ICE MAKING MACHINE AND TOILET WATER-WHAT IS THE CONNECTION?

Toilets are receiving much more attention than what they really deserve. It was not long ago that some one reported that toilet seat showed less bacteria than that present in a kitchen cutting board! Here comes another report with some shock value that declares that the bacterial quality of crushed ice that is thrown out from the ice making machines in many restaurants is significantly inferior to that of toilet water! How far this is universally true cannot be gauged by the limited studies conducted by the media as a part of their investigative journalism. But it does raise some inconvenient questions regarding the possibility of shirked responsibility of the restaurant management to keep their ice making machine clean and hygienically satisfactory. Also not clear is how serious is the problem vis-a-vis the safety of consumers who visit such ill maintained restaurants. Here is a take on this latest revelation.   

"The Daily Mail collected ice from ten fast-food franchises — McDonald's, Burger King, and Starbucks among them — and determined that in six out of ten locations, those innocuous-seeming cubes contained higher levels of bacteria than the water samples taken from toilet bowls at the same establishments. The Mail doesn't identify the bacteria by type or warn of a specific food-safety risk, instead noting only that four of the samples contained a sufficient bacterial load to present a "hygiene risk." So, does this mean we should all be drinking out of the toilet? The short answer is no, don't drink toilet water, but also, maybe be a little bit wary of ice. In most instances of germy ice, the likely culprit is dirty ice machines, and while the presence of pathogens like E. coli in anything meant for ingestion is cause for alarm, the Mail sort of flubs its own "investigation." The article doesn't make clear how much of the ice taken from each of the ten establishments was tested. Moreover, it doesn't emphasize how much one study parameter — fast-food workers were asked to put the ice into sterilized bags — was flawed, which renders the entire thing somewhat useless. "For the tests," itnotes, "staff were asked to provide a sample of ice in a sterile bag." The reader has to make it to the very end of the article to learn that the worker at Starbucks, for example, "inadvertently" contaminated the sample at the point of collection. While the ice at these places is no doubt bacteria-filled, it might help to have workers trained in taking sterilized samples actually, you know, collecting the sample. Moreover, this kind of study isn't particularly novel. Some highlights from the last ten years:
• In an effort to dissuade her friends from chewing on ice — a habit she found annoying — a 12-year-old kid from Tampa devoted her 2006 middle-school science project to comparing bacterial loads in fast-food ice samples and toilet water. Jasmine Roberts won a few awards and garnered national attention with her conclusion that ice-machine ice was dirtier than toilet water 70 percent of the time.
• A local news affiliate found coliform bacteria in 13 out of 25 ice samples taken from Indianapolis-area bars in 2008.
• The U.K. Health Protection Agency found enterococci and E. coli in 30 percentof ice samples taken from 88 establishments in 2011.
• And it's not just the innards of ice machines that harbor bad germs. All that sugar-filled plastic tubing inside soda machines can feed several gazillion colonies of bad bacteria. In 2010, for example, researchers from Hollins University in Virginia took samples of 90 drinks from 30 soda fountains located within a twenty-mile radius of Roanoke. They found coliform bacteria in 48 percent of the drinks and antibiotic-resistant E. coli in 11 percent.

It's pretty safe to assume that, on a widespread basis, nasty bacteria run the innards of ice machines just like Master Blaster runs Bartertown. Does that mean that ice from fast-food places will make you sick? As with most foods, the risk increases if you are either very old, are very young, or have a compromised immune system. Other than that, these studies are effective at upending one misconception about pathogens in particular: that freezing temperatures destroy bad germs. Instead of comparing ice and toilet water, it'd be good to get samples from a few more surfaces that aren't toilet water, which is usually treated with disinfectants in food service settings, anyhow".

The conclusion by the reporter that the ice is not a safety risk to normally healthy person because bacteria does not survive freezing temperatures cannot be accepted. Scientifically most bacteria might be killed at sub-zero temperatures due to cell disruption but few stubborn cells do survive capable of springing back to active life once favorable conditions are obtained. It is forgotten that many food infection episodes in the West are more or less confined to frozen foods and if such foods which are contaminated during the processing operations or storage are not cooked by the consumer there is a definite risk to the health. Another way of looking at this issue is that if these contaminated ice is used for chilling an alcoholic beverage or a carbonated beverage the safety risk is minimal or nil at at all. Still it is the primary responsibility of the food eateries to clean up their ice machines periodically to ensure that bacteria is not harbored by them. Same is true with thousands of water coolers found so commonly in public places.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

SUGAR CONSUMPTION-OLD TOBACCO "DAYS" BEING REVISITED?

