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Food Safety for Your Family
Thu Mar 6, 7:00 PM ET
KidsHealth.org
http://story.news.yahoo.com
You probably have lots of concerns about the foods you give to your child. Is it a nutritious meal? Will he eat it? Is there too much fat? But one thing that may not cross your mind as you're slicing and dicing in the kitchen is food safety.Why is food safety important? And how can you be sure your kitchen and the foods you prepare in it are safe? Keep reading to find out. Why Food Safety Is Important
Proper food preparations are necessary to prevent the spread of bacteria, such as E. coli, and foodborne illnesses, such as salmonellosis, campylobacter infections , and listeriosis. These preparations include knowing how to select foods in the grocery store, how to store them in your kitchen, and how to clean your kitchen.

In the Grocery Store
The grocery store is your first stop on the way to food safety. To ensure the freshness of your refrigerated items (meat, dairy, eggs, and fish, for example), put these in your cart last. If your drive home is longer than 1 hour, you might want to consider putting these items in a cooler to keep them fresh.

When purchasing packaged meat, poultry, or fish, be sure to check the expiration date on the label. Even if the expiration date is still acceptable, don't buy fish or meats that have any unusual odors or look strange. Ground beef should be red, not any shade of brown; a whole fish is fresh when its eyes are clear, not milky. In the refrigerator, put meat, poultry, and fish in separate plastic bags so that their juices do not get on your other foods. It's also important to check inside egg cartons. You should make sure the eggs, which should be grade A or AA, are clean and free from cracks.

Don't buy:
fruit with broken skin (bacteria can enter through the opening in the skin and contaminate the fruit)
unpasteurized ciders or juices (they can contain harmful bacteria)
prestuffed turkeys or chickens

In the Kitchen
Before you put the groceries away, check the temperature of your refrigerator and freezer. Your refrigerator should be set for 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), and your freezer should be set to 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Celsius) or lower. These chilly temperatures will help keep any bacteria in your foods from multiplying.

The first items you should put away are those that belong in the refrigerator and freezer. Keep eggs in the original carton on a shelf in your refrigerator (most refrigerator doors do not keep eggs cold enough).

Raw meat, poultry, or fish should be cooked or frozen within 2 days. Raw ground meats can be stored in the freezer for a maximum of 4 months; cooked meats can be frozen for a maximum of 3 months.

It's important to refrigerate any leftovers as soon as possible after cooking. If left to sit at room temperature, bacteria in the food will multiply quickly. To facilitate the cooling process, you might want to divide the leftovers into smaller containers. Also, remove stuffing from poultry after cooking and store separately in the refrigerator. Consume leftovers within 3 to 5 days or throw them out.

Follow these handling and cooking guidelines to prevent foodborne illness in your family:thaw meat, poultry, and fish in the refrigerator or microwave, never at room temperature
cook thawed meat, poultry, and fish immediately
throw away any leftover uncooked meat, poultry, or fish marinades cook meat until the center is no longer pink and the juices run clear cook crumbled ground beef or poultry until it's no longer pink use a meat thermometer to tell whether meats are cooked thoroughly - most thermometers indicate at which temperature the type of meat is safely cooked, or you can refer to the recommendations below (place thermometer in the thickest portion of the meat and away from bones or fat)
scrub all fruits and vegetables with plain water to remove any pesticide residue or dirt remove the outer leaves of leafy greens, such as spinach or lettuce

ANTIMICROBIAL TESTING METHODS & PROCEDURES (ATMP)
March 6, 2003
EPA, Office of Pesticide Programs
http://www.epa.gov/oppbead1/methods/atmpindex.htm
The Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for antimicrobial testing methods describe the methods used by the OPP Microbiology Laboratory to determine the efficacy of hard surface disinfectants against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella choleraesuis, and Mycobacterium bovis
BCG. Methods are available for liquid, spray, and towelette formulations. The SOPs were derived from official AOAC (AOAC International) methods. The specific AOAC method is cited in each SOP. The SOP for testing towelette products is a modification of AOAC's Germicidal Spray Products Test
(961.02). In addition to the test method SOPs, which may be downloaded from the ATMP Index, several SOPs which support the testing activities are listed (e.g., SOPs for carrier screening, carrier counts, test microbe maintenance). Copies of those SOP's may be requested from the contacts listed below.
For questions regarding the SOPs, contact : Technical Content: Stephen Tomasino at 410-305-2976 or tomasino.stephen@epa.gov Copies: Luisa Samalot Gaud at 410-305-2984 or samalot.luisa@epa.gov

