Something I ate? Your role in food safety
Source: Something I ate? Your role in food safety - Canada.ca
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Transcript
Megan Beahan: Welcome to Healthy Canadians your space for nuanced conversations and expert insights into the health topics that matter to us all. I'm your host Megan Beahen and joining me today is Alex Newman, co-host and producer.
Alex Newman: Hey Megan, how's it going?
Megan: Good, how are you?
Alex: Good. So today we're talking about something that might be a little upsetting...
[Audible gasp]
Alex:... to peoples' stomachs.
Megan: Ew.
Alex: We're talking about food safety and food-borne illness, so I think we've all had unfortunate experiences with that.
Megan: Yeah, I think we've all been there, and I think we all have, to at least a certain extent, good food safety practices at home but maybe there's some room for fine tuning.
Alex: Totally, and the good news is that Canada has a really great sterling record in terms of food safety, big picture-wise, but yeah, I mean there was stuff that came up in the conversation that I was really surprised by like, "oh I should be doing that in my kitchen..." and I wasn't aware of that so yeah definitely room for improvement.
Megan: Yeah, and looking at our habits and improving them but also maybe wondering, "why do I do that?"
Alex: Totally yeah.
Megan: So today, we're talking to Dr. Dr. Tamber Tamber, she's a microbiologist specializing in food safety at Health Canada.
Alex: Great, and before we get started just a little housekeeping. So, although Healthy Canadians is produced by Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, what we discuss won't always reflect the official positions or policies of the government of Canada, but that's okay. These are conversations not news releases.
Megan: Let's talk about food safety.
Alex: All right.
[Healthy Canadians logo with pulse sound]
[Music stops]
Megan: Hello Sandeep, thank you so much for joining Healthy Canadians today.
Dr. Sandeep Tamber: Hi Megan, thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
Megan: Awesome. So, let's just jump right in. Tell us, what do you do at Health Canada?
Dr. Tamber: Well, I'm a research scientist. I work in the Bureau of Microbial Hazards, and I study food safety. So, specifically I study how bacteria can survive in foods and how we can manage the risks of having those bacteria in our foods, so we don't get sick.
Megan: Cool, and how did you come to get that job? How did you get interested in that line of work?
Dr. Tamber: Well, it's a really long and winding story but, basically, I've always been fascinated with bacteria. I've always wanted to know how they survive, and how they can live. They're just so fascinating. They can live in different environments from volcanoes to under the water to on our food and in our bodies, and then they can cause disease. They're so tiny and they can bring down whole populations of people, and I just found that really fascinating.
So, I just kept following microbiology throughout my career and my education, and that turned into a PhD. I was very lucky. I had several opportunities to work in different aspects of microbiology, and when this opportunity came up at Health Canada, I got to combine my hobby, which is cooking, with my passion, which is microbiology, and I think I have one of the best jobs in the world.
Megan: Oh my God that's so cool! I didn't know you're like a secret Chef also.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, definitely.
Megan: Cooking well and cooking safely is kind of your jam.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, pretty much yeah.
Megan: Cool. And so, day to day, are you in a lab? Are you growing bacteria? What does a typical day look like for you?
Dr. Tamber: So, I am very lucky. I have a very nice lab with a technician, and I have students coming in and out, and they do the majority of the work. I just have these dreams of projects and they execute them. Sometimes I'll go into the lab because I do like working with my hands but, most of the time, I'm at the at the desk writing reports, writing project summaries, things like that and just thinking up ideas of what needs to be learned and how we can go about learning that in the lab.
Megan: Very cool. Okay I'm going to ask you a personal question before we really open it up into food-borne illness in Canada.
Dr. Tamber: Sure.
Megan: I don't know if you ever have watched Friends, have you ever watched Friends?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, for sure.
Alex: "Never heard of it."
[Laughter]
Alex: "Some obscured show?"
Megan: We can edit this out. I don't know if we're allowed to talk about Friends on Healthy Canadians. But there's an episode where Phoebe dates a food inspector, and I'm just going to acknowledge you are not obviously a food inspector at all...
Dr. Tamber: No, not at all.
Megan: But he knows too much about food safety and in the episode, they go to a bunch of different restaurants, and he sees Health violations and he ends up shutting each restaurant down, so it becomes a big problem. So, my question for you is do you know too much? Does it scare you? Do you think about it daily?
