In Praise Of Coffee

Caption: Go here for an explanation of this cup's artwork.

Image credit: Cujo359

Apparently, it's safe to drink coffee again:

"What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as you want and can," says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. He's even developed a metric for monitoring your dosage: If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of the day. From there, he says, "If you drink that much, it's not going to do you any harm, and it might actually help you. A lot."

Officially, the American Medical Association recommends conservatively that "moderate tea or coffee drinking likely has no negative effect on health, as long as you live an otherwise healthy lifestyle." That is a lackluster endorsement in light of so much recent glowing research.

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like

Well, yes, next to that glowing review from the Institute for Coffee, that AMA endorsement seems downright noncommittal. Still, if you don't like what nutritionists are saying about something now, just wait a few years. It used to be that we had to be concerned about all sorts of things when we were ingesting our java. Now, apparently, folks think it does more good than harm. Must be all those extra ingredients besides caffeine:

[T]hat caffeine is [not the] only mechanism behind coffee's health effects is supported by a small study of 554 Japanese adults from October that looked at coffee and green tea drinking habits in relation to the bundle of risk factors for coronary artery disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes known together as metabolic syndrome. Only coffee -- not tea -- was associated with reduced risk, mostly because of dramatic reductions observed in serum triglyceride levels.

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like

I usually stop at three, or is it six? If it's those little "cups" they mark on the sides of the coffee pots, I guess we mean six. Who knows? I'm just glad I don't have to worry about that anymore. Not that I did...

I'll caution that many of the studies quoted are small, or have a very select group of people in the sample. Correlation doesn't prove cause, particularly when the correlation is seen only in a small group of college students foolish enough to participate in a medical experiment.

As always, a healthy skepticism is in order.

The Colbert Testimony

Yesterday, Stephen Colbert testified to Congress on the conditions migrant workers in this country face. Here's a video of his opening statement:





Taylor Marsh may have put the appearance most succinctly:

Stephen Colbert went to Congress to get attention focused on migrant workers. But he did something else, too. He made a mockery of the Legislative Branch, which so deserved this brilliant comedian’s derision for the feckless institution it has become.

Stephen Colbert: ‘I like talking about people who don’t have any power.’

To me, "feckless" and "congressional" are almost synonyms these days. That line Taylor quoted in her title is one of the most notable ones in Colbert's testimony while being questioned by Rep. Judy Chu (CA-32).

During questioning, one representative asked if Colbert had made a count of illegal aliens while he worked at a farm in New York. Colbert responded, according to ABC News:

Asked by the panel's ranking Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, how many workers had joined him during his day on the New York farm, Colbert replied, "I didn't take a count. I'm not good at math." When Smith asked how many of them were illegal, Colbert replied, "I didn't ask them for their papers, although I had a strong urge to."

Stephen Colbert Takes On Congress, Sarcastically Argues for Farm Workers

A better answer, though, might have been a line that he'd used in earlier testimony "We have two signs at our border. One says 'No Trespassing'. The other says 'Help Wanted'." To me, that's been the crux of the immigration issue for decades, and none of the congressmen harumphing about "illegals" has ever really acknowledged that if there wasn't a demand for this type of labor, then they wouldn't be coming here.

For a brief time in my youth, I did farm work. I can tell you it's a tough way to make a living, and I doubt I could even do it now, at least not for very long. It's physically demanding, and even when the farmers provide decent equipment and make sure to provide sufficient rest breaks and water, it's still arduous work. One of the reasons that immigrant workers are preferred, though, is that their employers can get away with not providing a proper work environment, as this speech by Rep. Chu shows:





She told the story of a migrant worker who died from a preventable case of heat stroke, and how the farmer didn't even call an ambulance. He was fifty-three, one year younger than I am now.

Doing physical labor in uncomfortable positions in 100-plus degree (Fahrenheit) weather for days on end is a tough life. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never done it.

Stephen Colbert has done a public service to bring that to peoples' attention. As David Dayen notes, it's more than "serious" journalists have done for a long time.

For A Limited Time Only ...

Ben And Jerry's Ice Cream has renamed one of their flavors to celebrate the beginning of Vermont's law allowing same-sex marriage:

In partnership with Freedom to Marry we are gathered here to celebrate Vermont and all the other great states where loving couples of all kinds are free to marry legally. We have ceremoniously dubbed our iconic flavor, Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby in support, and to raise awareness of the importance of marriage equality. Check out our press release.

