Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ, and
Speaker 1: we have another special episode. We'll explain why it's special
Speaker 1: in just a moment, but we have been asking what
Speaker 1: is going on with all of these recalls. If you've
Speaker 1: been paying attention to the news, or even paying attention
Speaker 1: to Morning Run, you will know that this fall, it
Speaker 1: feels like once a week at least, there's another headline
Speaker 1: out there that are there's another recall, and it makes me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it makes you, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it probably makes a lot of us feel like
Speaker 1: the food supply has become less safe these days. First,
Speaker 1: over the summer, we had the boar's head Deli meat.
Speaker 1: That's the first one I remember reporting on at least
Speaker 1: I know there were several before, but that one had
Speaker 1: ten fatalities. The outbreak second, sixty one people in nineteen states.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love boys at the salami. You love that salam.
Speaker 1: That salami is the genuash, the best was the last
Speaker 1: piece you had. It's been a while. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie. Yeah, listeria is scary. And then in September
Speaker 1: there was an egg recall. Sixty five people and nine
Speaker 1: states were sickened twenty four had to be hospitalized. That
Speaker 1: was salmonella. Then in October, Oh, we remember this headline McDonald's.
Speaker 1: It was the slivered onions in the McDonald's quarter pounders.
Speaker 1: One hundred and four patients across fourteen states became ill,
Speaker 1: thirty four hospitalizations, one death. We reported on that at nauseum.
Speaker 2: Are we missing a food born where listeria, salmonella, and colil?
Speaker 2: Have we got this help? We hit them all yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think those are the three big ones. And
Speaker 1: then we'll just stay on the E. Coli train because
Speaker 1: just a few weeks after the McDonald's outbreak was organic carrots.
Speaker 1: Thirty eight people were sickened, fifteen hospitalizations and one death,
Speaker 1: and this was all across eighteen states. Then we got
Speaker 1: the ground beef in November and it was the same
Speaker 1: ecoal I remember that as the one of McDonald's, but
Speaker 1: it sickened nineteen people in Minnesota. Four people were hospitalized.
Speaker 1: And my goodness, this week we talked about cucumbers and eggs.
Speaker 1: This was salmonella as well. The cucumbers have sickened sixty
Speaker 1: eight people in nineteen states.
Speaker 2: What was it in the I forgot what was it
Speaker 2: in the cucumbers again, it would that was equal our salmonola.
Speaker 1: Salmanolaep it all straight. And then the eggs. There haven't
Speaker 1: been any reports of sicknesses, but ten thousand cartons of
Speaker 1: Kirkland brand eggs were recalled from Costco. So I'm exhausted.
Speaker 2: Did we throw those cucumbers out?
Speaker 1: No? We ate them. And I kind of freaked out.
Speaker 1: But so far, so good.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's a bad move. I think it's
Speaker 2: in our nature. Right. As soon as you hear there's
Speaker 2: a recall of anything, I don't go to the FDA
Speaker 2: or USDA website. I go to my refrigerator and I'll
Speaker 2: throw out whatever the thing they said. I don't check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do the same thing. And we didn't. We
Speaker 1: finally ate McDonald's actually right before Thanksgiving, but it had
Speaker 1: been a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then I got, oh, oh my gosh, way wait, wait.
Speaker 1: You wait a McRib? They haven't recalled What is that
Speaker 1: meat in a McRib?
Speaker 2: There is not meat, it's just the molded thing that
Speaker 2: looks like a slab, is it. I don't actually don't know.
Speaker 1: We have an expert here, we can ask him in
Speaker 1: a second. But here, so I just listed all these headlines,
Speaker 1: and it has felt overwhelming. But the two federal agencies
Speaker 1: that are responsible primarily for the safety of our food supply,
Speaker 1: they have They've cataloged more than twenty five recalls since
Speaker 1: November one alone, many of them linked to salmonella and E.
Speaker 1: Coli bought. With all of that, they say, we're close
Speaker 1: to the same levels as we were last year in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. So they say there isn't an uptick
Speaker 1: from year to year. But I did. I was reading
Speaker 1: an article in the Washington Post, and there is a
Speaker 1: lawyer who has made a living since the early nineties
Speaker 1: representing plaintiffs in food born illness cases.
Speaker 2: You have his number because I hate a macrib that
Speaker 2: might have been bad.
Speaker 1: I can get that for you. I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: him here. He says, I've been doing this kind of
Speaker 1: work for thirty one years, and the last four to
Speaker 1: five months have been exhausting, I mean, also probably lucrative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, do we want to use that as
Speaker 2: anecdotal evidence that our whole food supply is now tainted?
Speaker 1: I think it just shows that we're hearing a lot
Speaker 1: more about them and a lot more people. As far
Speaker 1: as we've been aware, of have been affected or impact.
Speaker 2: So that's the question. Are we hearing more about it?
Speaker 2: Are we reporting more about it? Are because the outbreak
Speaker 2: was at McDonald's that makes a headline definitely, right? And
Speaker 2: maybe that is the case. But I have seen a
Speaker 2: lot of places that it's not some huge surge or
Speaker 2: uptick with just getting a little more coverage. I'm curious
Speaker 2: if there's more of a cluster right now. I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not just asking these questions in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: We actually have an expert in the studio to explain
Speaker 1: what is happening, why it's happening, and what you can
Speaker 1: do with anything to protect yourself. His name is Mike Roboch,
Speaker 1: my father. He is a microbiologist.
Speaker 2: It isn't like a superhero.