Dr. Tamber: I do think about it daily, but it doesn't scare me. It fascinates me. I think the more you know the better it is because then you can manage your risks. But then, also for me, because this is my job, I can see the potential hazards, "where are the gaps in people's knowledge?" and, "how can we study those gaps in order to help them learn more about food safety?" So, it's kind of through my work, I'm equipping people with the knowledge that they need so that they don't get sick...
Megan: Cool.
Dr. Tamber: And they will be able to see things, and just be like, "I'm going to be okay. I know how to deal with this."
Megan: Yeah, you're coming at it from like a curious and positive point of view.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, I try to.
Alex: So, are all your friends nervous though when you enter a party...
Megan: I was literally just going to ask that. I was literally going to be like, "oh no Sandeep is coming to the barbecue, we better make sure our food safety is on point..."
Alex: You're wearing a hazmat suit.
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: No, I don't think so. I think they'd be more nervous that the food tastes good, as opposed to being safe...
[Laughter]
Megan: You're a chef!
Dr. Tamber: Kind of. I'm kind of a picky eater...
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: But you know, I think there is a higher level of expectation because they do know that this is my job and so they will jokingly be like, "oh you know don't worry this fork is clean" or something like that.
Megan: They're washing the greens like a few times.
Dr. Tamber: I'm just beginning to realize that maybe I'm not the easiest friend to have so, thank you friends! Thanks for inviting me over!
[Laughter]
Megan: Shout out to Sandeep's friends. No, I think I think they probably love you for it.
Dr. Tamber: Well, they're definitely healthier for it.
Megan: Yeah, exactly, exactly! Okay, so I think the good news is that generally overall food is safe, pretty safe, in Canada, right?
Dr. Tamber: Definitely, we are lucky. We have one of the safest food safety programs in the world. Our food safety system is really good. I have a lot of confidence in it for sure.
Megan: And so, what is food-borne illness and how does it happen?
Dr. Tamber: So, from a microbiology standpoint, food-borne illness is when there is a microbe. This can be a bacteria, it can be a virus, it can be a parasite. Basically, any little nasty that you can't see with your visible eye, and you need a microscope. If those are in your food, and they're of a certain variety which we call pathogens. So, not all microbes are pathogenic. Just a few- a subset of them.
There's just a few bad actors and those are the ones that can make you sick. If they're on your food and you eat your food and they survive and they make it all the way down to your stomach, they can cause an illness and that illness is usually a blanket of symptoms, we call it food poisoning. It's upset stomach, vomiting, sometime, most of the time, you'll have diarrhea, sometimes you'll have a fever but, unfortunately, I'm pretty sure everybody has experienced food poisoning at one point but, it's that general digestive malaise that we do get sometimes.
Megan: Okay, and so, when you're cleaning fruits or vegetables for example, you are trying to wash off those pathogens.
Dr. Tamber: Well, you're trying to not only wash off those pathogens, you're trying to wash off if there's any dirt on the fruit or any other types of bacteria. I'm sure when you go to a grocery store, you know the fruit there's been handled by a lot of different people...
Megan: Right
Dr. Tamber: maybe some of it rolled onto the ground. So, you're not necessarily washing it with the aim of washing away the pathogens. You're just washing it in order to make it clean. The chances of fruit and vegetables being contaminated with pathogens in Canada, it's possible for sure but it's very low. So, I wouldn't say that every apple at you know X grocery store is going to have a pathogen on it but, it's a good chance you'll have some hair on it or some dirt or whatever and you don't want to eat that right?
Megan: Right
Dr. Tamber: So, you'll wash your apple...
Megan: You're washing it to keep it clean.
Dr. Tamber: Or your fruit.
Megan: There's a better way to think about it.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah.
Megan: Not washing away the pathogens.
Dr. Tamber: Exactly, that's not a good way to live.
[Laughter]
Alex: So, you mentioned too that like pretty much everyone will experience, and I think we can all attest to that, having food-borne illness or food poisoning throughout their lives, how big of a problem is it in Canada though? How common is it? Do we have statistics and things like that?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, that's a really really good question. We do have statistics. I believe it's around every year 1 in 9 Canadians will experience a food-borne illness around there. But the thing about those stats is that food-borne illness is generally underreported because not everyone who has the food-borne illness will go to the doctor...