If you live in Vermont, or visiting, you’re invited to celebrate the pride-filled occasion with an all naturally fabulous union of Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream, fudge and pretzels. Enjoy our Hubby Hubby Sundae for the month of September in participating Vermont Scoop Shops!.

To learn more about the issue in your state and take action, visit www.freedomtomarry.org

Ben & Jerry's Hubby Hubby

With all the bad news lately, it's nice to have something to celebrate.

Salmonella Outbreak Ending

Image credit: screenshot from Attack Of the Killer Tomatoes from Badmovies.org

Lately, we've been noticing just how inadequate our food inspection systems are. The latest salmonella tomato infections are a case in point. Three months after the outbreak, we still don't know what caused it:

All we know at this point is tomatoes on the market are safe because there is no way they could be coming from farms that were shipping tomatoes back in April when people first started getting sick.

Tomato Salad for Everyone

In fact, the Food and Drug Administration wonders if jalapeno peppers may also have been a source of infection:

The FDA is now fingering raw jalapeno and serrano peppers as possible - though not certain - suspects. The agency didn't exactly give tomatoes a clean bill of health, but did say they are now determined to be safe.

"I don't think we have all answers yet," said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota who has led some of the nation's largest investigations of food-borne illnesses.

The fallout from the tomato fiasco, which began in April, is the latest in a line of food-safety scares whose damage has been magnified by the difficulty in pinpointing the source of contamination.

Tomato growers accuse the FDA of failing to do control studies interviewing people who ate tomatoes but did not get sick. Those are now under way.

Salmonella scare hit state growers hard

I first became interested in this thing because I couldn't get tomatoes on my omelette one day. If that were the only sort of problem that resulted from this outbreak, then it would have been a laughing matter. Unfortunately, hundreds of people got sick, and the food industry are worried:

The tomato scare may be over, but it has taken a toll — it's cost the industry an estimated $100 million and left millions of people with a new wariness about the safety of everyday foods.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that nearly half of consumers have changed their eating and buying habits in the past six months because they're afraid they could get sick by eating contaminated food.

They also overwhelmingly support setting up a better system to trace produce in an outbreak back to the source, the poll found.

The people who feel that way include the growers.

Poll: Tomato Scare Over, But Fears Remain

Actually, a look at the Gallup organization's own summary presents a somewhat different picture:

While some have expressed frustration in the U.S. government's inability to pinpoint the source of the salmonella, Americans place no less confidence in the government to ensure the safety of the nation's food supply than they did a year ago. Still, confidence remains at a Gallup low and shows no improvement since the FDA added a new "food safety czar" in May 2007.

Despite Salmonella Cases, Americans Confident in Food Safety

The numbers they quote seem to back up that assessment. More than half of consumers changed their buying habits due to news of the infection. This is a sensible thing to do, at least in the short term. While there's been a fairly steady fall in consumer confidence since the beginning of the Bush Administration, there hasn't been a precipitous change. Consumers are not in an outright panic yet, which is what the Fox News quote implied. How many more of these we can go through before that changes is another question. Annys Shin notes:

About all we do know right now is that people are still getting sick, though the number of new cases reported each day is starting to taper off, the CDC said. As of Friday, the case count stood at 1237, with Montana reporting its first case.

Tomato Salad for Everyone

I don't know enough about the current inspection system to say that it's another thing the Bush Administration have broken. But it seems certain that this system needs to be improved. My food buying habits haven't changed yet, but if these nationwide outbreaks continue without the FDA being able to find their source, that will probably change. While the fact that our food is shipped to us from all over the world complicates the search immensely, the technology we have to work with is also improved. We can now identify contaminants by their DNA, and it can be done much more quickly than even a few years ago. Still, as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) notes, it takes time to identify whether a victim of food poisoning is a part of a particular outbreak:

The time from the beginning of the patient’s illness to the confirmation that he or she was part of an outbreak is typically about 2-3 weeks. Case counts in the midst of an outbreak investigation must be interpreted within this context.


Timeline for Reporting of E. coli Cases

Three weeks is a long time for produce to be at a grocery store. As Sen. Richard Durbin notes, though, this is another area where technology offers some hope for improvement:

In Congress, a leading advocate of food safety reforms said the industry would do well to listen to consumers on the need for tracing.

"We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "We've got to work this through with the industry and come up with something that's reasonable. The more confidence consumers have, the more goods they will purchase."

Poll: Tomato Scare Over, But Fears Remain

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and bar codes both provide increased ability to track individual shipments from place to place. Increased use of such technology would help a lot in tracing where infected food came from. More frequent inspections would help determine where there are potential risks of infection.