Speaker 1: I know. His name is Mike, and dad were You've
Speaker 1: been in charge of food safety for a couple of
Speaker 1: different corporations, but most recently and you are retired, but
Speaker 1: you most recently were what was your title exactly?
Speaker 3: Hi was vice president Food Safety, Quality and Regulatory Affairs.
Speaker 1: Very nice. See so he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: We put this in. Look, your dad has spent an
Speaker 2: entire life traveling around the world keeping food safe. Period.
Speaker 2: That is what he does. That is his job, has
Speaker 2: been his job, and so I have to resist their
Speaker 2: urge Baba roback almost like at least two times a
Speaker 2: day to not text you and say, hey, should I
Speaker 2: throw these eggs? Out right? I have all these questions,
Speaker 2: but we all have them, and now with these recalls,
Speaker 2: so I'm trying to put your dad's resume and his
Speaker 2: credentials in proper context. This dude has spent a little life, yes,
Speaker 2: doing nothing but studying the safety of food and producing
Speaker 2: and coming up with ways to keep the food supply safe.
Speaker 2: This dude knows the stuff.
Speaker 1: He's worked for some of the biggest names in the
Speaker 1: industry that you've eaten their products from meat, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So he knows his stuff. And I remember Dad even
Speaker 1: being on vacations with you over the years where you
Speaker 1: are on the phone trying to get a signal because
Speaker 1: you are dealing with another recall, like you were the
Speaker 1: person who was dealing with recalls for decades. So what
Speaker 1: is going on? Is anything different going on?
Speaker 3: I don't know that there's anything different going on in
Speaker 3: terms of the number of recalls what has happened over
Speaker 3: the last few years as technology has improved so that
Speaker 3: we are able to identify certain strains of bacteria definitively,
Speaker 3: and the epidemiology, the investigations that public health authorities do
Speaker 3: and that the CDC does around multi state outbreaks, those
Speaker 3: techniques have gotten much better, and there's better coordination between
Speaker 3: public health authorities and the CDC. So in the past,
Speaker 3: you used to have maybe twenty five or thirty illnesses
Speaker 3: a cur before a cluster was identified. Now if you
Speaker 3: have two or three people becoming ill, that can then
Speaker 3: with the investigative techniques and the technology available, can be
Speaker 3: linked to a certain strain of bacteria, whether it's Salmonella, Listeria,
Speaker 3: shegatoxin producing E. Coli, or camplebacter and it then epidemiologically
Speaker 3: can be linked to a food to a common source.
Speaker 3: So the investigative techniques have gotten better, reporting has gotten
Speaker 3: much better, and there's more awareness around the safety of
Speaker 3: our food than there ever has been before.
Speaker 2: Those was the coolest thing was we had this conversation
Speaker 2: like two three weeks ago down and You'll kitchen all
Speaker 2: right in Atlanta, and I was saying, well, what in
Speaker 2: the world's going on with the food. He's like, rest easy,
Speaker 2: young man. This is proof that the system is working.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like, are you say we can catch
Speaker 2: it in two or three people, which can now keep
Speaker 2: the twenty five from maybe getting sick. Right, So, even
Speaker 2: though we might see recall recall, is it possible that
Speaker 2: fewer people are getting sick because we are catching these
Speaker 2: things so often and so quickly.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know if fewer people are getting sick.
Speaker 3: I think what we're doing is we're preventing the spread
Speaker 3: of some of these incidents. In other words, it used
Speaker 3: to be thirty five, forty five, even six days before
Speaker 3: you'd identify a problem, So you had that much product
Speaker 3: out in the marketplace making people sick. So you know,
Speaker 3: now I think we are able to limit the spread
Speaker 3: and hopefully that is causing less illness. But that's a
Speaker 3: very difficult thing to measure because everybody doesn't pick up
Speaker 3: the phone and call their local public health authority, you know,
Speaker 3: when they have what we used to call the stomach flu,
Speaker 3: which you know, we know is you know, could be
Speaker 3: a gastro intestinal illness associated with food. Most people don't
Speaker 3: do that. I think the CDC feels for every case
Speaker 3: that's reported, there's something like fifteen or twenty that go unreported.
Speaker 1: Wow, so it's like fifteen to twenty times the numbers
Speaker 1: were actually hearing other people who were actually impacted. And
Speaker 1: to your point, I would never who do you call?
Speaker 1: How do I call the FDA and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: just aid a McDonald's and I'm not feeling so well.
Speaker 2: Nobody's going to do that?
Speaker 1: Your thing to do that, and I won't even know
Speaker 1: how to do it. So who are these people figuring
Speaker 1: it out?
Speaker 3: Some of these illnesses are are reportable. So if you
Speaker 3: show up in an emergency room and they identify uh salmonella,
Speaker 3: you know they culture salmonella from a sample that that
Speaker 3: you've given, that will be reported okay, and so that
Speaker 3: then can initiate UH an investigation.
Speaker 2: But salmonela generally speaking, most of us A, most healthy
Speaker 2: adults have salmonella. Will it feel like it's just going
Speaker 2: to cycle through? Would you get sick enough a normal human? No,
Speaker 2: normal healthy I should say person. Would you get sick
Speaker 2: enough that you would go seek medical treatment? Or you
Speaker 2: just feel bad and take a couple of days off?
Speaker 3: And well that's a It depends on the strain of salmon.
Speaker 3: There are hundreds of strains of salmonella, and I know
Speaker 3: it's confusing.
Speaker 2: No, when I can do everything I ask you about it,
Speaker 2: you say, well, there are strains like, oh boy, here
Speaker 2: we go.