Alex: Right.
Dr. Tamber: And not all doctors will ask for a test so it's something that we call "under reporting" and then there are metrics that we can have. We can have statistics that multiply the reported rates to get a better estimate of how many people are getting sick. So, for example the bacteria I study, it's called salmonella, and the estimated value is 26, so for every 1 report we get of salmonella we estimate that there are 26 other people who have salmonellosis or who have had salmonellosis.
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, so it's pretty... it's a big problem I'd say yeah.
Megan: And do you have a sense for, "are food-borne illnesses more likely to happen when you're eating out at a restaurant or when you're eating at home... you're eating at your friend's house?"
[Laughter]
Megan: Just thinking of the Phoebe buffet example.
Dr. Tamber: Well, you know, I haven't seen anything that would pinpoint a particular location for having a food-borne illness. I think there are certain types of foods where food-borne illness is more likely...
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: But I don't think it's a location dependent thing
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah.
Alex: Well, it's so circumstantial I would think too right...
Dr. Tamber: Exactly.
Alex: Like it's about who's cooking where, and the practices right? So, it could be anywhere.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, and you know, you can have very clean kitchens in households, and you can have very messy kitchens and same with restaurants like they differ in quality. So, it's not, you know, it's not anything that you can pin to a certain location for sure.
Megan: Let's talk about eating well at home then. So, things that people can do at home. Thinking about food safety as a part of eating well, what are some really good habits we can have at home to take care of our food or prepare it really well?
Dr. Tamber: Well, we have what we like to call the 3 C's and 1 S of food safety.
Megan: 3 C's and 1 S?
Dr. Tamber: The 3 C's and 1 S. It's a very catchy term, eh?
[Laughter]
Megan: I love it.
Dr. Tamber: But basically, it just means, I can go through each of them for you. So, the first C is Clean so, keep a clean environment where you're preparing your food. The second C is Cook so, cook your food if it needs to be cooked to the appropriate temperatures. The third C is... Chill, I always forget that one, so chill... actually, a better letter would be T Temperature, right?
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: So, you want to keep your hot foods hot and you want to keep your cold foods cold, and you don't want to keep anything out at room temperature for too long. So, maybe 2 hours, if it's a hot day outside, 1 hour maximum. And the S stands for Separate so you want to keep your raw food separated from your cooked foods but, a better way to think about this Megan I'm going to tell you everybody a secret so...
Megan: Oh, yes.
Dr. Tamber: This is like...
Megan: Tell us the secret.
Dr. Tamber: this is like the microbiology equivalent of E = MC^2
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: So, it's pretty hot stuff. So, the goal of every bacteria on this Earth is to become two bacteria. So, what you want to do when you're thinking about food safety is you want to prevent that one from becoming a two. And the ways of controlling that are through the 3 C's and 1 S, right?
So, you want to prevent the temperatures from being hospitable to bacterial growth so, that's where the Chill comes from, and that's also where the Cook comes from because if you cook your food to the appropriate temperature, you will kill or "inactivate" is what we call it all of the bacteria in your meat...
Megan: Okay
Dr. Tamber: So, that's why raw meat can make you sick but, when you cook the meat, you're eliminating that risk because you're killing all of the bacteria.
Megan: Cool.
Dr. Tamber: Right? And then cleaning, you're wiping away the bacteria. You're getting them off of your space, and then separating is also important because some foods do carry a higher load of bacteria. So, this is raw foods like raw meats so, you want to separate them from the ready-to-eat foods so, fruits and vegetables because you're just moving your bacteria from one substrate onto another.
You're introducing them to all these wonderful new sugars and nutrients that they can eat. And then that one can become two and four etc. So, that's what we're trying to prevent.
Megan: Cool.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah.
Megan: Some of those seem very intuitive to me. Others... maybe less so like the separating. Could we unpack that a little bit? So, separating, does that start at the grocery store when the cashier says, "do you want your meat in a separate bag?".
Dr. Tamber: Yes. That is a wonderful offer...
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: And I encourage you to take it up as much as you can.
Megan: Okay, so when you go to the grocery store, do you have one bag for meats and fish, and one for produce?
Dr. Tamber: Definitely. And I always put my meat in a separate plastic bag, like a produce bag...
