Sydney Ross Singer | Food Safety News

From poisoned party to toxic toast: How to get nerve poison out of your food

Sydney Ross Singer — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 04:05:00 +0000

Delicious food should be something you “die for” not something you die from.

There are two sources of poison in your food. One is from the food itself. The other is from the way it is prepared. Even organic food can be poisonous if prepared the wrong way. And overcooking food can literally make you sick.

Many foods can be eaten raw, but others require cooking. You can’t have bread, cake, chips, and fried potatoes without cooking. So what’s wrong with overcooking?

It’s easy to forget that cooking is a chemical process. A recipe book is really a chemical procedure manual. Cooking can breakdown food to make it easier to digest, and it can also creates new chemical compounds that were not in the original food product, depending on the food ingredients, cooking temperature, and time cooked.

Boiling and steaming food at 212 degrees F does not seem to cause any bad chemicals in the process. But bake, fry, roast, and in any other way heat certain foods above 248 degrees F, and poisons begin to form in carbohydrate products. Normal baking temperatures are much higher than this. And processed foods are often heated to higher temperatures during processing.

All grain products, even healthy whole grains, start to form acrylamide when cooked at normal baking, frying, and toasting temperatures. That’s very bad, since acrylamide is a powerful nerve poison, or neurotoxin. What nutritionists tout as “healthy grains” are poisonous if baked or toasted.

According to the National Institutes of Health, in its publication Acrylamide neurotoxicity:

While many researchers believe that exposure of humans to relatively low levels of acrylamide in the diet will not result in clinical neuropathy, some neurotoxicologists are concerned about the potential for its cumulative neurotoxicity. It has been shown in several studies that the same neurotoxic effects can be observed at low and high doses of acrylamide, with the low doses simply requiring longer exposures.

The Database of Hazardous Material states this about acrylamide:

Health Hazard

Classified as very toxic…It is a cumulative neurotoxin and repeated exposure to small amounts may cause serious injury to the nervous system. The neurological effects may be delayed. The symptoms of acrylamide toxicity are consistent with mid-brain lesions and blocked transport along both motor and sensory axons. Individuals with nervous system diseases should not be exposed to acrylamide. (EPA, 1998)

This means that bread, breakfast cereal, cake, cookies, crackers, chips, and all the crunchy, toasted stuff most people love to eat, contain acrylamide. And it also is formed by roasting grains, like coffee and grain-based coffee substitutes. Strangely, due to the way they are processed, California-style black olives, both out of the can and especially after they are cooked, like on a pizza, are very high in acrylamide.

Here is a list compiled by the FDA of acrylamide in various foods.

How much nerve poison is safe to have in your food? It depends on the poison dose and your body’s ability to detoxify from it.

If you are healthy overall, then you can probably withstand food-borne acrylamide in low levels for many years before it possibly catches up with you in old age. Many older people feel numb and tingly feet and hands, a known effect of acrylamide poisoning. Could a lifetime of acrylamide be a cause, or could it be making the cause worse?

What if you already have a nerve problem? You may have Long-COVID, a growing health crisis associated with neurological problems that stem from a COVID-19 infection. According to the CDC, the neurological symptoms of Long-COVID neuropathy include heart palpitations, difficulty thinking or concentrating (sometimes referred to as “brain fog”), headache, sleep problems, lightheadedness, paresthesias (or pins-and-needles feelings), change in smell or taste, and depression or anxiety. There is now speculation that this neuropathy could also lead to dementia.

If you have these problems, then you may be much more sensitive to acrylamide at low doses in your food. It is known that people with nerve problems should avoid nerve poisons. Everyone really should.