Speaker 3: There are some strains like salmonella Kentucky for example. It's
Speaker 3: very common Salmonella Kentucky, and it is very common, but
Speaker 3: it's unlikely to cause human illness. Now there are others
Speaker 3: like salmonella and orititus, salmonella typhomerium.
Speaker 2: They are more.
Speaker 3: Pathogenic to humans. And so even a small dose so
Speaker 3: that salmonella could make someone ill ill enough that they
Speaker 3: would be debilitated. They would have to stay home. They
Speaker 3: may even go to the emergency room because they can
Speaker 3: have a fever, they can have diarrhea.
Speaker 1: You know, there's cramping.
Speaker 3: You can get cramping, you become dehydrated. I mean, so, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's serious.
Speaker 1: I say this because I likes in a lot of
Speaker 1: these cases. It's that serious, right exactly.
Speaker 3: And you know your brother's salmonella incident happened in the laboratory.
Speaker 3: He was working at a US Department of Agriculture lab
Speaker 3: when a graduate student, he was teaching them how to
Speaker 3: identify colonies and accidentally had a plate full of salmonella
Speaker 3: shoved into his face, and so he was able to
Speaker 3: go to the emergency room and actually self identify the
Speaker 3: salmonella strain was making him sick.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's the way to get exactly the right antibiotic
Speaker 1: that you need. How does this happen? How do these
Speaker 1: types of bacteria get into the food supply?
Speaker 3: Well? A variety of ways, and it depends what food
Speaker 3: product you're talking about. You know, we've talked a lot
Speaker 3: about produce related recalls, and you know, salmonella is not
Speaker 3: something that normally grows out in fields. It can be
Speaker 3: present in field, but it usually has to come from
Speaker 3: the gastrointestinal track of a warm blooded animal. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's really the reservoir for salmonella. So you can have
Speaker 3: workers in a field that don't have appropriate hygiene and
Speaker 3: they can be contaminating produce as it's being picked, as
Speaker 3: it's being harvested, as it's being packed. The other way
Speaker 3: that you see it is and this is salmonella or E. Coli,
Speaker 3: both very similar organisms from they're both from the GI tract.
Speaker 3: They can be found in water and if you're using
Speaker 3: irrigation water that's not properly treated, you can be spreading
Speaker 3: that salmonella or E. Coli contamination onto the produce as
Speaker 3: it's actually growing.
Speaker 1: You used to say to me, fecal to oral. That
Speaker 1: always schews me out. But that's one way to put it.
Speaker 3: Right, It's one way to put it.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I was just sharing some family fun.
Speaker 2: Wow, listeria, your brother eats salmonilla off a plate and yeah,
Speaker 2: ekals oral fun family dinners around there, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean it was it was not a food plate.
Speaker 2: Let me be clear.
Speaker 3: It was a laboratory and it was a it was
Speaker 3: a petri dish that that had a selective augur on
Speaker 3: it so that the salmonilla cells showed up looking a
Speaker 3: certain way.
Speaker 1: What about listeria? How does that happen?
Speaker 3: Westeria is more of an environmental contaminant. It's found it's
Speaker 3: ubiquitous in nature. It's found in soil, it's found in
Speaker 3: the air, and it becomes an environmental contaminant because it
Speaker 3: can get into a plant, into a food processing facility,
Speaker 3: and it loves cold, wet environments, and it actually forms
Speaker 3: a biofilm to protect itself, so once it colonizes, it
Speaker 3: can colonize a piece of equipment. It could colonize a floor,
Speaker 3: sounds like an alien. It can colonize drains, forming a
Speaker 3: biofilm which then protects it from any disinfectants or what
Speaker 3: any sanitation devices. So you have to be very diligent
Speaker 3: in the way that you approach that, so that you're
Speaker 3: not just spraying bleach on things. You're actually washing them.
Speaker 3: So you get a detergent to break up the biofilm,
Speaker 3: then you can kill the organism.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was a mad Listeria was the foreshead, right,
Speaker 2: And we've talked about the plant. It's been in news
Speaker 2: a lot. How does that happen? How does listeria end
Speaker 2: up taking over a plant like that and getting into
Speaker 2: the food supply, the meat supply of Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a pretty straightforward process. I mean somebody
Speaker 3: brings the listeria into the facility. I mean it can
Speaker 3: be brought in on shoes, can be brought in on clothing.
Speaker 3: You probably have some listeria cells on us right now.
Speaker 3: And you know, in and of itself, it's it's a
Speaker 3: normal organism. But what happens is you bring it into
Speaker 3: a plant and it finds a niche, it gets into
Speaker 3: a drain, it gets into the corner between the wall
Speaker 3: and the floor, It can get into a grout or
Speaker 3: anything that might be available for it to stick to,
Speaker 3: and it can grow. So if you don't have really
Speaker 3: diligent cleaning and sanitation programs and you're not actively monitoring
Speaker 3: the environment in your facility, you can get colonization and
Speaker 3: you don't realize that you have a problem because everything
Speaker 3: looks clean. But microscopically, you've got these bacteria that are
Speaker 3: lurking around, and if they get on a conveyor belt,
Speaker 3: they get on a slide that products going over, they
Speaker 3: will transfer onto that product and end up. Slicers are
Speaker 3: notoriously difficult to clean, both in plants, facilities and also
Speaker 3: in retail delis. Wow, the slicer is a very common
Speaker 3: vehicle to spread bacterial contamination in retail delis.
Speaker 1: That is so scary. And you have never been an
Speaker 1: alarmist ever when I've asked you can I eat this?
