Issue #67 | Immortal Chicken Cells | Ugly Food Fraud | Weird Recalls | Lessons from a Hep A Outbreak |
2022-12-05
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Four surprising facts about cultured chicken
Lessons from a Hep A outbreak
News and Resources Roundup - with three weird recalls
Not for fun: the ugliness of food fraud up close
Food fraud incidents, updates and emerging issues
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Hi food champions,
Welcome to Issue 66 of The Rotten Apple. How did it get to be December already?! We’ve got one unusual food fraud story this week, for paying subscribers, and three weird food safety recalls for everyone.
By the way, if you are one of the wonderful people who became a paid subscriber last week, thank you very much 😊. I use a portion of your subscription fees to pay my wonderful assistant, Jane who helps me put this newsletter together each week and keeps the overwhelm at bay.
My mission this week is to inspire you with the story of how a quick-thinking food safety expert succeeded in limiting the size of a food poisoning outbreak by sharing their knowledge with investigators. This anonymous food safety champion had been paying attention to outbreaks on the other side of the world and used what they knew to get a recall underway quickly. In doing so they saved dozens, or even hundreds of people from getting sick.
Also this week, I share four surprising facts about cultured chicken. We now have access to details of a manufacturing process, straight from the horse’s mouth - so to speak - in a document they provided to the US FDA. What I read in that document surprised me, and it might surprise you too.
Finally, I share a video taken by investigators at a food fraud facility. It’s ugly viewing and a good reminder about the importance of our fight against food fraud. You’ll find last week’s food fraud incidents and horizon scanning news under the paywall. If you haven’t had a peek behind the paywall, why not take a look with our 7 day trial offer?
Have a lovely day,
Karen
P.S. Need more info about paid subscriptions? Click here. Or….
Four Surprising Facts About Cultured Chicken
Two weeks ago, I shared the news that the US FDA had declared cultured chicken meat ‘safe’*, and – exciting! – had published a paper by the manufacturer Upside Food with lots of juicy details about their intended process.
While there were plenty of assurances in the Upside Food document about the safety of the food, I had a few questions after reading it. One question was about risks posed by prions in cultured meat (prion diseases include ‘mad cow disease’). I tried to answer that question in Issue #65.
Here are four more surprises I found buried in the Upside Food document:
1. Chicken cells that make the meat are genetically engineered to make them ‘immortal’
Normal animal cells can only replicate and divide a certain number of times before they start being affected by age-related deterioration (‘senescence’) and finally submit to biologically ‘programmed’ cell death. This limits how much tissue can be made from a group of cells.
Upside Foods says they overcome this limitation by inducing "functional immortality” using either “spontaneous immortalization” or by bioengineering the cells. The spontaneously immortal cells are naturally occurring. However, some types of cells that are needed to make chicken meat do not exhibit spontaneous immortalisation, so genetic amendments are required. The process involves introducing genes that are already part of the chicken genome to the cells to induce functional immortality.
The cells are made ‘immortal’ by adding/activating genes that repair telomeres in the cells and stop them from degrading. Telomere degradation is a key feature of cell senescence.
The immortal cells do not actually get used forever, they have a working lifespan limited by their “observed proliferative capacity”.
2. Residues of culture media in the meat are controlled by “it’s diluted”
Culture media is the nutrient-rich liquid in which the cells are first grown. Some of this carries over into the actual meat. While Upside Food says that “the majority of the ingredients are naturally occurring nutritive substances that are metabolized and biosynthesized naturally by poultry”, it’s not the majority of natural, safe, food-grade ingredients that interest me, but the minority of ingredients that might not be natural or food-grade.
We don’t know what these other minor ingredients are, exactly. But we do know that the manufacturer might use ingredients that aren’t actually food-grade.
Upside Foods says “Culture media aids that are not yet available commercially as food grade will be subject to Upside Foods’ internal quality assurance and food safety systems.” Righto then.
What process is used to prevent these mystery culture ingredients from ending up in the meat? Plain old dilution. The early stages of culturing have fewer cells, the meat-making process has more cells, and the early-stage culture medium is therefore diluted during the proliferation process.
Here’s what the manufacturer has to say about it:
“Through calculation, UPSIDE Foods demonstrates that media components used in the pre-banking stage dilute out to below the threshold of toxicological concern.”
That’s comforting. Maybe. (Find these discussions on page 25 and 26 of the document)
3. Cultured meat production can require a not-insignificant, on-going supply of fresh cow foetuses
and
4. Cultured chicken meat is likely to contain bovine (cow) ‘growth factors’ (hormones)
I'll unpack these two facts next week.
Sources
🍏 Academic sources are linked in the body of the text. The document by Upside Foods is their pre-market notification to the FDA. Find that here: https://www.fda.gov/media/163262/download 🍏
*What I mean when I say it was declared ‘safe’: The FDA says they “have no questions” about the manufacturer’s conclusion that their food is as safe as conventionally produced chicken flesh. Read the full statement in the FDA’s Scientific Memo.