Here are some tips to reduce acrylamide in your food:

Eat foods raw, if possible. If cooking, only boil or steam.
Avoid drinks from roasted grains, including coffee and coffee-substitutes. Try tea instead.
Make sure you have a balanced diet including fresh fruits, vegetables, and healthy grains that are boiled or steamed only.
If you do choose to eat toast or a baked product, remember that the darker the crust the higher the acrylamide. Removing the crust of bread and eating the soft interior is better.
Avoid black olives. Green olives are okay.
Tobacco also contains acrylamide, so this is another reason to avoid smoking and second-hand smoke.
Acrylamide is also in cosmetics and creams, and in anything that has polyacrylamide, which breaks down into acrylamide. So even if you lower your food exposure, you need to look at acrylamide sources in other products in your life. It’s in more products than you think.

For a more detailed discussion, see Cooked to Death: How the Acrylamide in Food Causes Nerve Damage and Long COVID.

About the Author: Sydney Ross Singer is a medical anthropologist, author, and director of the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease. He is a pioneer of applied medical anthropology, focusing on the cultural causes of disease.

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Attention, Allergy Sufferers: Beware of Natural Flavors

Sydney Ross Singer — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 06:02:20 +0000

(This article was originally posted here and is reposted with permission.) People with allergies know how important it is to stay away from allergens to which they are sensitive. But what if those substances are in your food and you don’t know it? You can check the food label for certain allergens. The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) requires food manufacturers to list if one or more of the eight major food allergens are in a natural flavor. This includes: milk, egg, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish and crustacean shellfish. But what if you are allergic to less-common allergens, such as citrus or sesame? Are you safe to consume food products if these allergens are not listed on the label? The answer depends on whether the product contains “natural flavors” and what ingredients are in those flavors. While the term “natural” evokes feelings of health and nature, in reality “natural flavors” are typically highly processed chemicals which, by themselves or in combination with other naturally derived chemicals, impart a flavor to prepared food. They are only called “natural” because the original source of the flavor additive is not manmade. According to FDA, “The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” Essentially, anything added for flavor that is not an artificial flavor is a “natural flavor.” And, since food manufacturers do not need to disclose the ingredients of the “natural flavors” added, it can pretty much include anything, even something to which you are allergic. For those with severe allergies, this can turn eating into a life-threatening activity. You can be vigilant in checking for ingredients before you buy a product, but if there are “natural flavors,” you cannot be certain of what may actually be in there. Here are a few tips for the allergic food consumer to consider:

If you experience an allergic reaction and don’t know the cause, add “natural flavors” to your list of suspects.
If you have eaten a product before with no adverse effects, then the allergen to which you are sensitive is probably not in the product. However, keep in mind that stress can exacerbate allergic reactions, so a product that has small amounts of allergens might make you react when you are stressed more than when you are not.
Contact the manufacturer and ask if the allergen of concern is in their “natural flavor.”
Opt for whole foods that don’t include any additives. Whole foods you prepare yourself from scratch are safer than naturally flavored prepared foods.
Be aware that any foods you eat from a restaurant may also contain “natural flavors,” which will not be disclosed on the menu. The allergen of concern may not be in the product description, but it may still be in the ingredients.

The “natural flavor” loophole in ingredient labeling means that any food which lists “natural flavors” as an ingredient is potentially hazardous to sensitive people and should be approached with caution.

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Dishing Up Disease: Food Server Follies

Sydney Ross Singer — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 06:02:10 +0000