Not only does food inspection need to be improved here, it needs to be improved in at least some of the other countries we get our food from. Don't forget, even in Florida and southern California, crops don't grow year round. Some of the produce we buy in the winter was grown in another country, and maybe in another hemisphere.

At this point, I think we consumers need to be aware that our food comes from all over the world, that there are natural delays in the process of identifying infections after they've been introduced into the food supply, and that improvements in both prevention and detection are possible. Those circumstances, coupled with the diverse sources of supply available nowadays, means that finding and preventing sources of food contamination are more complicated than ever.

Today In Salmonella

Image credit: screenshot from Attack Of the Killer Tomatoes from Badmovies.org

Since I'm seeing hits on the salmonella outbreak, I'll pass on the latest from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this morning. Tomatoes from these states and countries have now been determined to not be "associated with the outbreak":

Alabama

Arkansas

California

Georgia

Hawaii

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Minnesota

Mississippi

New York

Nebraska

North Carolina

Ohio

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

West Virginia



Belgium

Canada

Dominican Republic

Guatemala

Israel

Netherlands

Puerto Rico


Salmonellosis Outbreak in Certain Types of Tomatoes: June 9, 2008

I've featured the places in bold type that have been added to that list since the FDA's Saturday bulletin on this infection. Those are the changes I've noted, the FDA didn't point this out. No places have been dropped from that list that I can see. That's reassuring, to say the least.

WebMD provided this advice today:

When outbreaks aren't under way, the FDA recommends washing whole, fresh produce before eating it. But during an outbreak, the stakes are too high. Washing tomatoes probably won't get rid of the contamination, so the FDA urges consumers to simply avoid eating the suspect tomatoes.

Salmonella Outbreak in Certain Raw, Red Tomatoes Sickens at Least 167 People in 17 States

By the way, that WebMD article also has a set of photos showing the various tomatoes that are considered safe, and those that can't be considered safe at this time. Take a look if you have any doubts.

UPDATE (Jun. 11): According to both the AP and the Chicago Tribune, Florida has been added to the list of "safe" tomato producing states.

UPDATE 2: U.S. News & World Report says that cooked tomatoes should be OK:

Washing tomatoes doesn't make them safe to eat, Nancy Shute reports. Salmonella doesn't just lie on the surface of plants, so it can't be washed away or killed by sterilizing solutions commonly used in produce processing. But canned tomatoes are fine, and so are fresh tomatoes that have been cooked to the boiling point, since heating past 160 degrees kills pathogens.

Health Buzz: Tomatoes, Diabetes, and Other Health News

Tomato sauce should be OK, but in the case of fresh tomatoes, they need to be from either a "safe" state or one of the varieties of tomato that aren't considered a risk.

For the time being, I'm going to avoid fresh tomatoes unless I know where they came from. That is, I'll do that until they've found the source of the salmonella.

Attack of the Salmonella Tomatoes

[screenshot from Attack Of the Killer Tomatoes from Badmovies.org]

Yesterday, while I was ordering breakfast, the waitress said that they had recalled their tomatoes. I thought she said it was due to a USDA request, but I could be wrong. All I heard for sure was that I wasn't getting any tomatoes on my omelet. Turns out this has been in the works for a bit:

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday issued a broad warning, telling consumers not to eat raw Roma, red plum or red round tomatoes, or products that contain these types of raw red tomatoes unless the tomatoes are from the following places:

California, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico

The FDA will continue to update this list of safe sources here.

Also safe are cherry, grape, and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached.

You Say Tomato, I Say Salmonella

[links from original, of course]

That's a pretty broad warning, alright. Take away that list of places that have been cleared so far, and you still have, let's see here, yep, just about the whole world. Why are tomatoes that still have vines considered safe? I can only guess that such tomatoes haven't been associated with any salmonella cases. Market Watch reports that at least one grocery chain has removed tomatoes from its shelves:

Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. is removing from shelves certain tomatoes following a Food and Drug Administration warning on the link between salmonella and select types of tomatoes, the retailer said Monday. Winn Dixie will destroy the tomatoes after removal and is advising consumers who have already bought these products not to consume them. The move comes after the FDA on Saturday expanded its warning to consumers that a salmonellosis outbreak has been linked to consumption of certain raw red plum, red Roma, and red round tomatoes, and products containing these raw, red tomatoes.

