Partnership for Food Safety Education

FightBAC!

Seniors in Michigan Focus on Food Safety

In July, Eileen Haraminac, MS, an extension educator with Michigan State University, responded to the Partnership for Food Safety Education’s offer to BAC Fighters for a Don’t Wing It health fair kit. The kits were mailed out in late August.

Eileen put the kit into action when she partnered with the Macomb County (MI) Community Action Group – Macomb Food Program at one of their food distribution sites – the Centerline Towers Senior Apartments. They brought in the mobile food pantry to distribute fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, bread and other items for the residents.

The event brought out 75 seniors. As the seniors waited in line for the distribution, Eileen gathered them in small groups of 10 to discuss the Don’t Wing It brochure and to have short conversations about the use of the plastic bags at the meat counter. Eileen talked with the seniors about the poultry handling messages and the recipes from Don’t Wing It. She reports that most of the seniors were unaware of the spread of bacteria from rinsing poultry, and she thinks that it was effective to talk with them about the importance of safe minimum temperatures to kill bacteria.

Wake TV Video Collaboration is All About Food Safety

Public health educator Michelle Ricci and her team at the Wake County, NC Communicable Disease Program are always seeking new opportunities to deliver food safety messages to consumers in the county.  They reached out to the county’s communications office about doing a food safety segment for Wake TV — a program that connects visitors and residents to news, services, interviews, and event information. Wake TV programming is available through their YouTube Channel.

The county’s communications office went a step further and offered to produce four short videos on each of the core home food safety practices:  Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill. The four videos use information from FightBAC.org and rely on talented Wake County co-workers as “actors”.  A colleague offered the use of the kitchen in her new apartment and the communication office’s digital media and design services staff filmed and produced the videos. A local Food Lion store manager graciously allowed the office to shoot footage for the videos in his store.

The videos aired on Wake TV at the beginning of August 2017. There are plans to promote the videos on Wake County’s website as part of their September Food Safety Education Month efforts. The videos will also be featured on social media, with special promotion planned for the winter holidays.

Please click on the thumbnail images to play videos.

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Bernadette Cooks Up Food Safety Skills with Her Students

New Hampshire Teacher of the Year Bernadette Olsen teaches food and consumer science (FACS) at the David R. Cawley Middle School in Hookset, N.H. There she helps to grow students’ independent problem-solving skills in food safety and other topics.

She teaches a number of classes to the middle schoolers including the 6th grade Family and Consumer Science Exploratory Class, in which students practice safe and sanitary skills as they complete food lab cooking projects.

In her 7th grade Foods and Nutrition Class, students evaluate scientific information, learn to identify and use reliable resources, and develop skills and techniques to create nutritious, food-safe meals.

Eighth grade students study the effects of various factors on the local and world food supply, and gain an understanding of ingredient functions in the production of commercial food products. Students once again practice food-safe skills in class.

We met Bernadette this summer at the 2017 American Association of Food and Consumer Science national conference, where she was the AAFCS representative for New Hampshire.

In this video that we shot at the AAFCS expo, Bernadette tells us how she uses the Partnership’s  Story of Your Dinner with her weekly special needs class, Buddies Cooking with Peers.

Betty’s Deviance Inspires Community Food Safety

Betty Yaohua Feng, is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis. She presented two sessions related to Positive Deviance at CFSEC2017.

Her research investigates the effectiveness of positive deviance interventions on changing consumers’ safe food handling attitudes and behaviors.

For those unfamiliar with the theory, Positive Deviance is based on the observation that, in every community, there are certain individuals whose uncommon practices (in this case- correct food safety behaviors) enable them to find better solutions to problems than their neighbors or colleagues, despite having access to the same resources.

The goals are to identifying best practices on how to reach these individuals and then to work with these “Positive Deviants” to promote food safety in a community or group.

Betty shares a story from her research:

A few years ago, I piloted the Positive Deviance approach in classes with several different groups of people with diabetes.  The classes covered the importance of food safety in diabetes. “Doreen,” one of the group members, was a 62-year-old woman with Type-2 Diabetes. She had never heard that having diabetes put you at higher risk for food borne illness. This was important news to her.

She attended all of the three group sessions offered.  Doreen shared that before she came to the classes, she never realized that she should wash the apples she brought home from the supermarket before eating them. She was surprised to learn that. Doreen said, “They are so shiny and I only buy from big chains, so I assumed they were clean and ready to eat. I didn’t know they needed to be washed.”

Before and after the series, we gave food safety knowledge pre- and post- tests, and Doreen did very well with the post-test. Before the last session, she asked if I would like to go to her church and present food safety information to her friends and family and community members. This was very encouraging to me, as an educator. It is unlikely that before she attended the classes she would have invited a food safety expert to present information to her local congregation.

Doreen’s positive deviance was influencing her community!

Michelle Finds Birds and Bread Boost Hand-Washing

Michelle Paillou, Environmental Supervisor/Training Coordinator for the St. Louis (MO) County Health Department, is a community education specialist. Her food safety outreach ranges from operators who need a refresher at the “food school” she created, to school age kids and adults.

For grade schoolers to high school students, her presentation revolves around the familiar St. Louis Cardinals and all the food safety steps that have to be taken by the stadium food vendors before it opens.  Michelle says, “Since most of the kids know about baseball, it’s a great way to tie in public health.”

For the youngest students, Michelle talks to the kids about how to wash your hands and why it’s important. In her class, she uses three pieces of bread and asks the kids to touch one of them with unwashed hands, touch another one with washed hands, and one slice is untouched.

She next shows them the “time-lapsed” results, using “pre-treated” bread slices: the slice that was not handled and the one handled with clean hands remain uncontaminated and OK to eat. While the slice handled with dirty hands is covered with bacterial growth and looks, as the kids say, “disgusting”.

Michelle has found that this is a great visual and really makes an impact. She sometime receives notes from students after the class, thanking her for teaching them about handwashing.   Michelle tells us that she leaves them, “Singing the Happy Birthday song and washing their hands!”

 

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