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Science Friday > Archives > 1997 > August > August 29, 1997


Food Safety:
It's more than just bad burgers.

Last week's scare over tainted hamburger meat sent the nation into a tizzy. And although companies like Burger King and Boston Market are reassuring customers of the quality of their products, many people are still looking at food products with new suspicion.

The Hudson Foods E. coli outbreak isn't the only food safety problem in the nation, either. Over the past few years, we've seen hepatitis A from tainted strawberries sicken over 100 Michigan schoolchildren, salmonella from mayonnaise made with spoiled eggs poison 250 diners in Greenville, South Carolina, and cyclospora on Guatemalan raspberries sicken almost 1000 people across the nation. And problems continue today.

Officials from the Agriculture Department are still trying to locate the source of the E. coli 0157:H7 bacterial contamination that led to the recall of 25 million pounds of ground beef last week. Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration told consumers to cook Washington State oysters thoroughly before eating them, in order to lower the risks of bacterial infection. The next day, the FDA asked producers of unpasteurized apple juice to warn consumers that they might be at risk for illness if they drank unpasteurized juices.

What do we know about food safety? What can we do in our kitchens to prevent foodborne illnesses -- and what should be done at an industrial or governmental level? Join Ira Flatow as he chews the fat about food safety, on this hour of Science Friday.

Listen to this program in RealAudio!

Guests:

Caroline Smith DeWaal
Director of Food Safety
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Washington, DC

Michael Doyle
Director
Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement
University of Georgia
Griffin, GA

Books/Articles Discussed:

Related links:
The National Food Safety Database
The Bad Bug Book

The FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
The National Center for Infectious Diseases Foodborne Illnesses Page

Food Safety info from Iowa State
The Food Safety Consortium
PostHarvest - what to do with your veggies
Serving Safe Food from the Culinary Arts Institute
The 1997 Food Code