The Associated Press reports that fruit and vegetable growers are tracking products and training workers to ensure their fresh green beans, tomatoes and peaches are safe to eat, driven by demands from the grocery chains they supply and shoppers at their markets.
Big retailers such as Wal-Mart are encouraging growers to embrace new technology that allows them to more closely track produce with bar codes and scanners. Growers are using bilingual videos and posters to train seasonal workers on proper hygiene. Some small farms are treating the water they use to scrub veggies.Continue Reading Farm Food Safety Becoming a Growing Issue
Cross-Contamination Conundrum: It takes five years to build a quality business and five seconds to destroy it.
Megan Bradley of Food Quality Magazine reports that in today’s fast-paced world, we often don’t stop to think that the meal we’re eating may be our last. It’s not a pleasant thought and it is easier to dismiss the notion as something that happens to other people in a far-off place. However, each year it is a reality for 5,200 Americans and their families.
Even if it doesn’t end in death, foodborne illnesses affect almost all Americans at least once a year, 76 million illnesses annuall, federal agencies estimate. Usually, these illnesses are mild and won’t slow down a healthy adult, but 20 percent of foodborne illnesses are severe enough to require hospitalization. On top of that, 2 to 3 percent of these acute illnesses develop life-long complications such as hemolytic uremic syndrome. One of the leading reasons so many people get sick from food each year is cross-contamination.Continue Reading Cross-Contamination Conundrum: It takes five years to build a quality business and five seconds to destroy it.
Consumer tips
The Smoky Mountain News reports that eating healthy can also mean eating safe. In North Carolina, three food borne diseases are at the top of health inspectors’ list of things to prevent — norovirus, Salmonella and Listeria.
Norovirus, commonly known as the winter vomiting disease, is a short-lived but intestinally violent disease that results in diarrhea and vomiting. It can be mistaken for a stomach bug or flu-like sickness. Development of the disease generally takes 48 hours.
Salmonella is characterized by the sudden onset of nausea, abdominal cramping and diarrhea with mucous. Salmonella is not typically a serious disease. There is no cure, but symptoms may be treated. Dehydration is the primary concern. Onset is usually 6 to 72 hours after ingesting bacteria.Continue Reading Consumer tips
Do you really know what goes into getting your food to the table?
Katharine Kelly reports that Tulsans put a great deal of trust in the restaurants, fast food emporia, and assorted eating establishments they frequent. And that’s all well a good, for the most part. But unless you would just rather not think about what it is that you are being served on that hot, steaming plate of organic matter that the waitress just served, read no further.
If you are just a bit curious, however, about what precautions are being taken by your local food service establishments and the state health department you might g-e this piece a reading.Continue Reading Do you really know what goes into getting your food to the table?
Food-borne illness: First aid
All foods naturally contain small amounts of bacteria. But poor handling of food, improper cooking or inadequate storage can result in bacteria multiplying in large enough numbers to cause illness.
Parasites, viruses, toxins and chemicals also can contaminate food. Food-borne illness from these sources, however, is less common than food-borne illness caused by bacteria.
Signs and symptoms of food poisoning vary with the source of contamination. Generally diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain and, sometimes, vomiting occur within hours after eating contaminated food.
Whether you become ill after eating contaminated food depends on the organism, the amount of exposure, your age and your health.Continue Reading Food-borne illness: First aid
Lab helps ensure safety of food supply
The Anchorage Daily News reports that cardboard box was rushed to Anchorage’s new Environmental Health Laboratory on Thursday. It’s urgent cargo: nine geoducks.
Divers on Wednesday had plunged 40 feet down near Sitka to harvest the giant clams with bulging brown bodies. They packaged the mollusks, refrigerated them and shipped them by air to Anchorage. Here, a team of lab technicians went to work to determine if they were contaminated by the toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning in humans. People who eat tainted shellfish can develop dizziness, numbness, breathing problems, nausea and vomiting.Continue Reading Lab helps ensure safety of food supply
Unwashed produce can make you sick
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Jane Zhang of the Wall Street Journal reports that More Americans are eating their vegetables. But the healthy trend comes with a risk: Illnesses traced to fresh produce are on the rise.
Fruit and vegetables are now responsible for more large-scale outbreaks of food-borne illnesses than meat, poultry or eggs. Overall, produce accounts for 12 percent of food-borne illnesses and 6 percent of the outbreaks, up from 1 percent of the illnesses and 0.7 percent of outbreaks in the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Continue Reading Unwashed produce can make you sick
Local growers handle their own produce safety
GI Smith of the Zanesville Times Recorder says when it came time to replace some of his farming equipment two years ago, local grower Mike Siegrist decided to buy something that would ensure his produce reflected his high standard of quality and the agriculture industry’s growing concern with food safety.
The equipment included a washing mechanism that would help clean harvested produce before it was sold at Siegrist Farm Market, which he co-owns and manages.
“We wash all our produce on our grater/washer before it’s sold,” he said.
He farms a 35-acre fruit orchard north of Dresden. The market is open from mid-June through November.Continue Reading Local growers handle their own produce safety
UCSD team unmasks family of immune system invaders
Debra Kain of University of California – San Diego reports that like a family of petty criminals gone wrong, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) were surprised to find that bacterial pathogens found in a number of troublesome diseases are actually related. Not only that, their wrong-doing is carried out by disguising themselves, then hijacking their hosts.
Jack E. Dixon, Ph.D., Dean for Scientific Affairs and Professor of Pharmacology and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the UCSD School of Medicine; Neal M. Alto, Ph.D., UCSD postdoctoral fellow and lead author, and their colleagues have identified a 24-member family of bacterial proteins. Called effector proteins, they are found in bacteria, including Salmonella, Shigella and pathogenic E. coli, that cause gastrointestinal diseases. The researchers’ findings will be published in the January 13, 2006 edition of the journal Cell.
These proteins help bacteria do their job of infecting the host by warding off the body’s immune system. The UCSD researchers discovered how the effector proteins are able to “hijack” the body’s communication network, findings that could lead novel ways to fight bacterial disease.Continue Reading UCSD team unmasks family of immune system invaders
UW scientists use technology to tackle food-borne illnesses
University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that on its journey to your dinner plate, food is vulnerable to contamination along the way. Usually, it arrives at its final destination without picking up dangerous microbial hitchhikers-but not always.
According to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food-borne pathogens account for 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. As the food industry continues to globalize, food safety is expected to remain a significant public health issue.Continue Reading UW scientists use technology to tackle food-borne illnesses