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<< back to the 2003 archive listing << Food Protection Trends Thoughts from the President Communicating about safe food practices in everyday language and context,
and in an everyday medium is essential today In our profession, it seems many of us tend to take special note of examples of really bad food handling mistakes, those that defy logic, and of unusual circumstances that lead to unfortunate outcomes. For example, an outbreak of salmonellosis at prison, ultimately traced to the workout room, because of weightlifters who ate raw eggs and didn’t wash their hands. The inmates however, were adamant that “it was the meat loaf, man.” This case is described in a three-part series on “A Day in the Life of a Public Health Inspector” in our weekly community paper, The Guelph Tribune. Journalist Virginia McDonald accompanied a local health inspector on his rounds of restaurants and delis, and wrote knowledgeably about what she learned. It is a well-written series, conveying lots of good food safety information. Of value are the stories and the everyday context for identifying the bad, and good, food handling practices, and the reasons why. Communicating about safe food practices in everyday language and context, and in an everyday medium is essential today. Of course, television is probably the number one information source for many people. The huge popularity of TV cooking shows is astounding, and I am beginning to think I am the only person on this continent who doesn’t have a favorite celebrity chef or show! (It used to be that one could manage small talk with “the guys” if one was up on the most current NCAA basketball team rankings, now it’s Emeril’s Creole cooking, or favorite flavored oils and vinegars… .) Doug Powell, Director of the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph and a well-known, rather forthright, food safety risk communicator, undertook a formal study of the food safety practices of TV celebrity chefs. Based on 29 hours of detailed viewing of taped broadcasts, his team observed basic food-safety errors about every five minutes, especially cross-contamination and time-temperature violations. There were virtually no messages about how to prepare food safely. Doug presented his findings at a national conference of cooks and chefs, including the TV celebrities. Feedback from the audience was tepid; one popular chef indicated that food safety is not sexy…it’s boring and time-consuming. That comment brought to mind a great little book written by Professor David Waltner-Toews at the University of Guelph, entitled Food, Sex & Salmonella – The Risks of Environmental Intimacy. The book is witty and entertaining, but more than adequately serves to inform the general reader about how our food is produced, and the how’s and why’s of handling food properly. On the back cover: “What sex is to interpersonal relationships, eating is to the human-environment relationship, a daily consummation of our de facto marriage to the living biosphere. This book is about the true meaning of eating, intimacy, love, vomiting and diarrhea: you and your food partner”. Who says food safety can’t be a little racy?! I also note, as Frank Yiannas asks in this month’s Thoughts on Food Safety column, “…Are Words Enough?” Not always, and so it is exciting to present in this issue the brand new International Food Safety Icons. Designed to convey basic food safety concepts, the members of the IAFP task force behind the Icons deserve to be complimented for their perseverance and thoroughness in developing these universal, easily understood symbols. Maybe we should send complimentary copies of our International Food Safety Icons to all those celebrity TV chefs. |