Another reminder of the importance of following food safety practices

8 years ago

This article made me rethink eating at pot lucks:

Deadly Thanksgiving dinner bacteria ID’d

East Bay Times ANTIOCH, CA

The deadly foodborne illness that sickened 22 and killed
three at a Thanksgiving meal in Antioch has been identified as Clostridium
perfringens, a common bacteria associated with undercooked meats that are
left to sit for a long time.

The bacteria was confirmed by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention after tests were taken from people sickened by food
served at a Nov. 24 Thanksgiving meal put on by the Golden Hills Community
Church at the American Legion Hall in Antioch.

CCHS was not able to identify what dish the bacteria came
from, but pointed to the turkey and mashed potatoes and that all sickened
individuals ate around the same time.

Officials from Golden Hills Community Church stated that
many dishes were cooked at home, including the turkey, and were brought to the
event. Organizers at the event said that there was another group that was
passing out dinners at the meal in Antioch, but would not identify which group
that was.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (6)

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
8 years ago
Very sorry for those who died and got sick.

Making a turkey can be very tricky. From thawing to preparation to cooking to serving. It is very easy to do the wrong thing.

That's one of the reasons I use the cooking tool called sous vide. Sous vide's ability to guarantee exact temperature control prevents under cooking danger.

dcarch
0
annie1992
8 years ago
That's terribly sad, I'm sorry for those who lost loved ones, especially during the holiday season. (sigh)

It's not just the temperature, of course, it's the amount of time the food is held at an unsafe temperature, so it could have been fully cooked and still been contaminated if it were left sitting for "a long time", as the story states.

Annie
0
Related Discussions
Safe Canning Practices
Q
Comments (10)
Chandra, Assuming you effectively combat the bermuda, and you choose quality mix to fill your raised beds, I'd say you are in for a very prolific harvest. Yes, lots of uncontrollable things can happen, but if I counted correctly you've already got 8 large beds built with more to come? If you mulch and keep your weeds down, I think you'll be looking for cars to dump your excess produce in. P-mac, I did want to address this early. It's important enough that it dominates the talk in the Harvest Forum. So many more people are canning now than in recent histoy. By my way thinking, I can watch a new gardener try things that I anticipate aren't going to work, but let them do it for the experience. Innovation doesn't come from doing the tried and true. But to watch a beginning canner do things that could literally bring death, and not speak up would be very, very wrong. Since we haven't started talking specifically about what we're putting up yet, we can bring it up in a preventive manner. It's very important that people know to use tested recipes. There's that saying about "you don't yet know what you don't know." I'd just feel terrible if someone hurt themselves canning and we could have said something to prevent it. My first year out of college, a group of men I worked with went to a BBQ joint for lunch. They all got botulism poisoning from improperly prepared baked potatoes. Some were hospitalized, each of them over a week of work in the middle of tax season and everyone of them lost 15 to 20 pounds. It was horrifying to see what it did to them and it made lasting impression on me.
...See More
Copying Safety Tip. Important!
Q
Comments (15)
Scary times indeed. It might be funny to say nobody wants to be us etc., but the truth is...for anyone who has a decent credit score and open accounts of any type, credit card, banks etc. are at risk. It really sucks that regular good people like us who work hard and try to do what is right can have it all crash down on us when people who live to prey on others can live the high life on our dime, never be brought to trial or prosecution and in most cases never even sought after! Why not live a life of cyber crime! Hell....you can get away with it! The card companies would rather write it off...and thus increasing our fees and interest rates. It truly is the disgrace of our digital age. They say most of the perpetrators are overseas and they can't prosecute if they could find them. Bullcrap!!!!!!!!!! The government has satellites fixed on most of us. If they wanted to find these people they would. I guess I'm going off on a conspiracy tangent now with no proof. But there is something very fishy going on with all of this. Anytime big money is made at the expense of people who are helpless in any defense to recoup the money....something big is going on behind the scenes. Duane
...See More
Food safety
Q
Comments (27)
* A handy reference on the amount of bacteria that you can kill at different temperatures and cooking times is here: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/Oa/fr/95033f-a.htm?redirecthttp=true * I clean raw foods mostly with just water. I try to at least get any obvious layer of bacterial material to wash off by feel under running water. My general feeling on other techniques for cleaning raw food is that they either do far less than the people using them believe (e.g., vinegar will not kill many types of pathogenic bacteria) or for the ones that do work well - like oxygen bleach - I worry about ingesting that and killing off valuable gut micromes. You have to balance all of these issues of safety and convenience, and it's really hard to do this accurately. I have chosen to go with convenience. * I will confess that I eat a LOT of raw eggs and have never had a problem with them. Only in raw form do you get some of the nutritional advantages. This is by far my biggest food risk for pathogens. I have yet to get a single episode of indigestion. So even for high risk activities like this, the risks are actually pretty low. * For reasons I have never understood, oysters - even well cooked - cause me to throw up. Always. I'm not sure if that is some bacteria that survives cooking or if that is some other chemical agent that cannot be cooked away.
...See More
Food Safety — what steps do you take to prevent food borne illness?
Q
Comments (12)
I tend to not get too worried, but use some common sense precautions. Because I grow so many of my own vegetables and fruits and I know that they are grown in composted cow manure, I'm very diligent about washing before eating. I do, however, occasionally break my own rule while I'm in the garden and just dust a tomato off on my shirt, or a green bean or sprig of broccoli, or pluck an apple or a peach from the tree and eat it. Yeah, I know about e. coli and all, but I do it anyway. I also have my own eggs from my own chickens and beef from my own cattle, so I don't hesitate to eat either of those things raw. I wouldn't consider doing that with commercially available beef, but I know where my animals live and how they are cared for and processed as opposed to whatever is at the grocery. I do taste cake batter or cookie dough, even after having been warned about raw eggs and raw flour. I raise my own chickens but still sanitize my sink and cutting board/utensils when preparing raw chicken. I wash my eggs before I use them. I don't worry too much about packaging from things like cheese or a box of crackers but am diligent about cooking poultry to 165F and pork to 145F, minimum. I'm also pretty careful about leaving food sitting out, leftovers get promptly put away if they are things that require refrigeration. I only wear gloves when preparing hot peppers but I do wash my hands regularly during food prep and I use soap, not just the quick rinse that I often see TV chefs do. I have two house cats and so am diligent about cleaning surfaces before preparing food and the sweeping and vacuuming is nearly constant. Because we have a farm and animals, I've been in contact with pretty much every bodily fluid known to man. I've been slobbered on, sneezed on, pooped on, sprayed with everything from Neem Oil to copper fungicide, stepped in things I can't even identify, been up to my shoulder inside a pregnant cow, held sick and dying animals, moved carcasses. I'm not too worried about germs, obviously! Annie
...See More
fawnridge (Ricky)
8 years ago
When you cook for others, you are assuming a tremendous responsibility to protect them from food-borne illness. You are asking them to trust you to give them food that is safe to eat. If you don't know basic food safety, you shouldn't accept that responsibility and just cook for yourself.