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: And then the tote I have for the meat, it's designated for the raw meat, and it's kind of like this plasticky material...
Megan: So, it's not like a canvas tote bag?
Dr. Tamber: No, it's not and you can wipe it down and you can clean it quite frequently, and I never ever put fresh produce in there or unbagged... you know fruit or whatever...
Megan: Yeah.
Dr. Tamber: And then when that tote gets really dirty and really ratty, I'll give it to my kids, and they can put their sporting equipment in it or whatever...
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: But it doesn't come back in the kitchen.
[Laughter]
Megan: Okay, see I'm learning stuff already.
Alex: You might not want to do that again, back to it after the sporting.
[Laughter]
Megan: Yeah, it goes one way only after that.
Dr. Tamber: Exactly.
Megan: Okay, that's a hot tip, and then so just to continue on this train of keeping separate, once you bring it home, separate when it goes in the fridge, and separate when you're preparing it on the counter as well?
Dr. Tamber: Definitely. So, if you're keeping raw meat in the fridge, I would recommend to keep it on the lower portion of your fridge. Sometimes meat can drip so you don't want the juices to fall on anything that you might...
Megan: Like your produce that's underneath.
Dr. Tamber: Exactly.
Megan: Like my produce actually sits in a drawer...
Dr. Tamber: Exactly.
Megan: And I put meat on top.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, don't do that or you know the juice can drip onto the shelf...
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: And then later you might put... you know... like a cookie or I don't know...
Megan: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Tamber: What you put in your sandwich...
Megan: That you're directly going to eat.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, that you're directly going to eat, and then that that drip from the shelf will come onto the food that you're going to eat, and then you might not want to cook that food, right?
Megan: Yeah, that sounds gross.
Dr. Tamber: So, that's what we mean by separate, and if you want to kind of take it... if you don't have room on the bottom of your fridge or whatever, you can always put your meat in a container...
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: So that'll control any drippage.
Megan: Right, then it's really contained.
Dr. Tamber: Then it's really contained. So, like on the bottom in a container...
Megan: I like that.
Dr. Tamber: And then that's the way to go.
Megan: And then when it's on the counter?
Dr. Tamber: When it's on the counter...
Megan: We want separate cutting boards?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, we want separate cutting boards for sure. I personally always will deal with the raw meat first...
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: On my... I have this red, because you know, most red meat and red cutting board, so, I'll do all that work there, and then I will go, and I'll wash my hands really well again, and then I will start working with the vegetables on my green one...
Megan: Green one.
Dr. Tamber: Because green, for produce, right?
Megan: Okay, so we talked a little bit about sort of individual day-to-day habits. And I'm going to admit that I'm probably not like a 10 out of 10. I'm already admitting I don't have separate bags but, I'm going to change that. Where I personally start to think more about food safety like I'm like "okay I really have to be a 10 out of 10 on this" is when I start preparing food for others.
Dr. Tamber: Oh, yeah.
Megan: Because when I have people coming over or I'm cooking for like a potluck or whatever it's a special occasion, then I, and this is not... I'm not promoting this as a good way of thinking, I'm just saying this is who I am, I am really making sure that I'm doing all the right things because I obviously don't want anyone to get sick...
Dr. Tamber: Right.
Megan: And so, maybe you could talk a little bit about what it means to cook for other people who might have a different risk profile than you.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, so, exactly Megan. When you're cooking for others, you're elevating the risk, right? Because you're not considering just yourself anymore, you're considering the people and their ages. So, people who are at the extremes of age, really young children and, I would say, you know, our wiser adults who are above 60, their immune system, it tends to kind of... so for kids it's developing and as you get older your immune system kind of slows down.
So, you really have to, you know, follow the food safety rules to ensure that those people don't get sick. You can also have people come over they're just having a bad day, maybe they're coming down with a cold. There could be people who are pregnant, and all of these people are at a higher risk of not only getting sick but they're also at a higher risk of having more severe consequences of having food poisoning...
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: So, yeah, I would say be more aware that you are cooking for these people and try to take the precautions that you would need to take to ensure that the meat is cooked well, and you've done your best to separate things. Yeah, and always just kind of... I'm always really transparent when I have people come over and I'll say, okay, for example, we love to have people come over in the summer for barbecues and we'll just say, "okay this is just cooked to medium it's a little bit pink inside if you're not happy or comfortable with this, we have other options for you."
