I have a strong interest in the details about how we operate our food systems, from planting through dinner. Previously I have written about chemical contamination (PFAS chemicals) and what we can do in our homes (How to clean after food is recalled). Today I look, from a high vantage point, at food sanitation, contamination, and chemical exposure through the eyes of a Facility Manager.
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Food Chain Systems
The USA has a very specific path for general food transportation and storage, as they go from farm to your table as shown in the graphic above. Of course there are variations and lots of specifics related to specific foods that vary from the graphic. Here are some of the details I think of when I see these types of graphics.
- Soil is prepped for farming which may include chemicals for pestisides, insecticides, and fertilizers.
- Food is planted and grow in soil that contains all sorts of bugs, viruses, worms insects, etc.
- Food is harvested by humans by hands or machines, which may or not be clean.
- When harvested, food is collected, initially cleaned, and stored at the farm.
- Then, when minimal load weights or volume is collected, the food is transported to processing plants.
- After processing the food, it is sent to packaging plants.
- Once packaged, food is shipped to end points, or moved to centralized warehousing facilities.
- Eventually, the food is transported to grocery stores for retail sales, or are sold wholesale to restaurants.
- At various points in the process the food is inspected by people who touch, smell and test the food.
- Finally, you buy from those stores and bring the food home for storage and use.
If the food is imported, the number of people who have touched the food can grow significantly to include shippers, many more inspectors, tax collectors, DEA and other state agents, etc. What this process should illuminate, is the many people, vehicles, and storage facilities that the food interacts with before it gets to our plate.
People are the Systems
The current pandemic reminds us daily that people are carriers and spreaders of all sorts of “bugs,“ some of which can cause harm or kill others. With that in mind, it is easy to see that people are everywhere along the food chain. As a result, our body, breath, and fluids (which are full of bacteria, viruses, and all sorts of living, growing and mutating contaminates) touch our food.
- Farm workers plant, maintain, and harvest the food.
- Transportation drivers transport food to various destinations.
- Food processors touch all the food as they are cleaned, chopped, and prepped.
- Food packagers touch all the food as it gets canned, wrapped, and packaged.
- Warehouse people move, inventory, and monitor the food at various storage facilities.
- All along the way inspectors and state agents review, touch, and test the food.
- Then once at its distribution point, there are store workers who inventory, store, and stock shelves; cashiers touch all the packages or food in order to charge the buyer and baggers touch everything too.
- Finally, the restaurant (cooks, servers) or home cooks touch everything as they prep and cook the food.
Again, as we learned from pandemic safety recommendations, all these people need to constantly wear masks, gloves, wash hands, and pay attention to sanitation and contamination. But in reality, they do not.
Food Facility Managers
Areas of Concern
Along this food system, various Food Facility Managers are responsible for the safety of the food in their care. Their job falls into three major categories of food contamination prevention.
- Protect food from normal external pests by maintaining secure exterior of storage, processing or packaging facilities (beetles, flies. mold, mushrooms, mice, rats, birds, etc.)
- Protect food from interior environmental pests or conditions (heat, cooling, ventilation, humidity, etc.).
- Protect food from facility or transportation or processing/packaging sanitation failures.
Contamination + Sanitation
The Food Facility Managers are aware that we live in a natural environment. So their concerns are related to a few, clearly defined areas of concern.
- Exterior landscaping is focused on not inviting contaminants to the area surrounding the facility.
- Exterior building security is focused on preventing contamination entrance into the facility.
- Internal operational + sanitation safety is related to improving sanitation and limiting contamination.
So lets start by looking at food-related facilities, and how they are contaminated.
Facilities: External Issues
Landscaping
Interestingly to me, is that the very animals and insects I want to attract in my yard (back and front) are the very “pests” food facilities are warned to protect against. So what do Food Facility Managers pay attention to?
They cut back landscaping to prevent attracting birds and bees; monitor watering so there is no pooling to provide watering sources, homes, or breeding grounds; pickup landscaping debris (leaves, twigs) to prevent termites and mice from creating homes; and keep trash areas clean to prevent attracting raccoons, and rats. Oh, I almost forgot, they also pay attention to their outdoor lighting so as not to attract nighttime fliers.
So the first line of defense is to prevent attracting the attention of animals that may enter the facility and contaminate the food.
Exterior Vulnerabilities
The Facility Building Manager does not want these “pest” animals attracted to the facility, for any building is never really 100% secure from outside invaders (and I am not just talking about zombies). There are basic weak spots in any building, your home to a food storage facility.
- Animals and bugs climb the nearby tree or large bush and wind up on the roof and can find cracks into the building.
- Ventilation systems have to break the exterior walls to penetrate between the exterior to interior buildings.
