Issue #80 | Erratum! | Another scary food toxin | Sustainable eating = nutrient deficiencies = uh oh | How hotdogs are made |
2023-02-20
Welcome to The Rotten Apple, an inside view of food integrity for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for weekly insights, latest news and emerging trends in food safety, food authenticity and sustainable supply chains.
Erratum: I had a brain fart when I wrote about botulinum toxin’s heat stability last week
Domoic acid - a potent food-borne toxin that you really don’t want
Food Safety News and Resources Roundup
Sustainable eating = nutrient deficiencies? The respected dietary guidance that forgot women
Food fraud news, incidents and updates
Hello, Happy Monday,
Welcome to Issue 80 of The Rotten Apple.
Last week we had our first live event, with a very small group discussing food safety challenges in our countries. I enjoyed it immensely. One major challenge we discussed is a lack of auditing expertise - this impacts the food industry in so many ways. I also found out that you can make vegan dog treats by injection moulding 🐕!
Our next live event is free training What’s new in food fraud programmes (VACCP) in 2023?, on 13th/14th April (get all the details on our live events page). It would be great to see you there.
This week’s issue starts with a red-faced erratum for a ‘fact’ that I got wrong in the Clostridium botulinum article last week. A huge thank you to Jon 👏 who not only pointed out the error but provided peer-reviewed evidence as well.
Also this week, another fascinating food toxin for you. This one is much less well-known than botulinum. It causes memory loss and other neurological dysfunctions like compulsive hiccupping (wow). I’ve also got some thought-provoking feedback about how a well-respected ‘sustainable’ dietary guideline seems to be short on vital nutrients. So… good for the planet but not actually capable of sustaining human health at a large scale? Which is more important?
Our ‘Just for Fun’ this week is a mesmerising video of hotdog/frankfurter manufacturing (with funky music!).
As always, this issue ends with food fraud incidents and food fraud updates below the paywall. You can check it out - and all the other benefits of a paid subscription - with a free 7 day trial, just click the green button on the paywall.
Thank you for reading, and have a lovely week,
Karen
By the way, 👏 94% of readers say they enjoy this newsletter 😊 I got a lovely message from one of my first paying subscribers today:
“I love what you do. You are my Horizon Scanning tool. I forward your emails to clients as appropriate… Keep up the good work!”
Cover image: CDC on Unsplash
Erratum
In last week’s email, I said that the botulinum toxin is heat stable, which is wrong.
I am so grateful to Jon from Northside Food for pointing this out. The heat stable (non) fact was added during a last-minute edit and I didn't check it, or even include a source like I usually would. What on earth was I doing?!!! Perhaps my (ageing) brain was getting mixed up with Bacillus cereus enterotoxin.
This was really sloppy of me and it definitely shouldn't have happened. Sorry.
Jon kindly did some fact-checking of his own and found that Botulinum toxin type E (the marine type) is inactivated during normal fish cooking procedures. In milk, botulinum toxin type A is inactivated by pasteurisation but one study found type B toxin might be more able to withstand pasteurisation (sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21053906/ and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20363798/).
The long and the short of it is that heating to 100 degrees C will deactivate the toxin.
🍏 You can get in touch with me directly by replying to any of these emails. I read every response 🍏
Domoic acid - a potent neurotoxin (you don’t want this food safety hazard)
No one likes food poisoning…. all that vomiting and diarrhoea. But food poisoning doesn’t just cause gastrointestinal symptoms. Here’s the story of a food-borne toxin that causes food poisoning with very odd - and distressing - symptoms.
When you get food poisoning, you usually experience gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. But in 1987, more than one hundred people in Canada got food poisoning with very unusual symptoms.
These people were experiencing amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) caused by ingesting domoic acid.