Megan: Oh my God, I love that. So, you're okay with it being a bit pink inside?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah well, I have to say, I'm from Alberta...
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: So, we like a medium rare steak.
Megan: Yeah, but you're transparent because not everyone wants that or feels safe like it's not to their taste necessarily but also some people might not feel safe, and they want something that's completely cooked through.
Dr. Tamber: They something that's well done and if we're in a situation where we can have multiple steaks, then we'll do them to multiple donenesses...
Megan: Cool.
Dr. Tamber: To suit what everybody wants but I think it's always best to be transparent so that if somebody's uncomfortable eating something, they won't put it on their plate, right?
Megan: Yeah.
Alex: Well, it's a good reminder too when you have people over because it's kind of hectic cooking for, it can be depending on how many people you're... I know I'm like cuckoo bananas when I'm in the kitchen, and I'm cooking for like my whole family and they're over. So, although I'm pretty aware of it, there's probably a much higher risk of me doing something silly and like...
Megan: Thats a good point.
Alex: You know, so, being a little extra kind of mindful.
Megan: Yeah, mindful we like that word. Yeah, being mindful about it. I feel like cooking meats is a good example for when you're... for some people anyway, when you have a celebration, I'm thinking about Thanksgiving dinner, preparing a turkey, for example. So, I heard that we're not supposed to rinse chicken or turkeys. Is that true?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, so, that's a really interesting question. I think this practice originated at different times, in different cultures because if you think about how we were getting our chickens and turkeys, usually it was... well I don't want to say usually but, you know, sometimes it could have been like a backyard slaughter. You're slaughtering your own bird. So, you want to wash it to get the blood off and feathers, dirt I don't know. Some countries in some cultures they have what is called "open air markets"...
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: So, the food is just kind of hanging and it's being exposed to dirt or fumes from cars and whatever so, it makes sense when you bring that home to wash it to get all the dirt and stuff off of it. The way that most of our chicken and turkey comes from in Canada it's, you know, it comes from a processing plant it's nicely shrink wrapped and it's been rinsed and chilled and processed so there's no need to wash it.
And if you're actually washing it, you're actually increasing your risk of getting an illness because, you know, the water will splash. It'll go everywhere on your counters, on your sink, and it might even splash on yourself, and all of those little droplets of water can contain potential pathogens that you can get sick through. And that's another S, right? So, that's a Separate because you're just spreading water everywhere. You're not containing those microbes that might be in your meat.
Megan: So, if you're preparing chicken and let's say you're roasting it...
Dr. Tamber: Yeah.
Megan: Don't bother rinsing it. Dry it off if you want to...
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, you can dry it.
Megan: Because you want to dry it...
Dr. Tamber: Definitely.
Megan: For other purposes.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, you know, you can... there's beautiful recipes you can rub butter and spices on them.
Megan: Right, yeah, that's all good.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, that's all good.
Megan: You just don't need to wash first.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, there's no need to wash it for sure yeah.
Megan: Okay, the other moment that's scary for me is when I'm preparing food, from like a food safety perspective is, "is the turkey done yet?"
Dr. Tamber: Okay.
Megan: And I feel, you know, we've all had a moment where we might have thought it was done, and then you cut into it, and it wasn't quite done.
Alex: There's social pressure too if you get...
[Laughter]
Alex: No, if you make a dry turkey, right? You get scorn from the family like, "you overcooked this turkey?" Well, it's better than undercooked I guess but...
Megan: Right, you're afraid that you're overcooking it so, you might pull it out a bit early, right? Okay, so, what is the best way to make sure a turkey or meat in general I guess is done?
Dr. Tamber: Well, we have... they're called "safe recommended internal temperatures"...
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: If you go to our website, it's actually our most visited website of the Bureau of Microbial Hazard so, it's canada.ca/foodsafety or you can just Google cooking temperatures...
Megan: Yeah.
Dr. Tamber: So, the recommendation is to take a meat thermometer and put it in the thickest portion of the bird so, usually that's the breast and then you want to be sure that it registers to that internal temperature which for whole Birds is 82° C and you want to check it in a few different spots because you can have, you know, places where the heat will pool and places that it'll dissipate.