News and Resources
No algorithm, just dedication… a carefully handcrafted selection from around the globe, expertly curated (by me! 😎) and free from filler, fluff and promotional junk.
This week’s news includes three unusual food safety recalls.
Click the preview box below to access it.
Lessons from a Hep A Outbreak
I reckon the Australian government’s response to a recent Hepatitis A outbreak was pretty good, though I might be biased, being an Aussie myself.
What can we learn from the investigation and response?
About Hepatitis A
Hepatitis A is a food-borne illness that causes liver inflammation and jaundice. Severe cases can cause death. It is “highly contagious” and can be spread person-to-person as well as through contaminated food and water. The infectious agent is the hepatitis A virus (HAV). It gets into food through faecal contamination, when people who are shedding the virus in their faeces do not wash their hands properly before handling food. Viral shedding happens even if the person does not have symptoms. The virus is inactivated by cooking but not by freezing or freeze-drying.
An Unusual Food Pathogen
There are three things that make the hep A virus different from most other food-borne pathogens.
The average incubation period for hepatitis A is 28 days. Four weeks! If you get hep A it was definitely not from your last meal.
It takes 4 weeks for symptoms to appear after being exposed to the hepatitis A virus
Hepatitis A is completely preventable. There is a safe and effective vaccine for hepatitis A.
The hepatitis A virus is notoriously difficult to isolate from contaminated food.
The Outbreak, Investigation and Response
Local authorities were alerted to a case of hepatitis A in a person in June 2021. Most cases (74%) of hepatitis A in Australia are acquired overseas, but this person had not travelled.
A sharp-eyed infectious disease specialist knew about an outbreak in England that had occurred earlier that year and that was linked to fresh Medjool dates. The sick person in Australia recalled eating fresh dates.
The virus from the sick person was genetically sequenced and found to be identical to the virus that had sickened people in England.
Soon more people in Australia were showing symptoms of hepatitis A. Their virus matched the genetic sequence of the first Australian patient. When they were questioned about what foods they had eaten, they also reported eating fresh dates. One person was able to recall the specific brand of dates: Medjool.
Australian authorities obtained an unopened box of Medjool dates from an Australian supermarket and tested it. They found particles of hepatitis A virus in the dates.
On 5th August 2021, less than two months after the first illness, the dates were recalled and an importation hold was placed on further imports of dates from the same source. In total, only six people became ill.
Learnings
The government report on this outbreak explains that:
someone within the government health system was aware of the hepatitis A outbreak of a few months prior, in England, and knew that the implicated food in the England outbreak was fresh Medjool dates.
the investigating authority listened to that person, asked the sick patient if they had eaten fresh dates and also got the fruit added to the national epidemiological questionnaire for hepatitis A investigations.
These actions meant that the next few cases could quickly be linked back to the same food. The third patient remembered the brand of dates they had eaten and this allowed for samples of the food to be obtained while they were still in the shops. The recall was initiated in less than two months for a pathogen that has a one-month incubation period.
Prompt recalls dramatically reduce the number of people who are exposed to contaminated food. Only six people were affected in this outbreak.
The report concludes that the international sharing of information about outbreaks was incredibly valuable in this investigation. It also says that
it is good to be able to access genome sequences from other countries, because this can speed up investigations;
minimally-processed foods, including fresh dates, should continue to be regarded as high risk for hepatitis A transmission.
Takeaways
As a food safety professional, staying up to date with food poisoning outbreaks in other countries can help to identify risks in your local food system… knowledge is power.
As a health official, listening to new information and acting quickly to incorporate it into processes like patient questionnaires can limit the size of outbreaks.
As a consumer, eating ‘minimally-processed’ fruits from countries with endemic hepatitis A could expose you to food-borne illness. Hep A is preventable with safe, effective vaccines.
Not for Fun
Food fraud is criminal, food fraud is dangerous to consumers, food fraud is ugly.
This video is a nasty reminder of just how ugly food fraud really is. It was captured in an illegal horse slaughtering facility by Europol and the Spanish Guardia Civil while they were shutting it down as part of Operation Opson XI. The horses were not fit for human consumption but the alleged perpetrators falsified documents including horse passports, which allowed the horsemeat to be sold into the human food supply chain.
Warning, there are distressing scenes of dead horses in this short (1:26 min) video.
What you missed in last week’s email
· GMO foods - which foods are actually ‘out there’?
· Methanol in food fraud, the surprising way it gets into illicit drinks
· Supplement for paying subscribers: Metal Detectors and X-Ray Systems Knowledge Base
· Just for fun: Farming innovations on film
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, incident reports, and emerging issues, plus an 🎧 awesome audio version 🎧 (so you can catch up while on the go)
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
Another ‘Secret Compartment’ Milk Tanker Fraud Has Been Discovered
A man has faced court, accused of adulterating milk during its transportation from dairies to a central milk processing facility. The man owned multiple lorries and investigators found that at least one of the vehicles contained a secret chamber which was used to store water. Prosecutors allege that the water was
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