(This article was originally posted here and is reposted with permission.) Few jobs are busier than being a food server during peak eating hours. And for many waiters and waitresses, the job includes more than just taking orders and delivering food. It also includes busing tables, taking money to the cashier, and some minor food preparation, such as making desserts or drinks. We expect food preparers to wear gloves and practice appropriate food safety procedures. But food servers don’t wear gloves since they are not expected to touch your food. On the other hand, they do touch your plate, eating utensils, cups, and glasses. And they may have touched these things just after busing a table and touching the same items used by other patrons, some of whom may have been sick. All this exposes the food server to germs, which can be spread to other customers by dirty hands. In the hectic bustle of their jobs, food servers rarely, if ever, take the time to wash their hands between customers and different aspects of their job. Tables need to be cleared of past customer refuse and be prepared for waiting customers, food orders need to be taken (with a pen that is never cleaned), glasses of water and other drinks need to be prepared and served, food needs to be served, desserts need to be made, and checks need to be paid. And this all happens at the same time with customers at various stages of the process. Some customers blow their noses into napkins that are left at the table. The food server who also buses tables will handle these napkins and will also remove the glasses of water left on the table by sticking their fingers into the glasses and pinching them together to carry them. These same servers may then deliver fresh glasses of water to new customers, handling the glasses near the rim where people put their lips. The server also touches the rims of the food plate, which can contact food as the customer eats. Food servers who also make desserts will rarely wash before preparing the food. And I have personally witnessed servers licking their fingers after accidentally touching whipped cream topping. Of course, this usually happens out of sight of the customers. This makes the food server a potential vector of disease. Even if the servers are healthy, their contact with the public exposes them to pathogens which can spread through hand contact. And given the fact that some servers also bus tables, making them part of the clean-up crew, they are in a position to dish out food and disease at the same time. What is a concerned restaurant patron to do? Here are some suggestions:

Restaurants should have dedicated busing staff to avoid contamination of food server hands.
If servers are also busing tables, ask your server if he or she washes their hands each time after busing and before serving.
If the server brings you a glass of water or other drink while handling the glass near the rim, it is a bad sign. Either ask for a straw to avoid touching the rim with your lips, or leave the restaurant. Chances are that if they handle your glass near the rim, then they have little regard for other food safety issues.
Make sure the server looks healthy. Many people work despite being ill.
Restaurant management should remind staff of the need for clean hands and make hand sanitizer available.
The host or hostess should take payment at the end of the meal so food servers don’t touch money. Of course, servers will pick up their tips, but they should wash their hands immediately afterward.
Food servers are the “face” of the restaurant that the customer sees. If you see poor hygiene practices in the wait staff, it is an indication of what might be happening in the kitchen, too. Unless you want to get sick in addition to getting fed, choose your restaurant by the quality of its servers.

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The Snack Attack and Finger Food Flu

Sydney Ross Singer — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 06:02:26 +0000

(This article was originally posted here on Nov. 2, 2015, and is reposted with permission.) We all connect with the world around us with our hands, touching all sorts of objects, surfaces, and other hands, which is why diseases are often transmitted by hand contact. Of course, dirty hands can be washed. The problem is when we don’t wash them and use our dirty hands to deliver pathogens into our bodies by rubbing our eyes, scratching our nose, and then picking up food with our fingers. Finger food is an American favorite. While forks and knives keep our fingers clean of food and the food clean from our fingers, there are lots of favorite foods we happily eat with our fingers. From sandwiches, hamburgers, hotdogs, and fried chicken to chips, nuts, cookies, fruit, and candy, there is usually nothing between the food and your hands, making this a common way for pathogens to enter your body as you eat. All the food preparation safety in the world cannot stop you from getting sick from eating if you use dirty fingers to hold your food. This makes eating finger food a risky behavior, especially during flu season. Sometimes, you have no choice but to use your hands to eat. For example, airlines often serve snacks, such as peanuts or potato chips or small sandwiches, and you are expected to use your hands to eat them. However, after being in pathogen-rich environments like airplanes, finger food becomes a vector of disease. Some snack packaging allows you to avoid touching the food, as with a small box of raisins. You can lift the box to your mouth and pour the food in. But some snack items are pure finger food. For example, how can you eat potato chips without touching the chips with your hands? How can you eat a pickle or hold a hotdog or hamburger without using your hands? Sandwiches are often eaten with dirty hands. The outer covering of bread seems like a wrapper keeping our hands clean of the food inside. But dirty hands can deliver pathogens to the bread and from there to your body. Clean utensils are the best way to avoid food contamination from hand contact. But finger foods are made to be eaten without utensils. How can we have our cake and eat it too without utensils? Here are some suggestions:

Wash your hands before eating. If soap and water are not available, use hand sanitizer.
Hold the food with the wrapper if possible.
For foods such as potato chips, where you can’t just pour the product from the package into your mouth, the food manufacturer can attach a sanitary hand wipe packet to the food package.
If you are really hungry and have no practical way to clean your hands to eat a sandwich, try holding the sandwich in one place only and discard that part.
Don’t forget to wash your hands after eating as well since food left on the hands can feed pathogens and make your hands an even greater threat to your health the next time you eat.

Finger food is fine if your fingers aren’t filthy. A little common sense and good hygiene can help you avoid foodborne illness.

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Hold the Bacteria: Made-to-Order Disease

Sydney Ross Singer — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 05:01:29 +0000

(This article by Sydney Ross Singer was originally posted on his blog Sept. 30, 2015, and is reposted here with his permission.) The next time you are in a sandwich shop or deli where workers make your sandwich in front of you as you select items to be included, check out their hands. According to law, there should be no direct hand contact with your food by the sandwich maker. Hands are dirty and vectors of disease, and food can be contaminated by the worker touching, for example, money in the cash register and then touching your lunch meat. To prevent this obvious source of disease, the law requires such workers to wear gloves to keep hands clean. Here’s the rub: The clean gloves are often made dirty by workers putting them on with dirty hands. I have personally watched employees in different national chain sandwich shops working both the cash register and making sandwiches. The restaurants seemed short-staffed, so the employees were multitasking. After making a sandwich while wearing gloves, the employees then took off their gloves to ring up the last customer and then handled the old gloves with their dirty hands to put them on again to make a sandwich for the next customer. While management should have instructed these workers to wash their hands before putting on their gloves, the reality is that workers who need to repeatedly work with both cash and food would need to wash their hands as often as healthcare professionals. However, these restaurant workers, many of whom have had only a high-school education or less, are not intensively trained as healthcare workers are to wash their hands dozens of times a day. These restaurant workers think of their gloves as ways to keep their hands clean instead of seeing the gloves as ways to keep the food clean. According to a food safety inspector, some workers ignorantly keep the same pair of gloves on for long periods of time, even going to the bathroom while wearing the same gloves, and returning to make sandwiches, still with the same gloves on. Doing so kept their hands clean all day, but who knows how many customers got sick from the sandwiches made by these dirty gloved hands? Here are some ways this easily preventable source of disease can be mitigated:

Restaurant management needs to remind their workers of the need to change gloves frequently and wash their hands thoroughly before handling a new pair of gloves.
There should be dedicated employees working the cash register and those working with food. Having employees doing both increases the chances of food contamination.
While standing in line for the worker to make your sandwich, observe their cleanliness habits as they make other sandwiches and how many other non-food objects they touch with their gloved hands. When it’s your turn, ask the employee to change gloves and wash their hands before putting on their new gloves.
Keep in mind that, however clean the employee’s hands are when they make your sandwich, your hands could be dirty and a source of disease, especially since you have to handle money to pay for your sandwich just before you eat it. Remember to wash or use hand sanitizer before handling your food.

Food safety is only as good as the weakest link, and when it comes to sandwich shops, that link could be dirty money, dirty hands, and dirty gloves.

