The Queenstown District Court (South Island, New Zealand) was told an all too familiar tale a couple of days ago. Two women had been poisoned and subsequently hospitalized after consuming a contaminated drink. On this occasion, the drink was mulled wine; the contaminant was sodium hydroxide – industrial dishwashing liquid.
At first sight, this would seem to be an impossible occurrence. Closer inspection shows a familiar pattern. I expected that the mulled wine would have been made on the premises from wine, sugar, cinnamon stick etc. However, the drink was apparently dispensed from a bulk container of pre-prepared “mulled wine”. Unfortunately, the container appears to have been used to deliver the cleaning chemical. Presumably, the label was not changed and the person serving the product didn’t detect the substituted liquid. It is not clear to me why the industrial chemical looked to all involved like mulled wine.
This is utterly poor practice of the worst sort. I have been teaching HACCP for the last 30 years and during the whole of that time, the use of food containers for other materials has been proscribed as part of the food safety plan. Proper labelling of containers is also critical. There have been so many cases where this practice has resulted in injury or even death that I have lost count. Some examples include preservative being mistaken for sugar; fire retardant powder being mistaken for cattle feed; cleaning agents being used in food preparation instead of the expected food ingredient. In one admittedly non-commercial case, a person died after drinking from a spirit bottle containing paraquat - a herbicide.
No food container should ever be used to store non-food chemicals; chemicals should not be stored with food ingredients and all containers should be clearly labelled with the identity of the contents.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Is hamburger a greater risk for E. coli?
The subject of coliforms in food and specifically the question about hamburger comes up often in the referrals to this blog.
Coliforms are used in the food industry as indicators of general hygiene. This sounds simple, but it is not quite straightforward; we need to understand what coliforms are and how they are measured before we can draw conclusions.
The term “coliform” does not refer to a unique species. In fact, coliforms are a group of bacteria defined by the test used to detect them. Thus, we can carry out a simple culture test that will count or show the presence or absence of this group. Each country uses slightly different tests. One protocol defines coliforms as:
“Gram negative rods that produce acid and gas from lactose in the presence of bile salts at 37 C in 24 to 48 hours”
Notice that there is no mention of genus or species or connection with faecal contamination. In fact, the group includes several genera that are capable of growing in the environment and have no faecal connotation, so finding coliforms on lettuces should not be cause for undue concern. What we can say is that all of these bacteria should be killed by pasteurization temperatures, so if they are found in pasteurized foods, the hygiene of the process has been poor.
If we want to show that faecal contamination of food has occurred, we do a test for Escherichia coli, which is found at high concentration in faeces. This test for “faecal coliforms” was originally used to test water, where the organism cannot grow. The situation in food is a little more complicated because the organisms may grow in the food, but the finding of E. coli in food is good evidence of faecal contamination. Properly pasteurized food should not contain any faecal coliforms. Raw foods, such as leafy vegetables, can become contaminated by faecal coliforms if birds or animals have access to the crops. This was the probable cause of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of raw spinach last year.
Meat animals all have E. coli in their intestines and there is a possibility of contamination of the carcase by spillage of gut contents during slaughtering. This contamination will initially be on the meat surface, but will be distributed throughout the meat if it is minced or ground. This is why steak can be eaten “rare”, since the interior of meat from healthy animals is sterile – all that is required is for the exterior to be cooked to a temperature of about 70 – 75 C. However, hamburger patties are made from ground meat and must therefore be cooked right through to ensure destruction of faecal bacteria that may have been mixed in. Americans tend to eat hamburger cooked less thoroughly than in other countries. The USDA suggests 71.1 C (160 F) for beef burgers. So the real issue is not that hamburgers are at greater risk of contamination, but that undercooking them may allow E. coli to survive.
See Guaranteed safe At what cost (?) October 17, 2007
http://foodsafetywithjaybee.blogspot.com/2007/10/
guaranteed-safe-at-what-cost.html
Coliforms are used in the food industry as indicators of general hygiene. This sounds simple, but it is not quite straightforward; we need to understand what coliforms are and how they are measured before we can draw conclusions.
The term “coliform” does not refer to a unique species. In fact, coliforms are a group of bacteria defined by the test used to detect them. Thus, we can carry out a simple culture test that will count or show the presence or absence of this group. Each country uses slightly different tests. One protocol defines coliforms as:
“Gram negative rods that produce acid and gas from lactose in the presence of bile salts at 37 C in 24 to 48 hours”
Notice that there is no mention of genus or species or connection with faecal contamination. In fact, the group includes several genera that are capable of growing in the environment and have no faecal connotation, so finding coliforms on lettuces should not be cause for undue concern. What we can say is that all of these bacteria should be killed by pasteurization temperatures, so if they are found in pasteurized foods, the hygiene of the process has been poor.
If we want to show that faecal contamination of food has occurred, we do a test for Escherichia coli, which is found at high concentration in faeces. This test for “faecal coliforms” was originally used to test water, where the organism cannot grow. The situation in food is a little more complicated because the organisms may grow in the food, but the finding of E. coli in food is good evidence of faecal contamination. Properly pasteurized food should not contain any faecal coliforms. Raw foods, such as leafy vegetables, can become contaminated by faecal coliforms if birds or animals have access to the crops. This was the probable cause of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of raw spinach last year.
Meat animals all have E. coli in their intestines and there is a possibility of contamination of the carcase by spillage of gut contents during slaughtering. This contamination will initially be on the meat surface, but will be distributed throughout the meat if it is minced or ground. This is why steak can be eaten “rare”, since the interior of meat from healthy animals is sterile – all that is required is for the exterior to be cooked to a temperature of about 70 – 75 C. However, hamburger patties are made from ground meat and must therefore be cooked right through to ensure destruction of faecal bacteria that may have been mixed in. Americans tend to eat hamburger cooked less thoroughly than in other countries. The USDA suggests 71.1 C (160 F) for beef burgers. So the real issue is not that hamburgers are at greater risk of contamination, but that undercooking them may allow E. coli to survive.
See Guaranteed safe At what cost (?) October 17, 2007
http://foodsafetywithjaybee.blogspot.com/2007/10/
guaranteed-safe-at-what-cost.html
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