So yeah, I would recommend checking the breast in a few different places, and then also check the thigh and the joint where the thigh meets the rest of the bird, I don't know what the technical term is for that...
Megan: Well, that's a good way to describe it.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, just check several different places make sure you're hitting 82 and your turkey is done at that point.
Megan: Okay, let's talk about some other, maybe not so great habits, that people might have. How about not cleaning certain types of fruit so, if I'm eating a certain fruit, let's say I'm cutting into it, and I know I'm only going to eat the inside like a melon or I'm never going to eat the rind, do I need to really clean the whole thing?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, for sure, let me tell you what happens.
Megan: Yeah, tell me what happens
Dr. Tamber: I don't want to scare you but, let me tell you.
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: So, you have your outside of the melon, it's been growing on the ground, and it's been in contact with soil and guess what lives in soil in the billions?
Megan: Bad stuff.
Dr. Tamber: No, not bad stuff, bacteria.
Megan: Oh, good stuff... oh sorry.
Dr. Tamber: No, not good stuff. We're not doing value judgments we're just...
Megan: It's neutral, bacteria is neutral.
Dr. Tamber: Exactly.
Megan: Yeah.
Dr. Tamber: Neutrally fascinating...
Megan: Yeah, love that.
Dr. Tamber: So yeah, you have that on the surface of your melon and then you slice it with your knife, and guess what goes into this interior of your melon through the blade of the knife?
Alex: Oh wow.
Dr. Tamber: Right? So, this is why we recommend to wash your fruit. Is to get all of that gucky stuff off...
Megan: Yeah.
Dr. Tamber: And then when you cut into it with your knife, you're not going to be introducing anything from the outside to the inside so that's another...
Megan: That makes sense.
Dr. Tamber: Example of an S of Separating.
Alex: That's really handy. That's something I would have never thought of. I don't think I've ever washed a melon or a pineapple or any hard...
Dr. Tamber: Really?
Alex: No, because I'm not gonna eat the outside so I don't think about it.
Megan: Yeah, like do I have to wash a pineapple? Do you wash your pineapple?
Dr. Tamber: Well, I'm actually allergic to pineapples so no...
[Laughter]
Megan: Okay, bad example.
Dr. Tamber: But I don't see why not, right? If you get, you know, those produce... it's kind of spiky.
Megan: Yeah, you need a brush to get in there.
Dr. Tamber: You need a brush, right? So, you just get a brush, and you scrub, scrub, scrub and you're good to go.
Megan: I don't want to attack pineapple because I love pineapple.
Dr. Tamber: I've heard it's good on pizza.
Megan: Yeah, I know I'm sorry...
Alex: It's controversial.
[Laughter]
Megan: Yeah, I can't relate... no I'm not into that. What about fruit that you buy at the grocery store that's already pre-prepared? This is a genuine question for me.
Alex: Like the stuff in the trays?
Megan: Yeah, I bought some fruit...
Dr. Tamber: Oh, like fruit salad?
Megan: Yeah, it's already been pre-cut up for you because you didn't want to take it home and cut it up yourself... good to go?
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, the assumption would be that it was washed by the facility that cut it...
Megan: Yes.
Dr. Tamber: And it's ready to eat so, you just open that up and you enjoy it.
Megan: Ready to go.
Dr. Tamber: Ready to go.
Megan: Okay, what about greens that have been pre-washed from the grocery store?
Dr. Tamber: Oh, you mean those bag salads?
Megan: Yeah.
Dr. Tamber: So, yeah, those we don't recommend washing because they've been washed...
Megan: Okay, good to go!
Dr. Tamber: So, I think most of them say on the bag...
Megan: Yeah, I know.
Dr. Tamber: If you look at the bag, they say triple washed, right?
Megan: Yeah, and that's good to go...
Dr. Tamber: Thats good to go.
Megan: That seal of approval from Dr. Tamber if its triple washed.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, just open that bag up and have your salad.
Megan: See I thought that was going to be a bad habit.
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: No, you're doing well.
Megan: Because every time I look at that bag, honestly, when I'm getting something that's already pre-washed or pre-prepared, I think to myself, "should I wash it again?". But I don't.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, don't wash it again. You know what, I think that might be a bad habit that some people have is that they don't read the labels.
Megan: Oh, that's a good tip.
