Twenty-five chilling stories make up this collection of our worst food nightmares. Highlighting the problems while offering solutions make this an eye-opening and entertaining must have.
There are certain parts of life that are not a choice-such as breathing and eating. Like the air we breathe, when it comes to food, we trust that it is safe, that those we get it from have our best interests at heart. The truth, however, is far more disturbing.
Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Of the top ten worst food borne illness outbreaks in the recorded history of the United States, four of them were within the past decade. Food safety has improved and evolved over time, however the sickness and mortality rate in recent outbreaks is concerning. With drug resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria, Class 1 and 2 recalls occurring at an unprecedented rate, population growth, more imported food, viral rodent video infestations, sewing needles in sandwiches and contamination spreading to non-traditional food items, the risk continues to grow.
“Contaminated, Negligence in Food Safety” is a collection of personal non-fiction short stories, shared experiences, insights and recommendations. They are based on twenty plus years of experience in food service operations and food safety. I started my career in the dish room as a teenager, trained in multiple kitchens, worked my way through management and ended up auditing, teaching and consulting.
Witnessing contamination in all stages has been an eye opening experience for me.
When you purchase prepared food, there is a great degree of trust that is involved. Trust that can be broken very quickly because of varying forms of negligence.
Unfortunately, most people don’t give it a second thought until it is too late.
Understanding how a food service operates from the bottom up and inside out, has been a large part of my life. Whether it was managing a profit and loss scenario or training employees on the pitfalls of temperature abuse, both situations in my mind hold equal importance. Figuring out how to make money and save money require investigating all avenues of the business. Having tremendous sales and controlling costs is optimal, however all it takes is just one significant case of food borne illness to bring it all crashing down.
A food borne illness outbreak is defined as when two or more people get sick from eating a common food.
Unfortunately, it seems like some managers in the industry are more concerned about the bottom line, rather than proactively safeguarding the food they serve.
For five years I worked as a certified third party Health/Quality Assurance inspector doing retail audits for: major food service companies, restaurants, schools, grocery stores, hotels and hospitals. The majority of my work revolved around getting these establishments ready for their regulatory health inspections as well as monitoring company policy. These organizations farmed out this responsibility for a variety of reasons. The main one being an unbiased opinion they would lead you to believe, however cost does play a major role in this decision.
Audit parameters varied across a wide range of clients. Monitoring temperature, sanitation, storage practices, personal hygiene, documentation and pro-active training were the major aspects of the occupation. Most of the core critical violations were standardized across the board, however some organizations thought differently on the severity. An example of this, believe it or not, is rodent droppings. If there are -25 droppings observed, it is considered “Activity”, +25 droppings is considered “Infestation”. This is policy? One dropping can be the difference between “Passing” or “Failing” on that particular audit and possibly deciding whether someone is bonus eligible. Actually counting the pieces of tiny fecal matter was ridiculous. What genius figured out that standard? It’s probably someone who makes too much money and needs to justify their corporate existence.
To me, if you’ve got a rodent issue in the first place, you need to aggressively correct that situation, especially if it is out of control and you can smell the urine before you see the evidence. The petty scrutiny of noted defecation should not be relevant. If it’s there, in varying amounts, fresh and in or near food, it’s a big problem, cut and dry.
Rodents can carry several types of disease causing pathogens. They can transmit them to humans through an ingestion of their waste material (salmonella), an insect transfer that used the rodent as a host (murine typhus), or breathing in dried infected dust from an infested area (hanta virus). That’s three different ways a person can get sick from this animal. Yeah…… it’s a problem.
Knowing the difference between rodent droppings and other things that look like it, such as; chocolate sprinkles, bird seed, fennel seeds, black jelly beans, squid ink orzo and dark whole spices is an indirect part of the job description. This special qualification only comes after years of poop examination.
There is always a grey area in circumstantial evidence during a health inspection, not everything is black or white. Fennel seeds scatted on the floor three feet under a dark display rack can be deceiving. They may look like droppings, but they’re not.
Subjectivity is always present at some level during an assessment, no matter how objective an auditor thinks they are. That’s why it is important to understand, investigate a particular violation in depth and make an educated decision on whether to cite it or not.
I have found that there really is negligence in food safety from my experience, whether it’s at your local restaurant or even at home. Some people just don’t get it, or want to get it. In some cases, the cultural behavior is also detrimental. The ability to adapt to change is a constant struggle.
No matter the reason, whether it was cost, the situation that was dealt, improper training or general discontent, I kept seeing the same infractions over and over when I was out in the field inspecting. In some instances the problems were like a re-run of a bad T.V show, the obvious lack of humor and predictable conclusion was always the same.
Proper and ongoing training and awareness to food safety is paramount. Operators need to spend the time and money, not only on the education, but also facility maintenance and functioning equipment. If you do not provide your staff with a working thermometer, how do you expect them to properly monitor and record temperatures on cooking and cooling logs? These are legal documents in a court of law. These numbers cannot be fabricated or left blank. It would be in the best interest of the organization to comply and do the right thing. It will catch up with you in the long run one way or another if you don’t.
In these tough economic times, I understand the thin budgets, however I would rather pay a little early like simply absorbing the price of a thermometer, than a lot late. Fines and compensation get expensive quick if you’re responsible for getting someone sick, not to mention the negative publicity which will directly affect any future sales.
Food Safety inspectors need to explain and coach operations staff members properly during an audit. Keeping secrets in silence is deceiving. Coming up with an undiscussed negative surprise critical issue at the end of an audit does absolutely nothing for comprehension. It only compounds the mistrust between inspectors and operations staff.
Repetition and physically showing someone an observation that is in violation is necessary, not blindly serving criticism from a desk several states away or self inflating an ego that is in desperate need of attention with unwarranted biased judgment.
Understanding the root cause of a problem and how an operation is run is also very important. There is nothing worse than being inspected by a “Know it all” who has never worked in the food service industry. The level of respect diminishes when there is an attitude but there is no experience. I know I’ve been on both sides of the inspection, as an operator and an auditor. I have seen the good, the bad and the really ugly.
Understanding situations from both perspectives has been very valuable to me Credibility and being able to relate has really helped me on most occasions. The ability to get people to “buy in” to what you’re talking about is also extremely important.
The content of this work has been broken down into short stories for a reason, so you can put it down, pick it up, continue reading and not miss a beat. Reading something that is just too long has its disadvantages especially if you’re pressed for time.
I tried to come across on a level that everyone can understand and want to improve some of these unacceptable ongoing habits and thought processes that continue to haunt today’s food service establishments.
These experiences of mine needed to be shared in an attempt to do my small part to educate and expose some of the negligence in food safety that’s going on out there. In my opinion, not enough of this topic gets put on the table for discussion.
My family, friends, past co-workers and I feel like this is an entertaining, educational, yet shocking set of short stories. Hopefully, you will too.
Professional Reviews
Contaminated: Negligence in Food Safety
Simply Said-BRAVO! Your book is funny, awful and truly gripping. I learned a lot to take heed.
Contaminated: Negligence in Food Safety
Interesting, funny and educational.
Contaminated: Negligence in Food Safety
The stories are captivating and eye-opening.
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