or trace minerals to justify the unhealthy choice in some way. We should be able to "pick up an item off the shelf, and be able to tell whether it's good for your family," said Mrs. Obama in a statement. "So this is a big deal." Most of the changes will be in the design, and very little information will be added; some information is taken out.

Specific Changes to Labels

The first and most notable change is to the serving size. These are commonly unrealistic like a 20-ounce soda labeled as 2.5 servings. New rules will require manufacturers to post a more accurate representation of what the consumers will eat or drink in a serving. The number of servings will increase in font and be in bold. This will help consumers make a rational decision on how much of it they should consume. For example, the 20 ounce soda will now be a one ounce serving when distributed in that bottle.

Calories, also known as the food energy we acquire from food, will now be larger and in bold.  It fill finally stand out. To people on diets this will be a relief, no more squinting to count calories. The section on Calories from fat will be removed.

Below Calories is the table summarizing fats and proteins. The biggest change will be to the columns. To the left will be the daily value (%DV) in percent (based on a 2,000 calorie diet). The one addition to this section is “added sugars.”  Food manufacturers are skeptical as there is no way to distinguish between a real sugar and an added sugar in testing. Secondly, for those struggling with hypertension, sodium will be reduced by 100 mg to 2300 milligrams. It is a small change but it is a start. Below this table is the section on vitamins. Vitamin D and potassium will now get a spot on the list.

New York City Gets Tough on Trans Fat

Nutrition labels are important, but not as important as the ingredients they list. New York City has taken this to another level with their ban on trans-fat, and the nation has yet to catch up. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now requiring this ban at the Federal level. Trans-fats are partially hydrogenated oils. They are cheaper than saturated animal fats like butter and formed when liquid oil is treated with hydrogen gas and made solid. We thought that this would be a safer alternative, but as a nation with heart disease as the leading cause of death, we were dead wrong. They are popular in fried and baked goods and in margarine. While it was permissible to say zero trans-fat are present in a serving of food if it was less than a half a gram, a person could consume substantial amounts without even knowing it. McDonalds still practices this but it is taking measures to eliminate them entirely.

Former New York City mayor, and health-conscious guru, Michael Bloomberg, banned trans-fats in 2006 (and became fully implemented in 2008). It is 2014 and the rest of the nation is still using them. Restaurant owners and bakers in NYC said they had to change recipes because the alternatives did not behave the way the trans-fats did, but they made it work. Even Dunkin Donuts made the switch without telling consumers, no one noticed. The switch began with corporate responsibility. Restaurants in NYC recognized they were putting artery clogging and unhealthy additives in food and stopped before the official ban took place. The rest of the nation should follow suite and stop in response to the FDA’s disclosure.  

    

FDA Investigating Outbreak of Cyclosporiasis in Iowa and Nebraska

Contaminated salad mix has been linked to a cyclosporiasis outbreak in Iowa and Nebraska:

On July 30, 2013, the states of Iowa¹ <image001.png> ² and Nebraska³ announced that their analysis indicated that the outbreak in those states was linked to a salad mix. In follow-up to that announcement, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is providing an update on its investigation.

The FDA traceback investigation has confirmed that the salad mix identified by Iowa and Nebraska as being linked to the outbreak of cyclosporiasis in those states was supplied to restaurants in those states by Taylor Farms de Mexico, S. de R.L. de C.V., a processor of foodservice salads.   The FDA traceback investigation found  that illness clusters at restaurants were traced to a common supplier,  Taylor Farms de Mexico, S. de R.L. de C.V. The restaurants in Iowa and Nebraska include Olive Garden and Red Lobster, both of which are owned by Darden Restaurants.

FDA’s investigation has not implicated consumer packages sold in grocery stores.

For more information, read EHA Consulting Group's analysis and update on the cyclospora outbreak.

Surveying the 161 Bacterial Families That Live on Your Fruits and Vegetables

We wanted to share this article from Smithsonian Magazine's science blog, about the bacteria that lives on the fruits and vegatables you eat:

For the first time, researchers have sampled and sequenced the DNA of the hundreds of varieties of bacteria that harmlessly live on the produce you buy at the grocery store. Their study, published today in PLOS ONE, revealed 17 to 161 families of bacteria on each of the fruits and vegetables they tested, with grapes, peaches and sprouts hosting the largest diversity of bacteria.