Dr. Tamber: So, always read labels, right?
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: If it says it's washed, don't wash it.
Megan: Right, and if you're not sure if its washed?
Dr. Tamber: If you're not sure, then you can wash it.
Megan: Maybe give it a wash.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, you know, if you see chicken nuggets...
Megan: Yeah.
Dr. Tamber: If the box says raw, then they're raw, take that extra precaution...
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: Of how you're preparing them. Treat them as raw meat.
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: If they say that they're cooked, then you know you have that reassurance that they're cooked, and you can just put them in the oven and cook them according to the directions.
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: But yeah, the labels have so much information so, just read them.
Megan: That's a good tip. Okay I want to go through some myths, if we may?
Dr. Tamber: Alright.
Megan: Some quick food myths. You need to use a produce cleaner? True or false.
Dr. Tamber: Oh, the sanitizer?
Megan: Yeah, I run with a group that uses that a lot and I don't know if that really required.
Dr. Tamber: No, I don't think you do. I think, you know, cold water is good and using a brush. Actually, one of the best things you can do is that rubbing. You know when you wash your hands, you're told to rub. We all learned how to wash our hands?
Alex: Yeah.
Megan: Yeah, we've ingrained that in our minds.
Dr. Tamber: So yeah, just rub your melon, rub your whatever it is and just get all the dirt off. But yeah, you don't need any sprays.
Megan: Okay. But a brush is recommended.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, a brush is recommended for sure and then just toss that in the dishwasher when you're done using it.
Megan: Right, okay you got to clean the brush just like the produce bag.
Dr. Tamber: Exactly, right? Because you want to clean your something with a dirty something because then you're going to make it dirty.
Megan: Okay, here's the most controversial question...
Dr. Tamber: Uh oh.
Megan: of this episode. 5 second rule...
Dr. Tamber: Oh no!
Megan: Real or not? Let's ask Alex first, do you abide by the 5 second rule?
Alex: We were talking about this when we were having prep meetings too, and it really depends on whose floor.
Megan: Yeah, exactly.
Alex: It's the state of the floor for me. If it's like my own floor and I know I've cleaned it recently, I'm okay with the 5 second rule.
Megan: Okay, okay. Sandeep, 5 second rule? For you personally?
Dr. Tamber: Well for me personally, I work in a salmonella lab...
Megan: Well, you're not eating anything off the salmonella floor that's for sure.
Dr. Tamber: I'm dragging salmonella from my shoes.
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: Right? So, for me no because I've been to places...
Megan: A hard no.
Dr. Tamber: I've been to places people.
[Laughter]
Megan: "I've seen things".
Dr. Tamber: But, you know, they have done studies and it's not even 5 seconds. It's pretty much instantaneous.
Megan: Okay.
Dr. Tamber: I agree with Alex. It depends on where you are.
Megan: Okay
Dr. Tamber: And if you have confidence in the cleanliness of the floor and... actually, it's interesting because carpeted floors have a much quicker rate of absorption than just like a hardwood floor or something. So yeah, there is going to be transfer. You've been warned. You know this now and you can go forth.
Megan: What about leftover rice? What kind of... there's a myth that, or maybe it's not a myth, maybe it is true that leftover rice carries a certain amount of food safety risk.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, I love this question.
Megan: Okay good, it's going viral right now on social media.
Dr. Tamber: Oh, is it?
Megan: I don't know why but, that's what exposed me to this idea.
Dr. Tamber: So, the particular type of, and I can do like a super deep dive into the micro, but I probably shouldn't, so I won't. So, the type of bacteria that we're concerned about in the cooked rice it actually makes these things called "spores" and think of these as seeds. So, from these spores, you can get a new bacteria. The danger is when you cook the rice, you're killing off all of the vegetative bacteria, so all of the living bacteria, you're killing that off with the heat, right? But the spores are heat resistant, so they survive.
The danger is as the rice is cooling down, you're getting that nice environment of like 37° human body temperature and that's perfect. We call it "germination". That's perfect for these spores to open up and make little bacteria babies, and then they can make... I believe this particular bacteria makes a toxin so they can make the toxin which causes the food poisoning. That's why the rice is a very risky type of thing to do to keep the rice out at room temperature for too long. That's why you want to chill it as soon as you're done with it.
