By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety Recent news reports regarding the romaine lettuce outbreak have, yet again, raised concern about pathogens in our food supply. In particular, leafy greens continue to show up as a source for outbreaks. Two outbreaks since late fall have implicated romaine and/or leafy greens. In both […]
food borne illness
Basic Food Safety Practices at Home
What made you sick? Is it food you cooked at home? By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH, Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety As winter wanes and we begin to eat more seasonally—perhaps eat more salads, raw fruits and veggies, using the barbecue—it may be a good time to take stock of our safe food preparation skills. […]
Cook Before Eating
By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH, Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety During the holiday season, from Thanksgiving dinner through New Year’s celebrations, people who rarely spend time in the kitchen may be more likely to pick up a cookbook and make some cookies. Or, they may be stuffing their first turkey for Christmas day family dinner. Or […]
How Clean is That Refrigerator of Yours?
By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety The invention of mechanical refrigeration was one of the most important developments in the history of keeping food safe (others include the pasteurization of milk and commercial canning). Ask anyone who has suffered through the aftermath of a hurricane or ice storm without the benefit of […]
Food Safety and Foodborne Illness: There Will Always Be Surprises
By: Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety I took on food safety as a focus of my Extension programming in the early 1990’s: little did I know that for the next 20-plus years my food safety educator life would be full of surprises. Early on, the issues were what a consumer would […]
Oh Nuts!
By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety Eggs, chicken, lettuce, sprouts, and now pistachios. Some readers may think that this association of pistachios with a Salmonellosis outbreak is unusual if not rare. Well, though not likely to be defined as “common,” in recent years a number of outbreaks have been traced to nuts […]