When I was in junior high school, the girls were required to take Home Economics, the boys took Shop. Because I had already been cooking for several years, I managed to get into both. The two things that stuck hard in my mind were washing dishes, pots, and pans, and making sure food was cooked thoroughly and then kept hot or properly refrigerated. I don't remember the teacher's name, but her favorite saying was, "Safety first, calories last."
0
Bumblebeez SC Zone 7
8 years ago
That is terrible. I cook for groups and while I have never had problems from my food that Iknow of, I don't always trust whatever is on the potluck buffet. I have a clean house/kitchen and follow safety practices, but time can easily slip by when in a deadline.

There are many people I know who "love" to cook and are always eager to help me, but I decline as their homes could be on hoarders.
0
lindac92
8 years ago
And that's why when I do funeral lunches and things for the church, I don't have people cook things at home and bring it in.
I was asked to help with a luncheon by the gal who was "in charge" She was making potato soup and a chicken vegetabls....was going to have members of the committee make a batch at home and bring it in the day of the lunch and dump it all into one big pot. I reminded her of the dangers of one person not following safe measures.
And also the difficulty of warming up 5 gallons of ice cold potato soup without scorching it!!
0
shambo
Original Author
8 years ago
This makes me dubious of pot lucks where the food is brought, put on a serving table, and then a program or meeting of some kind takes place before eating. Who knows how much time has gone by since the food was made and then actually consumed. You'd be OK with most breads and undressed green salads. But everything else could be iffy.
0

Another reminder of the importance of following food safety practices

Comments (6)

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

annie1992

Related Discussions

fawnridge (Ricky)

Bumblebeez SC Zone 7

lindac92

shambo
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Another reminder of the importance of following food safety practices

Comments (6)

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

annie1992

Related Discussions

fawnridge (Ricky)

Bumblebeez SC Zone 7

lindac92

shamboOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

shambo
Original Author