Speaker 1: Can I eat that? You always You're actually less of
Speaker 1: an alarmists than I would think. But I remember when
Speaker 1: I was pregnant, you were adamant do not eat deli meat,
Speaker 1: and all I wanted was a subway sandwich. I mean
Speaker 1: the entire time, That's all I wanted. But that you
Speaker 1: were adamant is I'm curious and you might not be.
Speaker 1: It might be based on the strain. But if you
Speaker 1: compared E Coli to salmonella to listeria, is one significantly
Speaker 1: more deadly than the other?
Speaker 3: Well, Listeria monocytogenes has a higher mortality rate, you know,
Speaker 3: per thousand illnesses. However, we talked about the different strains
Speaker 3: of salmonella, and they vary greatly in terms of their pathogenicity,
Speaker 3: so you know how they can make you ill. When
Speaker 3: we talk about E. Coli. Everybody talks about E. Coli
Speaker 3: very generically, but what we in food safety talk about
Speaker 3: specifically are shigotoxin producing E coli. And these are the
Speaker 3: ones you hear about OH one five seven or OH
Speaker 3: one two four. These are markers or identifying characteristics of
Speaker 3: these organisms, and they produce a shigotoxin, a very powerful toxin.
Speaker 3: And OH one five seven, which was implicated early on
Speaker 3: in the early nineties in the famous Hamburger recalls that
Speaker 3: made headlines. And you mentioned an attorney who started out
Speaker 3: in that area. I know Bill Marler.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's exactly who it is. That's so funny.
Speaker 3: I know Bill very well, and yeah, he's made a
Speaker 3: career out of hawking this and working with victims of
Speaker 3: food born illness.
Speaker 1: So he's not really exhausted.
Speaker 3: I'm kidding, Yeah, I think, well, you know Bill. Bill's
Speaker 3: line was, please put me out of work, you know,
Speaker 3: and so you know it was it always had some
Speaker 3: good conversations about what we were doing to to improve
Speaker 3: food safety. But these one five seven E Coli O
Speaker 3: one five seven H seven was the organism that caused
Speaker 3: those outbreaks, and they are very pathogenic. So as small
Speaker 3: as one cell and a vulnerable individual can you know,
Speaker 3: cause serious illness. And what most people end up dying
Speaker 3: from from oh one five seven is kidney failure because
Speaker 3: the organism will colonize the kidney and basically break it down.
Speaker 3: The reason that I didn't want you eating Deli meats
Speaker 3: when you were pregnant is because Listerium monopsytogenies is notorious
Speaker 3: for causing spontaneous abortion. So you become infected, and if
Speaker 3: you're pregnant, you're very vulnerable because your immune system is suppressed,
Speaker 3: and that organism can induce a spontaneous abortion.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's you all, forgive me. I'm a little behind here.
Speaker 2: But is this not something that women when they go
Speaker 2: in to talk to their doctum when they are pregnant,
Speaker 2: that is talked about with women? Deli meat, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I think they say try don't eat deli meat, don't
Speaker 1: eat sushi because of mercury levels. But for me, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't told it. If you eat this, you are
Speaker 1: putting your fetus at risk. No, it was not said
Speaker 1: in those very specific terms. So when Dad said it
Speaker 1: to me, I was a little shocked. I mean he
Speaker 1: was like, absolutely no.
Speaker 2: Like you said, no, you're not alarmist, But to hear
Speaker 2: a microbiologist, somebody you care about that much he's pregnant,
Speaker 2: you said, no, don't do this, that's a strong.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a reasonable precaution to take, because you know,
Speaker 3: you're talking about deli meats, you're talking about soft ripened cheeses.
Speaker 3: You know these are typical vehicles for Lasteria monocytogenies. And
Speaker 3: now I got to say that the industry, the meat
Speaker 3: processing industry, has gotten a heck of a lot better.
Speaker 3: I mean, the boris head incident was one that we
Speaker 3: hadn't really heard about in a while. I mean, it
Speaker 3: hadn't been implicated Deli meats had not been implicated in
Speaker 3: lasteria outbreaks like this for a for a while. I
Speaker 3: remember in my career back in the in the nineties,
Speaker 3: we worked long and hard to improve our sanitation systems,
Speaker 3: our cleaning systems, and our monitor our microbiological monitoring systems
Speaker 3: so we could identify if we were getting a listeria
Speaker 3: problem growing in a plant. So it was job number
Speaker 3: one and are ready to eat plant is to make
Speaker 3: sure that you're keeping listeria out of that environment.
Speaker 1: Wow, catching the outbreaks is one thing, and it seems
Speaker 1: like we're doing as a government or as a country better.
Speaker 1: But how can the industry do better at preventing the outports?
Speaker 1: I mean, what have you seen happen and is that
Speaker 1: something that still needs improvement or are they doing as
Speaker 1: good as good of a job as they can?
