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LONE STAR PERSPECTIVE “ What better way for us to advance food safety
worldwide than
to help protect
our friends
and family?" Are you ready for the “holiday season?” Well, you might as well be, because the 2007 holiday season is officially upon us. I know it is probably just my age showing, but it seems like the winter holidays just finished, and now they are back again. Actually, I can remember hearing “old” people say stuff like that when I was a kid and thinking something must be seriously wrong with them. Maybe it is just the fact that we have so many things to think about and be responsible for that the holidays never cross our minds until they show up at our doorstep to remind us that there is still preparation to be done. In my case, “preparation” usually means I need to go shopping for gifts, since I have procrastinated so much that I am in a panic to find anything appropriate. I always resolve to shop for gifts throughout the year and purchase the “perfect gift” as I just happen to find it. That way, all my gifts have sincere and meaningful significance and have obviously been purchased with thoughtful consideration of the recipient’s needs and personality. Right… In the United States, the “holiday season” kicks off in November with Thanksgiving Day and then continues on through New Year’s Day on January 1. Since we are an international association, I know there are all kinds of holidays involving our members that occur throughout the year. Traditional, annual holidays are important for our well-being, because they remind us of an event, support a tradition, give us an opportunity to refocus our activities and life—or simply provide an excuse to gather with friends and family. So why is this important to IAFP? That’s easy. Whether you are in the US or anywhere else around the globe, holidays usually involve people gathering, unusual or traditional customs, activities, and food. Nearly always food. Lots of food. And often the food is provided from several points of preparation, maybe distant points of preparation, to be transported to some central location for a gathering of friends or family to celebrate the holiday. And that’s where we step in. What better way for us to advance food safety worldwide than to help protect our friends and family? In my career as a food micro-biologist, there are several journal articles that I would consider landmark articles. Not necessarily because they were extremely inno-vative or provided some remarkable new discovery, but because they spoke to some need I had at the time or they opened my eyes to some new facet of the field. One of my favorite articles is a manuscript published in 1971 by Frank Bryan, Thomas McKinley and Byron Mixon in the Journal of Milk and Food Technology (the former name of the Journal of Food Protection), volume 34, page 576 and following. This article is on my all time favorite list because it was well-written, easy to follow, extremely practical, and it was one of the papers I read back in the 1970s that convinced me I really wanted to work in this field. Bryan et al. were conducting an investigation of a foodborne outbreak of Clostridium perfringens that was associated with turkey and dressing and occurred at a Georgia elementary school, and since turkey and dressing are often served at meals in the US during the holiday season, I always remember the study at this time of year. In this manu-script, the authors reported that they were unable from epide-miological data to confirm the source of the illness or the pre-paration circumstances that allowed the illness to occur. So they did what any self-respecting scientist would do—they reconstructed the event and observed for possible mistakes. Actually, they waited until the school kitchen again prepared turkey and dressing and monitored the pro-cess, but “reconstructed the event” sounds so much more official and scientific. The authors collected samples for various pathogens, monitored temperatures at numer-ous locations in preparation to include food products during thawing, room temperature, cooking temperatures, cooling temperatures… Well, you under-stand; they measured the temper-ature of nearly everything. There were nine different figures published in the manuscript illustrating temp-erature changes during preparation, cooking, holding, and serving of the turkey and dressing, but Figure 10 always caught my attention (shown above). Figure 10 summarizes everything. It shows how time-temperature relationships during preparation may have allowed C. perfringens to grow in different parts of the meal during preparation, prior to and after assembly and during storage. The figure also illustrates how vegetative cells would have been destroyed during heating and reheating, and how spores could have survived and produced vegetative cells again during temperature abuse. This figure was a landmark point at the beginning of my studies in food microbiology because it opened my eyes to the complication of food preparation processes. It made me realize how microbial ecology interrelates with the process, and it showed me how temperature control is not as simple as putting something in an insulated cooler. Few of our friends and family members realize how complicated food production, processing and preparation actually is, and it would likely be unreasonable to expect them to understand how we might view a situation within a holiday gathering that had obvious food safety flaws. They probably do know that we are often cautious about what we eat and, on occasion, they may hear us make a comment about proper preparation or storage temperature. I know I have gotten the raised eyebrow and maybe even a snide remark about being a little paranoid from a family member more than once after a comment. That is usually followed by a statement of assurance in the status quo: “We have been doing this for as long as I can remember and nobody has ever gotten sick.” Right… So are you ready for the holidays? I am. I have new batteries for my thermocouple and I am ready to check the temperature on anything that squawked, snorted, or mooed in a former life. Guess I better start doing a little shopping for gifts, though. If you have any good ideas for friend and family gifts, please send me an E-mail! Oh, and in case you were wondering, the meat and gravy turned out to be the likely culprit in the Bryan et al. study.
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