In the early stages of the 1987 amnesic shellfish poisoning outbreak, victims typically experienced symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea. However, as the illness progressed, they began to experience more severe symptoms, such as confusion, disorientation, and seizures. Some of them became mute and others began purposelessly chewing or grimacing. A few had hiccups, uncontrolled crying or unexplained aggressiveness.
A key characteristic of ASP is memory loss, which can range from mild to severe. Around one-quarter of victims in the 1987 outbreak reported having difficulty remembering recent events or had trouble forming new memories.
In severe cases, ASP can lead to permanent brain damage or even death. There were three (or four) fatalities in the 1987 outbreak. One survivor developed on-going epilepsy as a result of the intoxication. Five years after the event, some of the victims were still experiencing significant memory loss.
Amnesic shellfish poisoning is caused by the biotoxin, domoic acid, which occurs naturally in diatom phytoplanktons and certain red seaweeds, including Chondria armata.
Diatoms are a type of phytoplankton, which are microorganisms that contain chlorophyll and require sunlight to live and grow. Diatoms float in the upper part of the ocean and can also be found attached to rocks or the seabed, floating debris, or aquatic plants. (Wikipedia and National Ocean Service).
Domoic acid was first recognised as a food-borne toxin in 1987, after the deadly outbreak in Canada. The source of the outbreak was traced to aquacultured blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) which had been contaminated with toxin-containing diatoms at high levels.
Domoic acid doesn’t just affect humans. It has also killed seabirds on the West coast of USA. The seabirds had eaten anchovy fish that had eaten diatoms containing domoic acid. In Mexico, seabirds also died after eating contaminated mackerel.
More than 400 sea lions died in 1998 in California after eating northern anchovies that feed on plankton. The toxin has also been found in crabs, softshell clams, razor clams and scallops. In anchovies, it has been found in the muscle as well as the viscera of the fish (main source: www.fao.org/3/y5486e/y5486e00.htm)
Interesting fact: Japanese islanders once prized seaweed extracts containing domoic acid as a medicinal tonic, including for the treatment of roundworm disease and as an insecticide.
Should you be worried about domoic acid?
As a consumer:
You probably don’t need to be worried about domoic acid as a consumer, unless you are a recreational fisher.
Domoic acid poisoning of humans is extremely rare, even though the toxin has been detected in water all around the world, including in Japan, Italy, Vietnam, Ireland and New Zealand, in animals in America and in seaweed in the Mediterranean sea (source).
Fisheries authorities monitor shellfish growing areas and shellfish for the relevant phytoplanktons and domoic acid, and shut down production/harvest areas if they are detected at dangerous levels.
Fisheries have been closed in Scotland in 1999, Washington State (USA) in 1998 and Spain in 2002 (source) to protect consumers from domoic acid poisoning.
Advice for recreational shellfish harvesters says to avoid eating shellfish from areas where ‘red tides’ of algae are known to occur, and to cook shellfish, discarding the cooking water to reduce the amount of poison that might be ingested (source).
As a food professional:
If your business produces, buys or sells seafood or seaweed, domoic acid should be on your radar and included in your food safety plan.
Domoic acid is a hazard that occurs in a variety of marine foods including microalgae and macroalgae (seaweed), shellfish and finfish. For example, it has been found in a variety of shellfish and in whole sardines in Portugal, sometimes exceeding the regulatory limit, although mostly in the guts of the fish, not the muscle. It can be found throughout the world.
High-performance liquid chromatography or mouse bioassay methods can be used to identify the toxin. Shellfish with more than 20 parts per million of domoic acid are unfit for human consumption (source).
Codex has standards for marine biotoxins in bivalve molluscs (CAC, 2015), but guidance levels for domoic acid in seaweed have not been established (source).
Monitoring is the key to domoic acid prevention because the toxic blooms that cause domoic acid contamination are unpredictable. The toxin seems to only form in dangerous amounts when the diatoms that produce the toxin are causing a ‘bloom’ – that is they are present at unusually high levels in the marine environment. Blooms seem to require certain environmental stressors such as excess nitrogen from pollution, in order to form (source).