Megan: Okay, so it's not that you're not allowed to have left over rice, it's just you want to put it in the fridge right away.
Dr. Tamber: You want to cool it down.
Megan: Cool it down first...
Dr. Tamber: Cool it down.
Megan: Then put it in the fridge.
Dr. Tamber: So, a lot of people will cook rice in a rice cooker...
Alex: And leave it there.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, so put it in something shallow, like a shallow tupperware, cool it down, put it in the fridge, and then the next time you want to eat it just heat it up.
Megan: Okay.
Alex: Yeah, well, and it's funny too because it's got to be circumstantial too. If you're having a barbecue and you're sitting it in 30° weather, you probably want to keep it pretty brief how long you're leaving out that charcuterie board...
Megan: That's a very good point.
Alex: But yeah, if it's, you know, you're out having a barbecue in - 30°... I'm just kidding.
[Laughter]
Alex: I have a question too. A lot of it seems like it's habit based, right? We talked earlier about the rinsing the chicken and stuff...
Megan: Yes, good habits.
Alex: And is a good part of food safety, and this is more of an opinion thing I guess about kind of challenging those and thinking about the things you do sort of objectively and saying like, "is this a good habit?" and "why am I doing this?". "Is it just because my parents did it?".
Dr. Tamber: Right.
Megan: Yeah.
Alex: That kind of thing.
Dr. Tamber: Yeah, again let's go to our favorite word mindfulness, right? Why are you doing this? Do you need to do this? Or it's always a good idea to evaluate your habits throughout your life. Actually, it's some people equate risk with chance probability...
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: Like what are the chances I'm going to get sick.
Megan: Yes.
Dr. Tamber: Actually, risk is probability times consequence so, that's going to change throughout your life. If you're pregnant, the consequence becomes much higher because it's not just one life.
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: As we get older, our immune system decreases. The efficacy of our immune system decreases so the consequence of getting sick is higher because chances are higher that you'll have a more severe illness. Something that our audience might not think about is when you're traveling the consequences are higher...
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: Because you're not at home. You don't have your doctor. What are you going to do if you get sick and you're abroad?
Megan: Right.
Dr. Tamber: So, always think about risk as probability times consequence and that can kind of maybe spur you to look at your habits in a new way and whether or not you need to change them or accommodate them to accommodate other people that you might be feeding.
Megan: What is the most common not great habit that you see people doing that's easily corrected in terms of food safety? What is a simple easy thing that people are doing wrong that you could give advice on, or an area for an improvement?
Dr. Tamber: That's a really interesting question. I think in the summer, I see this a lot, and it's when you're barbecuing, and you'll put your meat, let's say you're making burgers, so you'll put your burgers on the grill and then you will use your spatula and you'll flip, right? Your spatula just touched a raw piece of meat. So, what are you using to take your cooked burger off of the grill?
[Audile gasp]
Dr. Tamber: Right? And I see this all the time in the summer so, please use tongs. Go wash your spatula. Get two spatulas. Have a cook one and a raw one.
Megan: Wow.
Alex: You know what I'm so...
Megan: Alex's brain just exploded.
Alex: No, the opposite actually. I'm so glad you said that.
Megan: Oh, really? I've never even thought of that. I'm obviously horrible.
[Laughter]
Alex: I'm really paranoid about that. I have two spatulas for every time I cook with meat...
Megan: Okay.
Alex: And I get kind of made fun of a little bit in my house for doing it.
Megan: Yeah, you could have a raw... do you have a raw spatula and a cook spatula?
Alex: Not assigned but I'll just...
Megan: But you think about it when you're cooking.
Alex: When I start cooking the meat and I'm in the first flip kind of thing then.
Megan: Okay. Even in your chaos that you've already described that you have chaotic family dinners when you're preparing food for others.
Alex: I feel very vindicated now.
[Laughter]
Dr. Tamber: Awesome.
Megan: That's a great hot tip to close on.
Alex: Yeah.
Megan: Thank you, Sandeep. This has been super informative, and I can tell you're extremely passionate about what you do because that obviously comes through. Thanks so much for joining us. We're going to link all of the hot tips, all of the food safety information in our show notes so listeners can access it that way. Thank you so much.
Dr. Tamber: Thank you, thanks for the invitation and thanks for letting me talk about this, I really love it so thank you.
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