Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Today, we're learning something new. We're diving into food safety, but not in the way you've heard it before. This isn't a class, this isn't a checklist, and this definitely isn't a lecture. This is real conversation about what actually happens between the farm, the kitchen, and your plate.
I've spent 25 years in this industry, and I can tell you, food safety is one of those things everyone says they care about until something goes wrong. And when it does, it's not theoretical anymore. It's real, and it hits hard. So we're building something here, a series of conversations that break this down in a way that actually makes sense with people who live it every day.
This segment is brought to you by Testo North America. You'll start to see where tools, data, and real-world application fit into all of this without forcing it. Today's the starting point, the wake-up call, why food safety actually matters. I'm your host, Carl Fiodini, along with Eric Moore from Testo North America. Let's get into it. Eric, my man, welcome to the program.
Hello, hello.
Chapter 2: How does food safety impact daily kitchen operations?
I'm happy, very happy to be here.
Me too, man. This is really exciting because I feel that food safety is one of the pinnacle topics, not just in food, but in general. I feel like there's a major push when it comes to social media and what people watch and listen to and consume. Food safety is one of those things that sits high in that category. People want to consume and learn about it.
For sure, for sure. And you know what? Oddly enough, the pandemic actually really ratcheted up people's awareness, understanding, and interest in food safety and also to a level like environmental safety, if you will, and being aware of what's going on in your surroundings and things like that. So it's definitely on a lot more people's radar than it was, say, six years ago.
Well, the thing about it is Not everyone understands where it comes from. Is it because it's cross-contamination?
Chapter 3: What common mistakes do kitchens make regarding food safety?
Is it shaking somebody's hand and wiping your mouth? It's so much deeper than that.
It's complicated, but it isn't at the same time, if that makes sense. It's like, I don't know, trying to make biscuits, right? It's not that hard, but it is complicated.
Everything is science. Everything comes down to a science. Listen, last week, a week and a half ago, I got a stomach bug. And I was out of commission for almost 10 days. And I don't know how it happened. I don't know where it came from. I can tell you that it was brutal. And I'm okay now. But I'll tell you, it was, you know, these things make you really...
when you have moments when, when you're not in the pain of it, um, you do some serious self reflecting on, uh, on life.
Chapter 4: Why is consistency more important than intention in food safety?
You know what I mean? It's pretty, it's pretty interesting how it goes down.
Yeah. Hey, let me, let me ask you something. Did you, did you seek medical care when you got sick? Which I'm glad you're better by the way.
Thank you. Uh, as it turns out, I am, um, I'm married to a nurse and, um, my mother-in-law is a nurse and, um, My brother-in-law is a nurse and I'm surrounded by good people that, you know, obviously if I have to go in, I go in, but I was taken care of well.
Obviously, that's awesome. You have good trained medical staff in close support as we go further down the pathway here and we talk. Just keep that in mind, right? Yeah. That isn't unique. Well, it might be unique to be surrounded by so many nurses and medical practitioners for you, but not seeking medical support when your stomach is upset is extremely common.
Chapter 5: What are the leading causes of foodborne illnesses?
And, you know, as our conversation progresses, I'll try to bring that back into the story here.
Well, if I can give you, well, let me say it like this. If I didn't have that support, I don't know that I would have gone. And, you know, I'm stubborn. I'm one of those people. And the reality is for me, it would take a lot for me to just have to go bring myself to the urgent care or emergency room. Most people know if you get too dehydrated, you should, you got to go. You got to get fluids.
I even know that. But I would wait till the very end.
Well, but you're not unique, right? Like the vast majority of, of people, and it isn't just in say like Florida or where I'm at, where I live in Pennsylvania, or it's not a U S thing. It's not a North America thing. It's a person thing, right? Like we just, um, unless we're really typically right.
Chapter 6: How can kitchens improve their personal hygiene practices?
Unless we're like bent over in pain, like to what you were just saying, like, going to get medical help like you'll just gut it out um and it it just that is a um that is is extremely common and that's what like makes like the whole topic of food safety and illnesses related to food and and things like that it makes it like very very complicated to to to put a lot of statistics around.