If your business purchases shellfish or seaweed, be sure to purchase from reputable suppliers and regulated fisheries; illegally harvested shellfish are at higher risk of domoic acid toxins than shellfish from regulated, monitored fisheries.
Cooking may not be an adequate control for domoic acid toxin, as it is heat-stable.
Domoic acid is a food safety hazard that is expected to become more prevalent due to the acidification of oceans, which favours the growth of diatoms which produce the toxin compared to more benign phytoplanktons (source).
🍏 Suggested resource for food professionals: Marine Biotoxins, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2004) 🍏
Food Safety News and Resources
Click the link below for a carefully handcrafted selection of food safety news and resources from around the globe. It’s been expertly curated (by me! 😎) and is free from filler, fluff and promotional junk.
Oops! The diet recommendations from EAT-Lancet are nutrient deficient – especially for women of reproductive age
The EAT-Lancet commission published their now famous ‘let’s save the earth and humanity’ dietary recommendations in 2019. The diet they propose is designed to reduce the environmental impact of food production.
Just one problem: women of reproductive age somehow got treated as a minority group by the boffins who developed the guidelines. Oops.
According to new research, the diet is seriously deficient in iron and moderately deficient in zinc, calcium and vitamin B12 for women of childbearing age.
The creators of the dietary guidelines, a group of 37 scientists from 16 countries under the umbrella of the not-for-profit Eat-Lancet commission, say their ‘diet’ describes “the first ever scientific targets for a healthy diet and sustainable food production within planetary boundaries that will allow us to feed up to 10 billion people by 2050.”
The dietary guidance is for individuals, businesses and governments and aims to provide targets that can inform plans of action for human health and planetary health.
“[The diet is] symbolically represented by half a plate of fruits, vegetables and nuts. The other half consists of primarily whole grains, plant proteins (beans, lentils, pulses), unsaturated plant oils, modest amounts of meat and dairy, and some added sugars and starchy vegetables.” EAT-Lancet Commission
The creators of the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet said it would provide adequate nutrients for an average 30-year-old adult. But 30-year-old women have significantly different dietary requirements to 30-year-old men. The diet’s creators did not recognise women of reproductive age as a separate population with different nutrient needs, according to the research.
The researchers explained that they decided to check if the diet was adequate for women of reproductive age (aged 15–49 years) because “women of reproductive age represent a large share of the global population” (no kidding!) and this group also has increased iron requirements.
They found that following the diet would result in serious iron deficiencies and moderate zinc, calcium and B12 deficiencies for women aged 15 to 49 years.
Sustainable food production relies on consumers making sustainable food choices. We all want to do the right thing for the environment. But we also need our dietary choices to support human health, as well as planet health. The EAT-Lancet guidelines appear to (accidentally) imperil one for the sake of the other.
Takeaway:
Organisations and people who promote sustainable food systems need to keep an eye on the larger picture, and not disregard nutrient requirements in ‘sustainable’ diets.
Sources:
The dietary guidance: https://eatforum.org/content/uploads/2019/01/EAT-Lancet_Commission_Summary_Report.pdf
The nutrient research: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00006-2/fulltext
Just for Fun – How Hotdogs Are Made
I could watch food machinery videos all day. This hotdog/frankfurter sausage production video is one of my favourites (mesmerizing).
This video is safe for work but has loud funky music, so you might want to hit the mute button first.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
What you missed in last week’s email
· Remarkable botulism, the Putin of food pathogens
· You say cacao, I say cocoa
· Celebrating 20 years of DNA barcoding
· Past issues compilation out now for paying subscribers
· Food fraud news, incidents and updates
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 📌
A naturally occurring fungicide might be mistaken for food fraud in organic food. New research shows that salts of phosphonic acid, which are applied to food crops as fungicides but not allowed on organic crops,
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Rotten Apple to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.