Speaker 3: Well, I think you can always do better, you know,
Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, it comes down
Speaker 3: to the human beings and the plant implementing the programs
Speaker 3: and the processes that have been developed. So the industry
Speaker 3: has spent a lot of time working collaboratively around ways
Speaker 3: to improve cleaning and sanitation and what we call operational sanitation,
Speaker 3: so that is wild the plant is running, you're keeping
Speaker 3: things clean, you're keeping things as dry as you can,
Speaker 3: You're keeping them moving along in a sanitary manner. Equipment
Speaker 3: has gotten a lot better, so it's easier to keep
Speaker 3: cleaned once it's been clean and sanitized, and that work continues,
Speaker 3: constantly continues. You know, we've looked at different techniques you know,
Speaker 3: that you can use while the plant's in operation to
Speaker 3: assure that you're keeping any loads down to a reasonable level. Now,
Speaker 3: as long as you're working with fresh product, it's not
Speaker 3: going to be sterile. So there's always going to be
Speaker 3: bacteria present because they're present naturally and are ready to
Speaker 3: eat plant. We've done a much better job in designing
Speaker 3: the facility so that you separate raw from cooked and
Speaker 3: you don't have crossover of personnel, you don't have crossover
Speaker 3: of equipment. You don't have you have airflow that's positive
Speaker 3: air in the in the finished product area, in the
Speaker 3: ready to eat area, once it's been cooked, you have
Speaker 3: positive air, so air is being pushed out. You don't
Speaker 3: have air coming in from the outside or from the
Speaker 3: raw area.
Speaker 2: You know, it's sounding like from it sounds like from you.
Speaker 2: Everybody else all this coverage and everything, everybody's going crazy,
Speaker 2: all these recalls. But from you, a guy who's been
Speaker 2: in the industry your whole career, sounds like you're not
Speaker 2: necessarily concerned. Like things are working. It mean, it sounds
Speaker 2: like you have faith in the system right now.
Speaker 3: Things are working. I mean, I feel very confident with
Speaker 3: the folks I still know in the meat industry. Who
Speaker 3: are you know, very diligent in the approach to this.
Speaker 3: I mean, all the big companies work collaboratively around food safety.
Speaker 3: One of the things we said. I was part of
Speaker 3: the Global Food Safety Initiative for about fifteen years, and
Speaker 3: the Global Food Safety Initiative was focused on the fact
Speaker 3: that food safety is not a competitive advantage, and so
Speaker 3: we were out sharing with one another our processes, our techniques,
Speaker 3: our technology so that everybody had access to it. We'll
Speaker 3: compete on quality, but we're not going to compete on
Speaker 3: food safety.
Speaker 1: That's really nice to hear. That's nice to hear. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: are there certain products that are always going to be
Speaker 1: riskier to eat. Is there something that you feel uncomfortable eating.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: I don't eat sprouts, and I think you have to
Speaker 3: be more diligent these days in consuming fresh produce, because again,
Speaker 3: there's not a kill step in fresh produce. You know,
Speaker 3: you buy meat, you're going to handle it appropriately, and
Speaker 3: you're going to cook it before you eat it and
Speaker 3: are ready to eat meat scenario. You know it's cooked
Speaker 3: meat that you eating, salami, maloney, you know deli meats,
Speaker 3: they're cooked, you know, So assuming that you don't have
Speaker 3: a disaster like happening at the boresh head plant, you
Speaker 3: know you can be relatively I think, comfortable eating those
Speaker 3: those products produce. There's no kill step. You know, you're
Speaker 3: not cooking your kale, You're not cooking your lettuce or
Speaker 3: your spinach. I mean you could cook spinach, I guess,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people eat it raw. And sprouts
Speaker 3: have notoriously been grown in a wet, moist, warm environment,
Speaker 3: which is very conducive to the growth of bacterial pathogens.
Speaker 1: And they're hard.
Speaker 3: So yes, they're hard to wash. And I don't eat
Speaker 3: sprouts at all.
Speaker 2: This is a microbiologist. Then there's one thing that is
Speaker 2: off the table for him always. And that's sprouts. Now,
Speaker 2: even at home, we can walk, you can wash them
Speaker 2: to Even at home, you wouldn't trust I don't.
Speaker 3: I just don't eat sprout sprout, But certainly not at
Speaker 3: a restaurant. No, certainly not at a restaurant.
Speaker 2: What about a buffet?
Speaker 3: Oh, don't don't.
Speaker 1: I don't eat a phase because he doesn't need a phase.
Speaker 1: And if you actually just I'm just gonna say, stand
Speaker 1: a few feet away and just watch people for about
Speaker 1: five minutes, and you will see so much disgusting behavior
Speaker 1: you won't want to eat at a buffet either. I
Speaker 1: told you what I saw at the Delta Sky Club
Speaker 1: the other day.
Speaker 2: No, he didn't.
Speaker 1: Yes, this man took his hands and went and got pickles,
Speaker 1: and it took his other hand and got another pickle.
Speaker 1: And I had a pickle on my plate that I
Speaker 1: used the tongs for. I threw the pickle away and
Speaker 1: said never again, because that wasn't eaten. I mean, that
Speaker 1: wasn't cooked either. Can Can I trust my produce? Can
Speaker 1: I trust restaurants? I mean, how do you grapple with that?
Speaker 1: When you see all the headlines, you think, Wow, do
Speaker 1: I really want to eat out or you know, can
Speaker 1: I trust that these cucumbers are going to be saved?
Speaker 3: Well, that's a really good question, you know. I mean,
Speaker 3: let me let me say this. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: that most food service establishments, you know, and I think
Speaker 3: you know, we we we talked a little bit about McDonald's.
Speaker 3: McDonald's has some of the best food safety management systems
Speaker 3: in the restaurant industry. They have clamshell cookers for their
Speaker 3: ground beef patties. That is not under the control of
Speaker 3: a teenager in the back of the house. It's computer generated.
Speaker 3: And boy, when that quarter pounder burger goes down there,
Speaker 3: that clamshell comes down and it doesn't come off until
Speaker 3: the validated cook time is over. So I feel safe
Speaker 3: at you know, eating at a lot of the restaurants
Speaker 3: where you know, they there's a focus on food safety. Now,
Speaker 3: one of the things that you have to be careful
Speaker 3: about is you go to some places and you order
Speaker 3: a rare hamburger. Some states won't serve a rare hamburger,
Speaker 3: but some places you can still go in and get
Speaker 3: a rare hamburger. You know, I personally would not probably
Speaker 3: eat a rare hamburger.
