A new study finds that only 60 percent of Americans search their homes for recalled foods when a recall happens. Reuters carried an interesting article on the study recently, and it got me thinking . . . about the current sprouts situation, as usual. I have talked to a number of different publications recently about
Sprout advice from a Sprouter
I recently received this comment to a recent post that I called …:
"You need to buy your seeds organically grown. This will almost ensure that there will be a lesser chance of bacterial problems.
Before you begin sprouting you should rinse your seeds very well with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide
Sprout Outbreak Update: this may get messy
Here is a copy of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC addressing the recent sprout outbreak. We have been reporting on this for weeks now (maybe months), since cases were first report in Nebraska in February. Please take a look at this report; it provides a good summary of the anatomy of
Salmonella Illness: Just a little diarrhea, right?
I guess you’ve got to be in this business to get frustrated when people think of foodborne disease as being akin to "an upset stomach" or what everybody calls "the flu." That, or you’ve got to be unlucky enough to have known or loved somebody who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome or some other horrible manifestation of foodborne disease.
I Ate Contaminated Sprouts . . . What Should I do?
There is plenty of information out there on (1) what sprout and seed companies should be doing to reduce or eliminate the risk that they sell contaminated food to customers, and (2) what sprout sellers should be doing now, in the context of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak linked to sprouts/sprout seeds. With absolutely no effort
The Scope of the Recent Salmonella Sprouts Outbreak
Press accounts, as well as those from the CDC, addressing the number of sick people in the ongoing Salmonella sprouts outbreak are a little misleading if you don’t know what is actually being said. The reality of these outbreaks (whether E. coli O157, Salmonella, or anything else) is that the number of people who are actually ill, as opposed to the number who have a stool sample that tests positive, is much bigger than the reports would indicate.
In fact, one of the leading studies on the subject suggests (and this is obviously not a bright line rule) that the number of actual victims in a given outbreak, as opposed to merely those with positive stool samples, is as much as 38 times the number of stool sample confirmed individuals. I hope that makes sense. Paul Mead et al, explain it much more clearly in their article, which I will post in a few minutes (technical difficulties).
Continue Reading The Scope of the Recent Salmonella Sprouts Outbreak
Sprouts and Salmonella: A reason to get Twittered
Sprouts have gotten a bad rap recently, and I suspect that the sprout market will have that much-maligned feeling for many months to come. In this day and age, with all the channels of communication available to health departments (federal and state) around the country, and all the detective work that we do here at