Food Safety Talk

Don and Ben are joined by a special guest Michelle Forman, Manager of Media for the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). The discussion starts with the impacts of closing a toilet lid and whether keeping toothbrushes in the bathroom is a good idea for avoiding pathogens. The conversation goes to APHL's role in the food safety community, communicating risks and how COVID has revealed trust in science issues, the challenges in communicating risk reduction and the importance of storytelling. The conversation goes to a Listeria-triggered recall of muffins and communication challenges. Michelle, Don and Ben end the show talking about recalls, a new STOP Foodborne Illness-led document to improve the system and the network of groups that influence recalls.

In this not-so-special pre-IAFP episode the guys talk about travel and collecting data in lots of aspects of life. That discussion leads into a deep dive on Ben's experience grilling and smoking with Bluetooth thermometer probes, and how they might be good for food safety in some situations (but not all). And all the data. They do listener feedback on, House of Prime Rib, raw pet food, supertasters, microwaves and power outages. They talk about a Vox article on the always elusive expiration dates on foods and how they can impact food safety, waste and food disparity, that conversation leads them to food recovery/waste apps and food salvage cookbooks. The show ends on a discussion on risk communication and cooking instructions.

The episode starts with a conversation about Canada Day with a focus on Canadian indigenous peoples and the tragedies surrounding residential schools. The guys talk about The Tragically Hip, Neil Young (but not Rush). The discussion moves to 4th of July and holiday celebrations in NJ and NC and a venomous cobra that was recently on the loose in Raleigh. The guys talk about COVID and baseball and attending IAFP (with all the controls). Don and Ben then deconstruct clickbait kitchen food safety articles and the food safety concerns of having dogs in restaurants. The episode ends on some listener feedback including a focus on cottage food safety and the food safety challenges that POC face when bringing products to market.

After a quick conversation about how spatial audio works, Don reveals that his AirPods are dirty, which leads to a discussion about how to clean them. The guys then just yell out random technology for a while including things that Don is using to go paperless and other things that Ben thinks he might want to use. The guys make an announcement re: Food Safety Talk merch, starting with a red food safety talk t-shirt (also now in black in response to requests, also available in tank tops and hoodies) that can be found at Cotton Bureau. The conversation shifts to beef companies getting hacked and the potential food safety impacts. Don and Ben talk again about frozen chicken items and what constitutes a recall and what doesn't. Don talks about a situation he's involved with related to pest control and what CDC says. The guys go on to talk about some feedback on parenting advice books, FDA warning letters, and focus on technology and traceability in the last mile. The talk goes to delivery food safety and how not to communicate when your prime rib restaurant leads to an outbreak. The guys end the show with regulatory confusion around live abalone tanks.

The episode begins with Ben relaying his experiences with food safety and camping on Ocracoke Island. The guys talk about setting up guidance for managing COVID during judging of state and county fair competitions for home food preservation. This leads to a similar discussion on what to do when putting on educational/extension programs that involve food and eating. The conversation goes to vaccine efficacy followup, Cyclospora investigations and canned food for the apocalypse. The guys tackle followup on microenterprise food businesses operating out of homes and end the show chatting about AI name generators and University of Georgia alumni podcasters who are not Don.

The show starts with Ben talking about living through a gas shortage and then the guys go into a discussion on COVID recommendations related to vaccinated people. Don shares some cool follow-up on fire maps (because Don loves maps). Ben and Don do a deep dive on how they review scientific papers and how that has changed for them over time as writers, editors and mentoring others who are reviewing. The talk goes to a recent FoodCoVNET webinar on environmental sampling and approaches and trying to be engaging online. The guys do some followup on plant-based foods, cloth food wraps, and effect size and buttergate. Don brings some food safety lawyer Bill Marler content on deer and strawberries and grilling techniques. The show ends on Ben's obsession of reading FDA warning letters.

The show starts on a discussion about home improvements, landscaping and cutting trees. The guys talk about COVID risks and the challenges related to explaining public health statistics and how viruses infect. They talk about vaccines and post vaccination symptoms (or lack thereof). The conversation goes to talking about food safety in food banks and an incident in Spain impacting food insecurity. After a quick Bassett hound break, the guys talk about lawsuits involving if online retailers should be responsible for ensuring the safety of stuff sold by third party sellers through their site (and how to manage that). Don and Ben go on to talk about feedback on leftovers, flour risks, animal sharing laws and leafy greens and nut cheeses.