Knowing fully well that high consumption of sugar is dangerous for human beings, many policy makers world over are breaking their head to evolve suitable steps to curb its consumption. Unfortunately voluntary action, supposed to be taken by the high-profit tuned food processing industry is a non-starter and if any thing this industry seems to have found a friend in sugar to rake in more money. According to some critics sugar must be regulated like alcohol and tobacco denying or restricting easy access for every body. Here is a passionate demand from a well recognized campaigner against bad quality foods, especially sugar worth listening to. 

Public reception of Lustig's new book, Fat Chance, will likely be just as divided. The book repeats and expands on the main point of contention in the sugar wars: whether our bodies treat all calories the same. The old guard says yes: A calorie is a calorie; steak or soda, doesn't matter. Eat more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight. Lustig believes that our bodies react to some types of calories differently than others. Specifically he believes that sugar calories alter our biochemistry to make us hungry and lazy in ways that fat and protein calories do not. As a result, he says, the ubiquity of sugar in the Western diet is making Americans sick, obese, and bankrupt. But Lustig does not stick to explaining his reasoning and raising public-health awareness. "Education has not worked. Labeling has not worked. And they're not going to work," he told me in his characteristically emphatic way. "Education hasn't worked for any addictive substance." According to Lustig, we need to accept that America's obesity problem can't be fixed by a Puritan resolution by each individual to eat fewer calories. To fix America's obesity problem, we need a regulatory framework for selling and serving less sugar-laden food.

When it is realized and further confirmed through scientific studies that sugar is an addictive working at the brain level, more caution is needed to break this vicious hold what ever it may take to accomplish the same. Whether one can make a differentiation between sugar calories and calories derived from fat and proteins is a subject matter of debate, it has been shown conclusively that excess sugar definitely contribute obesity and other life style disorders. Similarly the surge in Diabetes among  populations in the wealthy segment in almost all countries is sought to be linked to excess sugar consumption. It is known that availability of sugar rich processed foods at relatively low cost in some countries drives their consumption upwards and more than what is consumed at home gets into the body through the industrially produced sugar rich products. Naturally the author has a case in demanding for stringent action against the industry through punitive regulatory steps. knowledgeable pundits are predicting that it is a question of time before the food industry is saddled with law suits claiming billions of dollars as reparation by the obese and health compromised people, if action is not taken, NOW and HERE!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

AIR LINE FOODS MORE RISKY?- NEW FINDINGS

Air travel, especially of long duration, is both tiresome and boring. In-flight music and video entertainment facilities make such travels some what tolerable while the foods served are supposed to be of mouth-watering quality. Modern Air Lines companies even offer diverse menu options to cater to different ethnic and cultural back ground of potential travelers. It is in this context that recent reports damning the safety of these foods emanating from the US are raising some alarm among travelers using US Carriers. While FDA is to be complimented for bringing to surface gross violations of hygiene and sanitary standards in kitchens where the foods are prepared for supply to the air lines. What is appalling is the response of the Carriers brushing aside these allegations lightly and probably FDA may have to take severe deterrent action against such repeat violators immediately lest the passenger confidence on airline foods is shattered. Here is a gist of the report culled out from reliable international media which provides a sad reading.

Airplane food has long been the butt of jokes for being bland, unimaginative and generally unappetizing, but now there is evidence to suggest that the meals served by airlines are not just lackluster, but they might actually make passengers sick. Inspections of airlines and outside caterers conducted by the Food and Drug Administration have revealed facilities crawling with mice, roaches and ants, and food preparation areas swarming with flies. According FDA health violation records obtained by ABC's 20/20, over the past four years, there have been more than 1,500 violations in the airline food industry. The federal agency said that 'significant' problems were found at a much higher rate than in other industry it inspects.

No one is arguing that in-flight catering is an easy job but unless some minimum safety precautions are taken health of many passengers may be adversely affected. It was not along ago that under recessionary trends, air traffic volume started declining and with fierce competition among the players to attract traffic, food was being considered as an instrument to cajole passengers to travel by air. There were even a few reports that some major air line companies were planning to upgrade their menu to offer very high quality preparations on par with 5-star restaurants. Alas that proved to be a non-starter once the air traffic became normal. All air line must understand the basic fact that passengers are not yearning for home foods while they travel but they will never compromise with products prepared in infected and infested kitchens which can put their life in danger. It is time that kitchens preparing foods for air line passengers are brought under a global safety regime and protocols that can be easily monitored by competent food safety specialists on a 24/7 basis.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com