Winn-Dixie pulls some tomatoes on FDA Salmonella warning

The Los Angeles Times adds:

Major supermarket chains including Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons have stopped selling the three kinds on the FDA list. Other types of tomatoes remained for sale, said Brian Dowling, a vice president of public affairs for Vons owner Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif. "It's a precaution."
...
Fast-food chains, including Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp. and Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., have also stopped offering tomatoes.

Salmonella outbreak clears three tomato varieties from many markets, menus

I suspect there will be others, particularly on the East Coast:

Washington-area readers might find it interesting that FDA focused it's Tomato Safety Initiative on the eastern shore of Virginia as well as Florida. Over the past 10 years, the FDA says, most tomato-associated outbreaks have been traced back to the eastern shore of VA.

You Say Tomato, I Say Salmonella

Apparently, this has been a rather widespread outbreak:

Round red tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and red plum tomatoes (oblong varieties) are among the suspect varieties behind a nationwide Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that has sickened at least 145 people since April 16, hospitalizing 23.

Salmonella outbreak linked to some tomatoes

Sfgate reports:

No one has died from the recent outbreak, though at least 23 people have been hospitalized. The majority of the infections have occurred in New Mexico and Texas, but cases also have been reported in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The Contra Costa resident was not identified, but county health officials said Friday she is older than 35, did not have to be hospitalized and has recovered. Investigators are working to determine whether the woman contracted the illness locally or elsewhere. She recently traveled to a state where several other cases have been reported, according a release issued by Contra Costa Health Services spokeswoman Kate Fowlie.

Salmonella outbreak prompts FDA tomato warning

The last paragraph demonstrates why isolating the cause of an outbreak can be so difficult these days. Both the foods and the people who consume them are traveling all over the country.

So, it's probably safest for now to only consume cooked tomatoes, unless you know that the tomatoes came from a part of the world that's been cleared.

For further information, I recommend that you read the FDA release about this issue.

UPDATE (Jun. 10): An update on this issue is here.

A Farm Bill Quandary

image credit: The Pennsylvania State University




Kerry Trueman asks an interesting question related to the upcoming farm bill:

Would you like to see your hard-earned dollars used to conserve precious wetlands and vital habitats, or would you prefer to see that money used to build football field-sized pools of pigshit generated by industrial pork producers?

Action Alert: Don't Let Conservation Buy The Farm

Hmmm, let's see. Pigshit or wetlands? I must have a coin around here somewhere ...

I'm nearly as stunned as Kerry is to discover that a place that's run so cheaply that they won't even pay to get rid of their pig droppings would have financial troubles, but I do know that organic farming hasn't been terribly profitable for the folks doing the work. Yet it appears that at least a few congresspeople want to divert funds from support for organic farming and other conservation measures in order to fund the pig manure pools.

Anyway, read, enjoy, and try not to let it ruin your breakfast.

UPDATE: (May 21) More on this issue Minnesota farm country by Sally Jo Sorenson at MyDD. If you have a congressman who's on the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research, or on the Committee on Agriculture, I hope you'll read these articles and make it clear to your congressman that you support sustainable agriculture. Better still, let them know that you think funding the development of toxic pools of pig crap instead sounds like a really bad (dare I say "stinky"?) idea.

New Farm Bill Looms

image credit: eric at ology.org


Matt Stoller over at MyDD has sent out a call of sorts for people who understand food production, the economics of food production, and food policy. There's a big new farm bill coming down the pike, and my guess, based on the history of these things, is that the agribusinesses are going to get far more out of it than farmers or consumers. Traditionally, these things have been largely interesting to the food industry and Congress, with little attention from the news. As with many of these things, some attention from bloggers could help fill in this gap and make activism more effective. If you're familiar with these things and you want to help out, I suggest you e-mail Matt or sign in and leave a comment.

What's wrong with the way we grow and sell food these days? To start with, as the MyDD article points out, it has a sort of perverse economics where carrots cost more than Twinkies on a per-calorie basis. It's also becoming increasingly clear that the food inspection system needs an upgrade, though I don't remember it being this bad before the current presidential administration took power. The other thing that concerns me is that the current system encourages overproduction, which isn't terribly good for the ecology or for long term use of farmlands.

This is one of those "I'm in a hurry" posts, so I really don't have much to add to this discussion except that I agree with Matt - we all like to eat, and making our food system more responsive to consumers' needs without making farmers' lives worse can only be a good thing.

UPDATE: For some examples of how agricultural policy can affect things like poverty and ecology all around the world, check out "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor" in this month's Foreign Affairs magazine. I'm not sure I agree with the premise that more biofuel production is necessarily bad for the poor, but it does illustrate some of the tradeoffs to any change in our agricultural policy.