The researchers—Jonathan Leff and Noah Fierer of the University of Colorado, Boulder—studied 11 types of produce in total: apples, grapes, lettuce, mushrooms, peaches, bell peppers, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts and mung bean sprouts. For each fruit or vegetable, they swabbed the surface, isolated the DNA from the swab, sequenced the DNA and analyzed which bacterial family it fell into.

California Cow with BSE (Mad Cow Disease) Does Not Pose a Threat to the Food Supply

On April 24th, 2012, it was announced that the fourth U. S. cow tested positive for BSE. In truth, the first U. S. cow, which was imported from Canada, had “typical” BSE, which was identified in the United Kingdom and has been present in both Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent in Canada.

The two previous U. S. cattle were actually atypical, as was the one identified this week. Although scientifically less is known about the etiology or causation of atypical BSE, what is known is it is not acquired the same way as the typical BSE (from consuming infected feed containing the brain or other Specified Risk Materials from an infected animal), nor does it seem to present the same danger, even if consumed.

No animal slaughtered in the United States for human or animal feed can contain Specified Risk Material, which is where the prion (not bacteria or virus) can be found. This includes the brain, the tonsils, and parts of the intestine, as well as the spinal cord. This fourth cow from California was found during the routine surveillance of USDA, APHIS (Animal Plant and Health Service).

This cow was presented for slaughter in an ambulatory fashion (not a “downer”) and was to be incorporated in pet food, but again, none of the Specified Risk Materials would have been included in the pet foods. There is no evidence that non-ruminant animals actually get BSE; however, there are quite a few ruminants that humans consume other than cattle - including buffalo, sheep, goat, and elk.

The human form of BSE is new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which is highly and actively looked for in the United States through a variety of modalities, including biological materials sent to the National Prion Disease Surveillance Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Since they started actively looking for vCJD, which would have been from cow, three cases in the United States were identified with none having their exposure to U. S. beef. Their risk factors were two from the United Kingdom and one from Saudi Arabia, who most likely had exposure in the UK and/or the EU.

The U. S. has worked very hard to try to assure not only it’s citizens, but also its trading partners around the world, that due to excellent decision making in the 1980’s with regard to the importation of cattle and bone meal, as well as later on in the discontinuation of feeding any of the Specified Risk Materials to cattle or other food animals and embarking on an intensive surveillance program, that the United States, in effect, is free from BSE and should not be worrisome to the American consumer nor our trading partners around the world.

The bottom line is that this cow does not pose a food safety issue. One can only hope that the news media will not make more out of this and, if they want to increase food safety awareness and prevent foodborne diseases, they will do stories on cooking ground beef to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, poultry to 165 degrees Fahrenheit and don’t cross-contaminate between raw and ready-to-eat burgers or poultry and, of course, frequent handwashing.

Pink Slime Poses no Food Safety Risk

Pink slime has become a pejorative word for some ground beef mixes that have included taking beef trimmings, often times that are very close to the bone, and treated with ammonia or citric acid to create a leaner and more cost-effective component of some ground beef. 

There has never been a question, in terms of food safety, yet due to the media and consumer fire storm that has erupted due to the psychological “yuck” factor, many retailers, both at the food service and supermarket levels, have retreated from using it, which according to the American Meat Institute, will require an additional 1.5 million cattle to be slaughtered to make up the difference in harvesting this otherwise wholesome protein from already slaughtered animals. 

The process that they use to recover the additional lean meat is that they heat the meat on the bone, or trimmings, to approximately 100 degrees, spin them in a centrifugal spinner, and the lean beef easily separates from the fat.  It is then treated with ammonium hydroxide or citric acid as an intervention to prevent bacterial problems from organisms such as Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7. 

The important bottom line with this “pink slime” debacle, is that there is no food safety risk and, in fact, this is a safe product and uses as much of our resource of cattle as possible.  There is no question that there definitely can be a “yuck” factor, especially when styled the way it has in both the media, and especially the social media. 