Speaker 1: Is medium Okay, that's what I usually. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a risk.
Speaker 3: Well, you have to be careful because people say medium,
Speaker 3: What does that mean? Is that one hundred and forty
Speaker 3: five degrees? Is it one hundred and fifty degrees? Is
Speaker 3: it one hundred and fifty five degrees? You don't know,
Speaker 3: people say, oh, a little bit of pink in the middle.
Speaker 3: You cannot determine the dunness of meat based on color,
Speaker 3: and that's a fallacy that a lot of people have.
Speaker 3: They think, oh, look it's you know, cooked all the
Speaker 3: way through.
Speaker 2: It might not be.
Speaker 3: It might have been oxidized meat that was already brown
Speaker 3: when they put it in the pan.
Speaker 1: What's your hamburger?
Speaker 3: Order that medium?
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, just making sure you're a little bit
Speaker 1: of a risk take.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a I'm a believer in acquired immunity, So
Speaker 3: I mean, so a little bit of something. Now I'm
Speaker 3: not talking about ecole one five seven h seven or
Speaker 3: or highly pathogenic salmonella or anything like that, but you know,
Speaker 3: a little bit of bacterial consumption is not bad for you.
Speaker 3: I mean, wat yogurt, right, it's full of bacteria, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean they're all good back to they're all lacked
Speaker 3: up a Solla streptococas. So they're good things for you just.
Speaker 2: Showing out now, stop But which I assume all of them?
Speaker 2: But but tell me I go with chicken. Look, this
Speaker 2: is a might be a stupid question for but it
Speaker 2: comes from a guy who's in the kitchen all the time.
Speaker 2: Which which of these meats you better make damn sure
Speaker 2: you don't undercook like chicken, pork, ground beef, ground turkey,
Speaker 2: state all these things, like you don't want to undercook
Speaker 2: I assume anything, But what are those dangers? And what
Speaker 2: do you better make? Damn sure you don't undercook.
Speaker 3: Anything that's ground. You want to make sure that you cook,
Speaker 3: you know, so ground beef should be cooked to one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty degrees, ground turkey and ground chicken to
Speaker 3: one sixty five. So anything that's not what I call intact.
Speaker 3: In other words, if it's ground, if you've broken it up,
Speaker 3: even if it's been needle tenderized, that means that the
Speaker 3: surface has been compromised and you've had the opportunity for
Speaker 3: bacteria to get down into the inside of the meat.
Speaker 3: So those meats and you need to make sure that
Speaker 3: they're fully cooked to be safe. A steak, which is
Speaker 3: an intact eake like a filet mignon, I have no
Speaker 3: problem meeting those medium rare. So you could have a
Speaker 3: you know, kind of warm red center, you know, so
Speaker 3: uh that maybe got up to one hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: five degrees one hundred and forty, but the surface was
Speaker 3: fully cooked. The surface made it up to that one
Speaker 3: sixty mark, but the inside didn't. But the inside, the
Speaker 3: muscle itself, is sterile. Wow, So you can go ahead
Speaker 3: and eat that, you know, pork, pork you want to cook.
Speaker 3: I mean, we used to have a problem called trick
Speaker 3: and Ella trick and osis, which was a nema toad
Speaker 3: that would bury into the muscle of a of a hog,
Speaker 3: and people were getting trick and osis from eating under
Speaker 3: cooked pork. We monitored the herds for for that now.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, I always like my pork done, you know,
Speaker 3: probably medium. Well.
Speaker 1: I never know what to cook pork like that. And
Speaker 1: obviously chicken is a non.
Speaker 3: Chicken is you know, one one sixty to one sixty five.
Speaker 1: I've had to send two chicken breasts back in recent
Speaker 1: months because when I cut into it, I saw pink.
Speaker 1: If you see pink, you should not eat it.
Speaker 3: Correct Well, again, color is not an indication of cooking,
Speaker 3: even with chicken, and sometimes sometimes if the chicken has
Speaker 3: been marinated, it can be marinated with some salts that
Speaker 3: can cause some pinking in the product. You really have
Speaker 3: to look at the texture of the meat itself to
Speaker 3: determine whether it's cooked or not.
Speaker 1: But better safe than sorry, better safe than sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're uncomfortable eating pink, check and then you
Speaker 3: shouldn't need it. I know, probably not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Do you know the answer? What is the meat in
Speaker 1: the mickrib?
Speaker 3: It's pork, okay.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's some slivered onions on it. You know what?
Speaker 2: What is the also thesterious almonla e Coli? Generally speaking?
Speaker 2: I know they're different strains hundreds, and I know you
Speaker 2: can name all of them. But what is the difference
Speaker 2: how soon you might see illness with these three things
Speaker 2: if you ingest them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it depends on the organism, and it depends on
Speaker 3: the dose. There's a term we use called dose response,
Speaker 3: you know, So if you get a big dose of salmonella,
Speaker 3: you'll probably have symptoms in twenty four to thirty six hours.
Speaker 2: What's a big dose, Like, what does that even mean?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it'd be like a thousand cells program,
Speaker 3: So you know, pretty good load, pretty good, a highly
Speaker 3: contaminated product.
Speaker 1: But it can take even longer if it's not as it.
