Today, victims of foodborne illness, including mothers and their children, are dropping off lunch bags to Senate offices in Washington, DC and Senate offices in several communities throughout the country. These mock-up lunch bags detail the potential health hazards that may exist in common lunch items such as sandwiches, snacks, berries and juice- foods that caring moms across the country are packing up to send their kids back to school with, and foods that we take for granted as being safe.

 

Is it true – can a person get sick from taking a dip at the community swimming pool? Well – yeah. People have gotten sick after swimming because other swimmers have urinated or defecated in the pool. Sure, no one intentionally drinks pool water. But, it does happen – and when it does, contaminated water has entered a person’s system. Chlorine can only do so much. Hopefully your pool has a policy about swim diapers. I bet if a Certified Pool Operator (CPO) is in charge that it does. The CPO® is to pools what ServSafe® or CP-FS is to retail foodservices – an assurance that the person in charge knows the right way to maintain operations. In one study we did among Iowa pool operators, we found CPO®- run pools had more structure.

 

Farmer’s Markets are popular – each year they increase in number and the products offered. Some even offer take-home meals (of course food is prepared in a licensed kitchen and the appropriate vendor permits are in place) in addition to fresh produce and baked goods. You see, it gets pretty complicated when sorting through the food safety regulations. While there are few regs regarding sale of fresh unprocessed produce, certainly we have had some illnesses from these foods - from tomatoes last year and lettuce in the past. What happens is these foods are grown in the soil (which is a reservoir for some harmful bacteria); irrigated or washed with contaminated water; exposed to pathogens from animals or pets; and/or handled improperly by humans. And because there is often not a kill step by cooking, we eat these products (with high levels of bacteria or viruses) and may become sick. While we can’t really control for the birds flying overhead, there are action steps we should expect from the producer (aka Good Agricultural Practices or GAPs) and action steps we should take.