Clearly, when you have the Secretary of Agriculture and the consumer advocate group, Center for Science, in the public interest on the same page and there has been no evidence of any illness, there is no food safety issue. 

The USDA’s deputy secretary for food safety, Dr. Elizabeth Hagen, states that the real issue is transparency in labeling, which clearly can be easily corrected and, again, it is always the consumer who has the ultimate right to purchase or not for their consumption.

Food Safety Audits: Worthwhile, If Done Correctly

Over the past several years, and clearly over the past several weeks, there has been increased interest, criticism, and a general sense of a conundrum in reference to the reliability, reproducibility, validity, and general worthiness of a third party audit.

Many people with varying interests have weighed in with a lot of facts, few figures, and a fair amount of speculation. We believe, and have even published, that the key to an appropriate assessment from a third party audit starts with the qualification and experience of the auditor.

As long as there are firms that are recruiting and sending out on third party audits individuals with minimum credentials, such as the one we found on one company’s website, “high school diploma, or equivalent, plus ten (10) years food processing experience (food plant experience in a responsible food safety position)”, then these audits are doomed to be a potentially harmful and indeed can be worthless.

However, if the third party auditor is properly trained, schooled, and credentialed in food safety and microbiology (a bachelor’s degree, with a minimum of thirty credits in the biological/environmental sciences), then third party audits can be an extraordinary good tool to be used by industry in assessing, to assure that the health and well being of the consumer is not going to be compromised.

When conflicts of interest arise, anywhere, there is always cause for concern. Some of these conflicts of interest are present in the auditing firm, when companies sell laboratory services, pest control services, chemicals, or other services, and the third party audit becomes a lost leader, just like a can of peas in a supermarket, selling for far under the fair market value.

We at EHA Consulting Group welcome standardization, credentialing, and educational requirements for third party auditors, as well as the continuation of a meaningful productive dialog with all stakeholders in reference to the issues.

In fact, in 2009, we blogged this, which is as true today as it was then, and we clearly welcome others to revisit it and continue this important dialog.

Let’s remember, a good working definition of public health is preventative medicine in action.

New York City Restaurant Food Safety: Time as a Control for Temperature

In our continuing effort to keep everyone informed, I would like to alert you to an interpretation of the “time as a control for temperature” principal and rule that is basically contained in the Model Food Code of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and, in part, has been adopted widely throughout the country.

One of the latest adoptees is the New York City Health Department when they revamped their Retail Food Service Program. The changes in NYC health inspections included utilizing time as a control for temperature, as well as providing for grading with public display of the grading placards.

In the past week, we have been informed, and confirmed with the New York City Health Department, that the rules (which are somewhat more stringent) to permit time to be used as a control for temperature, which has been working rather well, has suddenly taken on a new enforcement protocol in that the New York City Health Department is considering that if a retail food service establishment offers food for take-out, then they may not utilize time as a control for temperature.

The case in point was a corporate foodservice facility in that food was being taken out of the cafeteria in appropriate containers for consumption elsewhere, most probably at the individual’s desk. There is an exemption that had not been enforced, which states, “When intended for takeout”, clearly a corporate foodservice operation is prepared for takeout, but that is not its sole mission.

To this end, I have written today for clarification to the Associate Commissioner of Health, asking for reconsideration, and a waiver for corporate foodservice facilities, since I do not believe there is a negative impact to the publics’ health, nor do I believe that there is a science-based difference between that and what is experienced on a daily basis if we went back to not utilizing time as a control for temperature.

Furthermore, I questioned whether or not a white tablecloth restaurant providing a “doggie bag” is actually providing food for takeout, a practice that I would consider far more riskier than when an employee at a corporate dining facility takes their lunch to their desk. Could there be a thermal and time abuse, absolutely. However, no one can control for human behavior.

Please be advised that if you are in the City of New York and you are utilizing appropriate time as a control for temperature, with all of the documentation required, and if food is available for takeout, you may be cited as some units have been in the past two weeks. We will keep you posted when we hear from the Associate Commissioner of Health for the New York City Health Department.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at any time.  EHA is trying to get into the social network mode of communications and we invite you to follow us on Twitter at EHAConsultingGp for frequent updates, mostly concerning food.