Losing Coverage, Unsanitary Cruise Ship, Avoid Sprouts, Try My Plate

First Lady Michelle Obama introduces the revised USDA nutritional diagram.

Losing Coverage

Food Safety News reported the Washington Post is transferring their dedicated reporter from the food safety beat to education and they they do not plan to replace the position. FSN also reported the Des Moines Register was closing its DC bureau whereby dropping its Ag coverage. "Losing two of the best reporters covering Ag and Food Safety issues is stunning--especially during a time when there are far more questions than answers about the safety and sustainability of our food supply. The Farm Bill is on the table and the Food Safety Modernization Act is on the chopping block and the public needs to be informed."  more

Cruise Ship Fails Health Inspection

As part of its Vessel Sanitation Program, the CDC conducts unannounced inspections of passenger ships docking in U.S. ports twice a year and grades them on a 100 point scale. Most cruise ships pass with a 100 or score in the 90s. A score below 86 is considered failing, which has rarely occurred in the past three years. The CDC gave Cunrad's Queen Mary 2 a failing score of 84 June 10, 2011. The CDC report on the inspection cites dozens of violations including "numerous food safety violations."  more

Watch Out for Sprouts

It's not just the danger of E. coli from eating sprouts in Germany and more recently in France. Now there have been cases of salmonella infections from sprouts in the US. As of today, the FDA is warning consumers not to eat alfalfa sprouts or spicy sprouts in plastic bags from Evergreen Produce.  more

Food Pyramid Replaced with MyPlate

First Lady Michelle Obama and US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack unveiled a new tool this month designed to help consumers make healthier food choices. The MyPlate food icon is an easy-to-understand guide to help Americans build healthier meals and is part of the larger initiative to combat obesity. The graphic emphasizes the need to eat fruits and vegetables along with a balance of grains, proteins, and dairy food groups.  MyPlate is a “quick, simple reminder for all of us to be more mindful of the foods that we’re eating,” said the First Lady.  more
              
        

Intralytix News and the Dirtiest Fruits & Veggies

 Good news for ground beef producers

Intralytix has now received regulatory clearance from both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for its phage-based EcoShield^TM food safety product, effective against E. coli O157:H7.

In early March, Intralytix obtained FDA clearance of EcoShield in the form of a "Food Contact Notification" or FCN, specific for its use on red meat parts and trim intended to be ground.  The FDA has designated the FCN clearance for this phage-based product as FCN No. 1018.  Data submitted as part of Intralytix's FCN application showed that EcoShield reduces E. coli O157:H7 in ground meat by more than 95%.

"The FSIS's letter completes the regulatory process," noted John Woloszyn, Intralytix's CEO, "permitting use of this product by the ground beef industry."  "We expect EcoShield will become a very important tool to make ground red meat safer," he added. Both the FDA and the FSIS will treat EcoShield as a processing aid when applied in this manner.

Dirty Dozen

The Environmental Working Group annually lists the 12 most pesticide-laden fruits/vegetables. The listing doesn't mean they can't be eaten, but take extra care in washing/scrubbing before cutting and eating. 

1)  Apples
2)  Celery
3)  Strawberries
4)  Peaches
5)  Spinach
6)  Nectarines, imported
7)  Grapes, imported
8)  Sweet Bell Pepper
9)  Potatoes
10) Blueberries, domestic
11) Lettuce
12) Kale/Collard greens
       
    

Tea Towels and Food Safety

On Tea Towels:

Here is some design news I just had to share. The Listeria Towel is a new textile concept, not yet in production.  The designer was thinking about the use of tea towels in the kitchen and the importance of replacing them frequently. Neffa's Listeria Towel has simplified the reminder to clean your towels. When the towel is damp, a bacteria print shows through the delicate design of water plants. When the towel is dry the bacteria images disappear. Miss Phage thinks it could make kitchen clean-up time a lot more fun.

On Food Safety:

The foods we eat sometimes become contaminated with dangerous pathogens such as Listeria, E. coli O157:H7, and Salmonella. Traditional food safety interventions are only partially effective and many foods are over-processed to destroy pathogens. These processes can also deleteriously impact the color and taste of foods, and they usually wipe out the natural ingredients and healthy microflora in foods that are beneficial to us and help us stay healthy. Products based on naturally occurring bacteriophages can specifically target and eliminate the bad bacteria in foods. ListShield and EcoShield are innovative phage-based products for food safety. They are all natural, non-toxic and cost effective, and help improve the safety of foods without impacting their natural "good" microflora, taste, or appearance.

Please click here to see our new, short video on Phages and  Food Safety.

Thanks for following Food Safety Solutions and have a great week!

 
 

Bean Sprouts, Really?

Don't entirely blame the Spanish cucumbers, tomatoes, or lettuce as previously suspected. As of Sunday night, German health officials refocused their search for the deadly E. coli source on locally grown bean sprouts. The virulent and very dangerous form of bacteria is now suspected from sprouts produced by a single company that widely distributed its product to restaurants and cafeterias around Hamburg where patrons became ill.

The organic spout company, located in Lower Saxony, has been shut down and all bean sprouts have been recalled. Two farm workers at the company have also been infected with the bacteria. Authorities were still waiting for the results of tests directly linking the new strain of E. coli to the sprouts.

For now German authorities continued to recommend consumers also avoid eating raw lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers after conducting studies showing that 95% of all patients recently infected with E. coli ate one of those three things.
 
Photo by Heribert Proepper/AP

'Kartoffelkeller' (Potato cellar) in Luebeck, northern Germany, where 17 people got sick from E. coli