Creative Halloween foods courtesy of www.neatorama.com

With Halloween quickly approaching and you debate your costume options so you spend those evenings at friends parties gorging on the Jell-O molded in the shape of brains, eggs made to look like an eyeball or you eat the delicious looking chocolate cake with plastic cockroaches crawling out of it. Beware of what could really be crawling on and out of those foods… hopefully no live cockroaches or foodborne illnesses such as E. Coli, Salmonella, Listeria; these are no laughing matter. Remember those food safety principles you learned in your trusty food handler course such as time & temperature abuse or proper hand washing should still apply. Just because this time of year our traditions focus on witches, potions, & spells where strange ingredients are used; be sure those delicious egg eyeballs aren’t packing the extra punch of foodborne illnesses.

This morning the USDA announced a major recall of approximately one million pounds of frozen ground beef patties that may be contaminated with E. coli.    The California-based company, Valley Meat Co.,  distributed the suspect beef patties to vendors in California, Texas, Arizona, and Oregon.  Thirty separate products are included in the recall.  For a complete list and additional information about the recall, read their press release:  Valley Meat Co.

The Center for Disease Control released some incredible findings this month–and since then the sun has shown a little less brightly for salsa and guacamole lovers (your humble author not excluded).  According to the CDC, fresh salsas and guacamole are the causes of 1 in 25 foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants and delis across the United States.  Specifically, of the 136 salsa/guacamole cases reported of foodborne illness outbreaks during a 10 year period, 36 were linked directly to guacamole, 95 to salsa, and the rest to both.  CDC representative, Robert Tauxe, specifically noted that all the cases involved freshly-prepared guacamole and salsas–not commercially packaged products.

Norovirus, which moms tend to call “the 24-hour flu” or “stomach flu,” thrives in environments where cut and porous vegetables (such as avocados, cilantro, peppers, and tomatoes) are left uncovered and poorly refrigerated.  In fact, Tauxe reported that the most common pathogens associated with these outbreaks were norovirus, salmonella, and E.coli, which all cause stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea in various degrees of intensity.

This study, which began in 2008, was originally prompted by an outbreak in St. Paul, MN in which 1,400 people were sickened by contaminated Serrano and jalapeño peppers used in freshly-prepared salsa.   Researchers examined reported restaurant and deli outbreaks from 1998 to 2008 and found that salsa and guacamole contributed to 3.9% of cases–a +200% jump from the previous decade.  Investigators are unsure what specific ingredients are leading to the contamination, but report that due to the varying recipes of salsa and guacamole, it is unwise to depend on the acidity of lemon or lime juice to fight off the growth of foodborne illness.

Micheal Doyle of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety put it best when he said, “Refrigeration is the key to safe salsa.”  We’ll assume he meant guacamole too.

Image Source:  La Fonda Restaurant

Source:  USA Today

The Washington Post published an interesting article this morning, spotlighting the recent E. coli outbreak associated with pre-cut, bagged lettuce that infected 23 people in four states during March and April of this year.  The lettuce was not purchased by consumers, but rather by several food service companies and supermarkets as part of their salad bars and prepared meals.  In fact, the majority of infected people were students at colleges in Michigan, Ohio, and New York who consumed the lettuce at their college dining halls.  This issue brings up an interesting question, however:  Are pre-cut, bagged vegetables more dangerous than whole vegetables?

First, how could E. coli, which is generally associated with animal feces, infect vegetables?  According to Caroline Smith De Wall, the food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “The process of harvesting lettuce, chopping it or tearing, washing and putting it in a bag is a process similar to mixing ground beef.”  As any food handler should know, ground beef is potentially more hazardous than whole beef because bacteria on the outside of the meat is mixed into the center during the grinding process.  The same is true for lettuce, and other leafy greens which are grown in fertilized soil.  Fertilizer is largely composed of animal feces, and therefore is full of E. coli and other contaminants.  So when vegetables are processed for packaging, greens from multiple farmers’ fields (both contaminated and uncontaminated) may be tossed in and cut together–infecting all the produce.

Still, there are strong arguments on both sides of this debate.  Those who believe bagged vegetables are more dangerous argue that chlorine spray used to clean the produce before it is packaged does not kill enough of the bacteria.  Whereas when consumers purchase whole vegetables, they will commonly remove the outer leaves, thus physically removing the majority of potentially infectious bacteria.

James Gorny, senior advisor for produce safety at the FDA disagrees with the idea the bagged produce is more dangerous.  He stated that “bagged greens represent a disproportionate number of recalls, chiefly because they’re easier to identify than whole produce.  When you buy a head of lettuce, you have no idea what the brand name is, or who the grower is–so tracing it back is that much harder.”  Essentially he is stating that because the source of contaminated bagged vegetables is so much clearer than for whole vegetables, complaints about foodborne illness for those products is much higher.  In addition, it is much easier for health department officials to trace the source of the infection for packaged produce, and so it often appears as though pre-cut vegetables are more dangerous, even though they may not be.

Unfortunately there is no clear statistic proving that either whole or pre-cut vegetables are more dangerous.  In order to keep your patrons, family, and employees safe at the salad bar–wash your veggies.  Even if the bag states “pre-washed” it is always a good idea to rinse your leafy greens and vegetables that will be served as ready-to-eat items.  There are also several vegetable washes on the market that may be advisable for households with at-risk individuals.  For additional guidance, contact your health department.