That's where you'll see, whether it's in literature or even on the news, when news agencies talk about this or run stories about, you know, something that's happening nationally or regionally because of a pandemic because of employees or because of a food recall or something like that. They always talk about estimates.
And the reason for that is that the vast majority of people that start feeling sick out of the blue, they never seek medical attention, right? Their medical attention is a bottle of Pepto-Bismol or some Tums or something like that. And you rest for 72 hours, two days, something like that.
Well, that's the truth. I think a lot of this comes back around. People who are sick tend to still go to work, right? And when you do that, that is what opens a lot of this Pandora's box. Everybody in the business says they care about food safety. But the truth is, what does that actually look like day to day?
Chapter 7: What role does temperature control play in food safety?
Yeah, well, and that is the very polarizing topic, I will tell you, across the industry as well as across the sort of regulatory and industry audiences or world, people going to work sick. And that is a very, very, very challenging topic. Part of it is you're talking about individuals or individuals you know, a family's economic wellbeing. That's just obviously super important.
And it gets, it gets like super nuanced and complicated because, you know, if you're a, if you're a line worker, a line cook, or you wash the dishes, all of which I've done, you know, back at many, many, many moons ago, if you don't go to work, you're not getting paid. And if you're not getting paid, you might not be able to pay your bills.
And if you're not paying your bills, somebody might not eat. And so it's, it's, it's kind of a vicious cycle. It gets very, very, very tricky to, to manage, especially as an employer. It's hard for whether you're a kitchen manager, executive chef, um, single proprietor owner, that gets really hard when, when you're in the thick of it.
Some of the biggest challenges you have E. coli, you have cross-contamination, you have temperature abuse, like a lot of these things, it's a spectrum. When you're talking about food safety, it's not just like one thing. It's a multi-layered category of potential challenges. All right, Eric, in the food industry, there's risk factors and there's layers of them.
Chapter 8: How can restaurant owners ensure food source safety?
What does that look like for the average person, for them to understand that properly?
Great point. Great topic. At a really high level, let me sort of paint a picture. In the United States, and I could actually get into global statistics, but let's just focus on the United States, right? The Centers for Disease Control, they estimate, right? There's that word that I brought up earlier, estimate, because there is widespread underreporting by their estimates.
which are based on historical illness, actual factual data from hospitals and medical providers and things like that. They estimate 48 million people suffer from a foodborne illness on an annual basis, right? 48 million people. That's a lot. It's actually one in, I think if you break it down, it's like one in every six people. six people get some sort of foodborne illness at least once a year.
Of those 48 million, 128,000 get so sick that they need to be hospitalized. Of those 128,000, and again, these are all estimates, 3,000 people are estimated to die every single year from some sort of foodborne illness, right?
And the reason I want to provide that sort of foundational component is that the Centers for Disease Control, along with the FDA, for the last more than 20 years, they've done these very, very in-depth studies. research studies that go in five or 10 year periods where they look at, you know, illness, actual illness statistics, right?
So from people actually going and seeking medical care, they cross-reference those with like restaurant inspection reports and things like that. And the output of that from the first 10 year study of this was they identified five leading risk factors, that were the essential cause of almost all foodborne illness outbreaks. And those risk factors are improper holding of food, right?
So whether it's hot food or cold food, is it within what is classified as a safe temperature? And I'll generalize this, right? For cold food, it's gotta be below 40 degrees in general. And for hot food, depending on where you live in the country, it's either going to be above 140 or above 135 degrees Fahrenheit.
And when you have food that falls within that window, the above, say, above 40 degrees and below 140 degrees, that's called the danger zone. That's where bacteria proliferate very, very rapidly. And that is the leading largest cause of people becoming ill. The next one is personal hygiene. You kind of indicated that just a minute ago, right? People going to work sick.
It also relates to improper hand washing, right? Someone picks their nose. They forget they don't wash their hands. hands, staph is a naturally occurring component inside of your nostrils. And there you go. If you're shedding staph, then you could actually be the root cause of a staph outbreak. Um, inadequate cooking is the third one, right?
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