Heavy Metal Fish
BY NANCY SHUTE http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Fish is good for you. So sushi-lovers in California may be surprised by the new signs popping up in supermarkets. "Warning! Pregnant and nursing women, women who may become pregnant, and young children should not eat the following fish: swordfish, shark, king mackerel, tilefish. They should also limit their consumption of other fish, including fresh or frozen tuna."
The supermarket warnings, mandated by the state attorney general, are the latest effort to reduce the risks posed by mercury, a heavy metal that contaminates almost all seafood. New concerns about its possible role in heart disease and immune system disorders are adding to the well-known dangers of mental retardation and developmental problems in children exposed in the womb. Fish may be superb "brain food," high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, but its benefits, we now find, may come with some perilous costs.
The alarm comes just when plans to reduce the main source of this mercury--emissions from coal-fired power plants--are being scaled back by the Bush administration. At the same time, more and more Americans are heeding the public-health message that eating fish helps combat obesity, heart disease, stroke, and other major ills. Federal agencies are further adding to the confusion by squabbling over how much mercury a person can safely eat. "It's complicated," says Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and professor of environmental health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. "With food safety you're not just talking about toxicity but about nutritional benefit."Toxic food chain. Fish is very nutritious, and mercury is unquestionably toxic. In the 1950s, women in Minimata, Japan, exposed to high levels in fish gave birth to children with grievous birth defects. Since then, it has become clear that even low levels of mercury exposure in women can cause neurological problems in their children, affecting language, hearing, and movement. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) estimates that 8 percent of American women of childbearing age have blood mercury levels that could endanger their children. As a result, over 60,000 children are born each year at risk of lifelong problems, according to the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites). Young children also can be harmed by mercury in the food they eat, because their brains are still actively developing. (The effects of childhood exposure have caused parental concerns about mercury in vaccines, too. Story, Page 44.)Fish pick up methylmercury, a form of the element that binds to the protein in their bodies, from microorganisms in oceans and lakes. As big fish eat little fish, they absorb the methylmercury in their prey. Thus big, old fish such as swordfish, shark, and tuna carry more of the metal than salmon and shrimp. In California, consumer groups tested fish bought from seven stores, including Albertson's, Safeway, and Trader Joe's. Mercury levels in swordfish, tuna, and shark exceeded a statute's draft threshold. A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general in January prompted the new warning notices.It's no small irony that the fish that tend to be most heavily contaminated with methylmercury are also the most expensive. After a patient suffering from hair loss was diagnosed with high methylmercury levels, Jane Hightower, a primary care physician in San Francisco, wondered if the rest of her population of doctors and dotcommers were putting themselves at risk by feasting on sushi and other gourmet fare. In a study to be published in the April Environmental Health Perspectives, she tested 89 patients and found that the majority had blood mercury levels above the Environmental Protection Agency's safety threshold of 5 micrograms per liter; one registered a whopping 89.5 micrograms. "People were ill," she says, with symptoms including fatigue, headache, memory loss, and joint aches. Mercury levels generally dropped after patients abstained from fish for six months.But for most Americans, sushi-grade tuna is not on the menu. Canned tuna, the kind you can get for 39 cents, often is. Each year Americans eat 3.4 pounds of canned tuna per person--far more than any other fish. The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) says that canned tuna usually has about half the mercury of fresh tuna. That's largely because chunk light tuna comes from smaller fish than those used for fresh fish. But in 2000, the state of Florida found that 43 percent of the canned tuna it tested would be questionable under EPA guidelines. Ten states now urge women of childbearing age to restrict consumption to one or two cans a week. (For example, see http://www.doh.wa.gov/fish/Lim itsGraph.pdf.) Conflicting advice. Figuring what's safe is complicated, because it depends on a person's body weight, sex, and age, and also on the amount of mercury in a particular fish, which varies widely. And the government isn't helping much. The FDA allows five times as much mercury in fish as does the EPA; a 2000 report by the National Research Council (news - web sites) backed the EPA's more conservative approach. In 2001, the FDA urged women of childbearing age and small children to avoid eating tilefish, swordfish, shark, and king mackerel (box). But the FDA has so far failed to issue guidelines on tuna and children's consumption, even though its own advisory board asked it to do so last year. David Acheson, chief medical officer for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, says the agency hopes to act by fall. The FDA plans to rely on public education, rather than regulation, to reduce the risk, he says. "Our whole approach to tuna and methylmercury is to make sure that the folks who need to limit their exposure get our message.""The FDA is falling flat," says Jane Houlihan, research director of the Environmental Working Group, which is studying the health aspects of canned tuna. "Canned tuna is very important. It accounts for about half of the mercury in the public's diet." She recommends canned salmon as a cheap and nutritious, low-mercury alternative. Researchers are only now starting to look into how methylmercury exposure may affect people through the life span. Recent studies, including one in last November's New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites), suggest that men with elevated mercury levels may have more heart attacks. Animal studies indicate that low-level mercury exposure may make people more susceptible to autoimmune diseases and other immune problems. Hightower advises her patients to quit eating grilled tuna every single day for dinner and get more variety in their diet. "We're omnivores," she says. "Eat everything, but not a whole lot of anything." She still eats sushi. "But I don't eat it very often."

Which fish is safe?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers mercury levels below 1 part per million acceptable, though it warns against shark and mackerel, too. The Environmental Protection Agency has a lower threshold, about 0.2 ppm.
FISH MERCURY (PARTS PER MILLION)
Tilefish 1.45
Swordfish 1.00
Shark 0.96
King mackerel 0.73
Largemouth bass 0.52
Tuna (fresh or frozen) 0.32
Tuna (canned) 0.17
Salmon 0
Sources: FDA, EPA


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