Eat to Live: Controls to keep food clean

By JULIA WATSON During a recent trip round Indochina, the food was as much a marvel as some of the local sites. Full of contrasts of flavor and texture, it was wonderfully scented and spiced, easy to digest.

But too often too easily digested. Thank heavens for Imodium. One meal, one tablet and normal service is quickly resumed. My box of the stomach salve was emptier on my return than my tube of suntan lotion. But any disruption to my digestive system was probably more a case of how the food was handled than it was related to the novelty of the diet.

Eating healthily isn't just about watching our diet, it's about washing our hands, chopping boards, work surfaces and knives, keeping food at safe temperatures, and storing cooked meats away from raw meats. Guess the site that harbors some of the greatest quantity of bacteria in any kitchen: the refrigerator door handle.

That wasn't a problem round Indochina. At the street stalls where I ate so seductively there were no refrigerators. And certainly no running water to wash or wipe any kitchen implement or surface. Or those skilled cooking hands.

But eating in the developed world can also present a high chance under certain circumstances that you may become the victim of food-borne sickness.

The American Society for Quality has just released its quarterly Quality Report which finds that increasing the number of food inspections is unlikely on its own to prevent outbreaks of food-borne illness.

The Centers for Disease Control seems to agree. More than half of those illnesses reported, it states, can't be attributed by current diagnostic methods to any specific micro-organism.

If you want to eat on the safe side, you'd better follow the example of potentates and royalty of yore: get yourself a food-taster. Because it's very likely that the cause of any stomach upset may be lurking in the kitchen.

"Improper proper food handling at home and at retail food establishments accounts for more reported cases of food-borne illness than does failure at the processing level," says the ASQ. Still, we should nevertheless act, the ASQ suggests, to reduce problems that occur long before food reaches the kitchen.

These affect the financial wellbeing of providers as well as the physical well-being of consumers. Outbreaks of sickness caused last year by contaminated spinach from Monterey County, Calif., resulted in a 41 percent loss in sales at a value of $77 million. The fear spread to other green salad products, creating a decline in sales of 8 percent, according to the 2006 Monterey County Crop Report.

There are, in fact, two extremely sound food safety systems currently in place to ensure good quality practices to reduce risk of food contamination, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). The latter sets standards to manage potential physical, chemical and microbial hazards in food production developed to keep astronauts from gastric problems in space.

But the trouble is, the FDA does not insist on the official application of either. It's entirely voluntary.

ASQ has identified what it calls "other high-impact actions that experts say can make a major difference." These include regular personnel training on hygiene practices covering cleaning sanitation and maintenance, product handling, effective recall programs and provisions for safe water supply. (Remember the dirty water that dripped from a burst pipe and contaminated bars of chocolate?) Might you have imagined these were already standard practice?

We need to look into the quality standards of corporate suppliers, it recommends, pointing to animals that fell sick eating Chinese pet food. Dreadful what happened to Fido and Fluffy. But -- with different foodstuffs, of course -- could that have been us?

Food inspection, the American Society for Quality contends, does not need to be increased. It needs to be more effective.

"Inspection resources are limited and need to be targeted where they are needed most. Food producers and processors -- domestic and foreign -- that don't comply with federal standards and those dealing with higher-risk food should receive closer evaluation." It also calls for regulatory agencies to increase protection against a deliberate terrorist attack on the safety of our food. Judging by the above, terrorists are the least of our worries.

Spinach is full of iron. If you are still worried about eating it fresh, turn it into soup.

--Cold Summer Spinach Soup

--Serves 6

--2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

--2 pounds fresh spinach, cleaned, stemmed, and chopped

--5 cups chicken or vegetable stock or water

--3 leeks, white part only, finely chopped and well rinsed

--4 cloves garlic peeled and finely minced

--1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

--1 1/2 teaspoon salt to taste

--1 1/2 cups table cream

--freshly ground black pepper to taste

--Put potatoes, liquid and salt in a heavy bottomed pan over high heat.

--Bring to a boil, cover and simmer very slowly for 20 minutes till soft, then add leeks, garlic, and spinach and cook a further 5 minutes.

--Cool slightly, then pour into a blender a quarter at a time and puree till smooth, returning each batch to a clean soup pan.

--When completely cool, cover and chill in the refrigerator.

--Just before serving, stir in the table cream then serve.

LE BUGUE, France, June 25

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