Speaker 3: Can and listeria takes a little longer. Listeria' is more
Speaker 3: like forty eight to seventy two to ninety six hours.
Speaker 3: Now there's other organisms too we haven't talked about, like
Speaker 3: stapf oreas. So we had an experience with we think
Speaker 3: staph orios when we were in Berlin after the marathon.
Speaker 1: Can you say you mean you yeah, yeah, you don
Speaker 1: eat that.
Speaker 2: So so that is.
Speaker 3: An illness that is a little different because it's a
Speaker 3: it's an intoxication. So it's a toxin that's produced by
Speaker 3: staff for it's called enerotoxin, and you can have symptoms
Speaker 3: in you know, six to twelve hours and those are
Speaker 3: normally it's normally vomiting, which was consistent with what we.
Speaker 1: And it was it was immediate and it was strong, right,
Speaker 1: it was powerful.
Speaker 3: It was powerful again again, depending on the dose, some
Speaker 3: people got sicker and were sicker longer than others based
Speaker 3: on what they ate.
Speaker 2: You know on the dose thing. Okay, back to that
Speaker 2: fort is it? You say, dose ite and potency? Is
Speaker 2: it possible? I might have a huge piece of chicken
Speaker 2: here with salmonella in it, and then a small piece
Speaker 2: of chicken here with salmonella, and the smaller one could
Speaker 2: have some kind of higher concentration of salmonella, and I
Speaker 2: could end up getting sicker by eating the smaller piece than.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not about the amount of meat you eat.
Speaker 3: It's about the number of salmonella the cells you're consuming.
Speaker 3: And because what salmonova does, like E. Coli, those organisms,
Speaker 3: then it's an infection. They colonize your GI track. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they are gram negative bacteria, so they produce what
Speaker 3: is called an endotoxin, and that toxin then slowly is
Speaker 3: released and it kind of peels off the layer of
Speaker 3: your intestines and that's releasing water and that's why you
Speaker 3: get diarrhea. And in severe cases, then can it can
Speaker 3: actually colonize through the intestinal wall and get into your
Speaker 3: bloodstream and then you've got sepsis, Then you've got kidney infections.
Speaker 3: You've got and that's very very serious.
Speaker 1: It's if you live long enough, if you travel enough,
Speaker 1: eventually you're going to go through one of these moments.
Speaker 1: But I remember Dad calling you. I was living in
Speaker 1: DC and I was I could not stop vomiting. And
Speaker 1: I was like, Dad, what's going on? And you said,
Speaker 1: what's the last thing you would And I was like fruit?
Speaker 1: And he was like, did you cut and wash the fruit?
Speaker 1: I was like no, it was pre cut in the
Speaker 1: grocery store. He was like, how long ago did you
Speaker 1: eat that? I was like two hours ago. He's like,
Speaker 1: you have staff and you need to go get you
Speaker 1: some help right now, Like you knew the incubation incubation
Speaker 1: period and the fact that I hadn't I hadn't cut
Speaker 1: the fruit, and I hadn't washed the fruit with strawberries
Speaker 1: and bluebear berries. And now I will never buy pre
Speaker 1: cut the fruit at a grocery store.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, that's a big deal. Well, I would
Speaker 2: never have thought of that slice for people grab them
Speaker 2: every single morning and go about their way. You're saying
Speaker 2: you should rinse that off fruit.
Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
Speaker 3: And in this case, it was a worker whoever, or
Speaker 3: or the the cutting board wherever they did the slicing
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 2: Fruit could have been right there at the grocery store.
Speaker 3: I could have been right at the grocery store. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know they're because not all grocery store workers, whether
Speaker 3: they're in the deli or they're in the fruit cut
Speaker 3: up area, are necessyally properly trained. A lot of people
Speaker 3: wear gloves. You see them wearing gloves, but you know
Speaker 3: why they're wearing gloves. They're wearing gloves. They're thinking to
Speaker 3: protect themselves as opposed. You know, we used to make
Speaker 3: a joke that you probably should require people to wear
Speaker 3: gloves when they go into the bathroom and then take
Speaker 3: them off when they leave, because that would be that
Speaker 3: would be more sanitary.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Then people wearing their gloves and then they're on the phone,
Speaker 3: they're writing in order, they're at the cash register, they're
Speaker 3: not changing their gloves.
Speaker 1: During COVID you went bananas when you saw people doing that,
Speaker 1: because you said, they're actually not helping not spread COVID
Speaker 1: impact Because you have gloves on, somehow you think you're protected,
Speaker 1: and you probably do things you wouldn't do, and then
Speaker 1: you don't wash your hands because you have the gloves on,
Speaker 1: so you're actually being less clean by wearing the gloves.
Speaker 1: So you never liked seeing workers wearing gloves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a I mean, if you have proper hand
Speaker 3: washing and sanitation going on, you know, you don't really
Speaker 3: need to wear gloves. Now. I mean for people that
Speaker 3: are in a hurry, if you change gloves between each
Speaker 3: each transaction or each time you're handling meat at a
Speaker 3: slicer or cheese at a slicer, that's fine, that's right.
Speaker 1: I doubt that, but you.
Speaker 3: Would be you're changing your gloves constantly if you do that. Wow,
Speaker 3: And most people don't do that all right.
Speaker 1: So do all of these headlines dat in your opinion,
Speaker 1: help or do they hurt? Do people overreact or maybe
Speaker 1: even do they grow desensitized to it? Do you think
Speaker 1: that we need to calm down in the media, maybe
Speaker 1: even by reporting all of these all of these different recalls.
Speaker 1: What's your take on the media's role in all of this.