The episode starts with a discussion on British comedian travel shows and moves into other things the guys are watching including The Nevers. The food safety content starts and Don and Ben discuss clusters of COVID illnesses at restaurants, bars, food manufactures, farms, meat and poultry packing plants and other food places. The guys talk about community spread and restrictions and how there's a continuum of risk when it comes to dining. The conversation goes to a recent Conference For Food Protection educational event that Ben and Don were involved in, including Don's new favorite alert system for crowdsourcing foodborne illness outbreaks. The guys talk about labor shortages in the food service sector and potential food safety impacts. The show ends on a bunch of follow-up on vitamins, sushi, washable lunch bags, sponges, poop coffee and edible insects.

Don and Ben start the show talking about German grocery stores, refrigerators and hardwood floors. While Ben was telling Don about podcast cheating the guys commiserated about the soon to be demise of Call Recorder. Ben tells Don about personality trait tests and discusses his newly discovered strengths and weaknesses. The guys do a deep dive on #Buttergate, a Canadian dairy scandal (or is it?). Don and Ben talk about cottage food rules and the deregulation of home food processing in a U.S. jurisdictions as they lament about a lack of data in that space. They end the show on a bunch of feedback including Hepatitis A linked to a bakery, metal grill brushes and leftovers.

After a quick discussion of adapters, dongles, dentistry and old Swiss Army knives things turn to food safety. Ben asks Don about knee jerk reactions about new foods/processes and what is safe (and what isn't). Don and Ben do a deep dive on FDA's risk ranking models for food tracing including how the process is pretty transparent. The conversation goes to feedback on some recent Risky or Not episodes on dishes and defrosting vacuum-packed bags of meat. The episode ends with the guys adding NZ MPI to FDA B CDC+.

This episode starts with the bit that's not a bit about Skype and Call Recorder problems. Ben talks about his shadow network set up because his kids keep stealing his broadband. Don talks about how he's working with couple of Internet folks on productivity help and going paperless. The guys go through a bunch of feedback on Walkerton, raw breaded frozen chicken products and thermometers. They talk a bit about Listeria in queso fresco and Clostridium botulinum associated with seafood. They then talk about tin and aluminum foil wrapped potatoes. The conversation goes to raw cookie dough and follow-up related to expiration dates on hand sanitizer. The show ends on which meats the guys are the least riskiest.

The guys are joined by Kathy Campbell (@Mrssoup) and they begin the show talking about Clubhouse. The conversation goes to robots in various aspects of life, including in food preparation. The group goes on to talk about the social media discussion of Fred Meyer (the store, not the person) throwing out food and then guarding dumpsters as a result. The discussion goes to the intersection of food disparity, food waste and food safety and how it all seems to get mixed up sometimes. Kathy stays for some listener feedback on parking lot tamales and garlic confit. They then all participate in Ben's favorite bit of rating government food safety messages, this one from thePublic Health Agency of Canada's egg-linked outbreak communications. The show ends on a Food Network listicle of food-safety things.

Don and Ben start the podcast on a deconstruction of Canadian TV (again, to satisfy CANCON requirements). The guys talk about their podcast open relationship. They then get Outlander, Highlander and Braveheart all confused. The food safety talk begins on a deep dive on how to arrive at science-based recommended endpoint temperatures for complicated dishes like pinto bean quinoa meatloaf (that contains an egg). After another FDA-B-CDC+ on outbreaks of unknown origin they then go on to talk about some feedback on food storage times and temperatures and why some foods are sold at room temperature in part of the world but either hot or cold in others. The guys talk about Subway, chicken DNA and tuna. The show ends on fancy advertising of kitchen drying mats and the difference between bacteria and pathogens (and risk).

The conversation starts with a bit of Letterkenny content (too meet our CANCON requirements). After a quick inauguration chat, the guys spend some time on a Combase love fest as a place that both go to answer extension questions first. Don shows Ben an amazing visualization app, MRV that uses the Combase API. The guys talk about freezing and refreezing foods, and why some advice in this area is silly. The guys do a deep dive on cooling hot foods and refrigerators. Someone on the internet suggested that a podcast get made on the safety (or lack thereof) of eating raw cookie dough, so the guys do that too. The episode ends on a quick discussion on spores being added to foods for traceability reasons and a guy who repeatedly denies running a restaurant out of his house.

The episode starts with updates on Don's house moving adventures including his new 3 or 4 season podcasting studio. Ben tells Don about his running challenge and a couple of related (somewhat) podcasts. The guys go into a deep dive around assessing different technologies and food safety/COVID-19 magic bullets that are being marketed to folks in the food industry. The conversation goes to warning letters (and how Ben loves them). The show ends on a bit of listener feedback on camping under a bridge with a food thermometer and a paper on pathogen growth in cut fresh produce at a variety of temperatures.