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Coffee, Tea, or Diarrhea? How to Handle Food on Flights

Sydney Ross Singer — Tue, 05 May 2015 05:02:25 +0000

(This article by Sydney Ross Singer was originally posted on his blog May 1, 2015, and is reposted here with his permission.) Airplane food has been under scrutiny for food safety breaches. But even the best prepared food can become a vector of disease when it is consumed using contaminated hands. Airline travel exposes people to extremely germ-infested conditions, making the inflight meal one of the most hazardous aspects of flying. Besides the exposure in airports to international germs, the aircraft itself is a reservoir of bacteria and viruses. Thousands of people touch armrests and headrests, especially the reclining button. But the most infectious surface is the food tray, which people open and close with dirty hands, sneeze on, eat on, and talk over. Then there’s the bathroom. You certainly wouldn’t want to go there to wash up before eating. You’d probably come back with more germs than before you washed. This environment is ripe for foodborne illness. Even if the food is fine, eating becomes an infectious process. What can a fearful flyer do? Here are some suggestions. The airline can provide disposable hand wipes with each meal. There should be two, one for before you eat and one for afterward. But unless the wipe is bactericidal, don’t expect this to remove more than the visible dirt. Wear gloves in the airport and throughout the flight and remove the gloves only to eat. Wear a separate pair of gloves if you need to use the restroom. Dermatological cotton gloves are comfortable, disposable, and available in drugstores. Bring your own food and drink, including cups. Flight attendants routinely handle the rims of cups as they serve beverages, and they touch everything on the plane. They also have one of the highest illness rates of any profession. To completely avoid the issue of getting sick from eating on a plane, try not eating. This also is a good idea since eating when flying can create uncomfortable intestinal gas and make you need to use the restroom, which is something you want to avoid if possible. But bring your own bottled water to keep from dehydrating, either by buying it, or by bringing an empty water bottle and filling it up, once you’re past the security checkpoints. The best food safety practices can be undone by eating with dirty hands. Hand hygiene, especially in public areas such as airplanes, is key to avoiding infectious disease.

Bacterial Buffet: All-You-Can-Eat Illness

Sydney Ross Singer — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 05:02:45 +0000

(This article by Sydney Ross Singer was originally posted on his blog April 21, 2015, and is reposted with his permission.) Disease prevention specialists warn against shaking hands as a form of greeting since this is a common way people spread disease. Eating at a buffet exposes people to the hands of everyone who came to the restaurant and touched the common serving utensils. It’s like shaking everyone’s hands in the restaurant. Diarrhea, anyone? Or perhaps the flu? Buffets are popular for being self-serve and all you can eat. You can even rummage through each serving platter to select your favorite parts. Unfortunately, the spoon or tong you are using to help yourself is the same spoon hundreds of other hungry people used to get their food. Some of these people just went to the bathroom in the restaurant and did not wash their hands. Others just coughed or sneezed into their hand or blew their noses because of a cold or flu. And few, if any, washed their hands before grabbing the same serving spoon you just grabbed. Then you use your hands to eat, introducing buffet-borne bacteria and viruses into your body. It’s enough to make you sick, and it often does. Food safety officials are concerned about contamination of the buffet food, which is why there is a sneeze guard covering the buffet items. Regulations require that utensils used in food preparation be changed every 4 hours. And if the serving utensils fall into the food, especially the handle, the entire platter of food must be discarded. But regulations do not address the serving spoons and tongs as vectors of disease from public handling. Of course, there are other things we all touch that can spread disease, such as door and faucet handles, especially in public bathrooms. But when you have these exposures in a place where you eat, there is an increased risk of disease transmission. What is the public to do? Here are some suggestions for making buffets less biohazardous: 1. The safest option is for the restaurant to have a server dishing out the food so only that server touches the serving utensils. The problem is this would be like a school cafeteria and turn people off, especially those who want unrestricted self-service. 2. The restaurant can offer disposable napkins at the buffet line for each customer to use to handle the serving utensils. The problem is the napkins can be accidentally dropped into the food, which would require the entire platter to be discarded. And there is the added waste of used napkins. 3. There could be a hand sanitizer available for use at the buffer line. But not everyone would use the sanitizer, so the utensils would still be a source of contamination. 4. Patrons can use their own hand sanitizers before eating. This is a good idea no matter what. Of course, you could also choose to avoid buffets. But for those who enjoy the smorgasbord experience, a little common sense and hand hygiene can help you avoid communicable diseases.