Speaker 3: I think it's important that these things are reported so
Speaker 3: people are aware. I mean, that's just information that people
Speaker 3: need to have. And I think that what you have
Speaker 3: to do is you have to read between the lines
Speaker 3: because what you're seeing with a lot of these recalls,
Speaker 3: with cucumbers with carrots, you then get subsequent recalls that
Speaker 3: are related to the same root cause, because my carrots
Speaker 3: didn't just get sold as carrots in a package. They
Speaker 3: also got sold to some guy that's making salads and
Speaker 3: somebody that's making other products. And so as the trace
Speaker 3: back continues, as they look at where did all those
Speaker 3: carrots go, Where did all those cucumbers go, Where did
Speaker 3: all those onions go? You get subsequent recalls when you
Speaker 3: trace it back, and so sometimes things seem bigger than
Speaker 3: they are because there's all these continuing recalls. Often, though,
Speaker 3: some companies try to recall as little product as possible,
Speaker 3: and then they subsequently find out and this happened or
Speaker 3: said they subsequently find out that the problem was just
Speaker 3: not related to my liverworst line, but I had other problems.
Speaker 3: So then they have to then start recalling additional products.
Speaker 3: My philosophy was identify the problem, identify the scope, and
Speaker 3: then just take it all back, get it all out
Speaker 3: of the marketplace, and then take your corrective action in
Speaker 3: your plant before you start up again.
Speaker 2: But there was a financial reason they don't want to
Speaker 2: do a wide.
Speaker 3: I think they feel that having a ten thousand pound
Speaker 3: recall is better than having a one hundred thousand pound
Speaker 3: recall or a million pound recall, when in fact of
Speaker 3: the matter, I don't think most people really that doesn't register.
Speaker 3: Just get any potentially contaminated product out of the marketplace,
Speaker 3: and a lot of these perishable products, the product's already gone.
Speaker 3: You're not going to get it back anyway. It's already
Speaker 3: been consumed. So we did a recall back in twenty
Speaker 3: thirteen that the US Department of Agriculture was upset with
Speaker 3: me because I expanded the scope of our recall. Initially,
Speaker 3: they were getting ready to ask us to recall a
Speaker 3: relatively small amount related to a cluster of illnesses, and
Speaker 3: we went back and looked at the data and looked
Speaker 3: at the spread, and I had some conversations with some
Speaker 3: colleagues at the CDC, and it became obvious to me
Speaker 3: that this was much more widespread than was a parent.
Speaker 3: So I went back and recalled product from February all
Speaker 3: the way to August, and the US Department of Agriculture,
Speaker 3: the undersecretary called me and said, why are you doing this?
Speaker 3: And my response was, what part of voluntary? Don't you understand?
Speaker 3: What's a voluntary recall.
Speaker 2: But why would the USDA have any issue? Well, would
Speaker 2: the government have an issue with you?
Speaker 3: Because they they wanted to tell me what to do?
Speaker 2: What it is that really it?
Speaker 3: Well, that's the only reason I could come up with,
Speaker 3: because otherwise I'd be saying thank you very much for
Speaker 3: doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: But the government is trying to get a company to
Speaker 2: limit the recall.
Speaker 3: They weren't getting it trying to get us to limit it.
Speaker 3: They just wanted us to recall what they were asking
Speaker 3: us to recall. And we went beyond that.
Speaker 2: But most of the recalls we end up seeing are voluntary.
Speaker 3: Right for they're all voluntary.
Speaker 2: They're all volunteary. But the government can or cannot force them.
Speaker 3: The government could go out and seize product, They can
Speaker 3: go out and seize products so.
Speaker 2: Fast, but they can't issue the recall. Actually that the
Speaker 2: recalls don't.
Speaker 3: They can announce that the company is doing a recall.
Speaker 3: But if the company does the recall, what the government
Speaker 3: has the FDA and USDA can go out and they
Speaker 3: can seize product in the marketplace.
Speaker 2: Which happens.
Speaker 3: It's how often voluntary recall I would say ninety nine
Speaker 3: point nine nine percent. I mean there are some There
Speaker 3: are some famous cases where people resisted, but those are
Speaker 3: quite rare. The industry is very responsible, you know. I've
Speaker 3: always told people, and working with consumer groups for a
Speaker 3: good part of my career is what I did. I
Speaker 3: would often say, you know, it's not a great business
Speaker 3: practice to make your customers ill, so it's not in
Speaker 3: our best interest to do that. So believe me, we
Speaker 3: are doing everything we can to make sure that we're
Speaker 3: putting out safe, wholesome product for the consumer.
Speaker 1: Well, Dad, this has been so fascinating, and I've heard
Speaker 1: you talk about this over the years, but it's really
Speaker 1: cool to be able to hear you put so many
Speaker 1: answers to so many questions I still had, and I
Speaker 1: know so many people listening have, So we really really
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and thank you. Thank you for coming. It's
Speaker 1: nice to have you in town, but it's even nicer
Speaker 1: to have you here in the studio with us.
Speaker 3: All Right, Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Wait we have if you all, we have another episode
Speaker 2: we do with Papa Robot here. We asked you all
Speaker 2: to send in your questions. He is going to answer
Speaker 2: all of those in another episode. Ask a microbiologist is
Speaker 2: what we call it, so make sure you tune in
Speaker 2: for that or try to catch to that one, because
Speaker 2: I got some questions myself.
Speaker 1: So do I, and apparently so do a lot of you.
Speaker 1: So yes, take a look for that that will be
Speaker 1: dropping soon