- Water pipes penetrate exterior walls allowing ants and others to squeeze in between the pipe and wall.
- Any cracks in exterior walls can allow pest entry .
Maintenance is the least “sexy” and most expensive part of facilities management. But if not done properly, your house or building will invisibly deteriorate rather dramatically, leading to a much more expensive fix required down the road.
Transition Areas
There are transition areas in every building, these are the areas that allow entry and exit from a building. One “opening” that is actually a critical part of food processing is the area where food is received and moved into the building. There is no telling what food has on or in it, as it is brought into the facility. This is a potential trojan horse in many ways.
- Windows, garages and doors also are entry transition systems into a building.
- Catch basins used in food processing plants, are entries into the building
- Elevators and stairs
Facilities: Internal Issues
Okay, so we agree the facility is vulnerable from the outside, and has many ports-of-entry, but once in the facility where do these pests go for food and safety?
Human Messes
Of course pests will go to the break areas, lunch rooms, and internal garbage areas. The whole world-wide rat + mice communities know that where humans congregate there will be food and garbage. This buffet option has been shared with ants, beetles, flies, and cockroaches. Not to mention raccoons, coyotes, bears, and other foragers.
Storage Areas
So food is brought into the facility, but since it cannot all be used immediately, there are storage areas. Well guess what, those areas can become a supermarket to shopping pests.
If the storage areas are not kept at appropriate temperatures, and cleaned regularly, including review of the stored foods themselves, these are also places that can grow mold and even mushrooms. (I actually saw this on one of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmare episodes! OMG the kitchen’s fridge was horrendous.)
Junctions, like between floor and walls, will have spaces that can lead to ants, spiders and other pests. Even drains can make a clear pathway to food for these animals, as can any unkempt parts of the building that may have exposed or rotting wood, or holes.
Food Processing Plants
These areas have special issues since they are processing food. Commonly there are raw ingredients, spills, moisture, and temperature issues.
Processing Byproduct
Equipment used to process foods can contain bugs. In my career in computing, often we have found dead bugs inside computers where there is no food, imagine equipment with food.
Spills often create smells, sticky residue and other attractants for animals. Honestly, it is really hard to keep a work area clean, even harder if the work area is processing food like tomatoes, fruit, veggies and meat. But also, the spillage can attract bacteria, fungi, and other contaminates that can introduce sickening or deadly chemicals into your food.
Wildlife
While animals, or birds in particular, rarely choose to come into our buildings, when they are there they leave droppings, feathers, pests that are on their bodies, all over interior spaces. We have all seen an errant bird in Costco or Home Depot flying around trying to figure out how to leave. I have even had the occasional bird in my office over my working life. In these cases they came in due to clear openings (windows or doors) that they accidentally flew through. I have also seen wasps build a home inside a factory or bees inside wooden house walls.
Chemical Contamination
The NCBI writes that naturally food comes with contamination. This well written reference source is critical to my comments below.
- Several bacteria, viruses, and parasites inhabit the surfaces of the raw food naturally. Contamination of raw food can also occur due to the sewage, soil, external surfaces, live animals, the internal organs of meat animals.
- But also they state, Food contamination from the chemical sources includes the accidental mixing of chemical supplies in food or the chemicals in the animal feed or antibiotic injections given to poultry animals (Martin and Beutin, 2011).
Food Systems Contaminate
Food transport is subject to fuel and pollution fumes as well as disinfectants used to clean the transport containers
Processing the food may add stabilizers, antioxidants, and other additives to extend shelf life.
Modern food packaging always contains chemicals that can migrate into the foods during shipping, handling, and storage.
Environmental Systems
One of the reasons I am hesitant about food from China, and some other countries, is that I have read up on many reports of the environmental contamination they allow or even subsidize.
- In an effort to bring more food to a large and still growing population, many governments skirt food safety considerations for quantity to feed mouths.
- This can lead to unhampered use of chemical pesticides, poisoned water, and unsafe farming practices (1).
- So while it is understandable you want your people fed, these decisions to remove regulations lead to a related and growing expensive and deadly health problem affecting those same people.
Imported Food Problems
Let me look at China to provide an example of what is the case from many parts of the world.
- First I rarely believe the “organic” label of food from certain parts of the world unless they are tagged by an international organization that tests food. China’s industrial agriculture business has been documented as not following good, safe ag practices (1).
- Second, parts of China are known for heavy metals contamination that can seep into food sources, pollution can land on and infuse with tea plants, polluted water can ruin crops like rice (2).
- Third, is the lack of food safety as a priority (3).
Global Pesticide Use
Part of the environmental contamination is the heavy use of pesticides. While often heavy pesticide-laden food is cheaper, I always buy organic if I can, due to this ongoing problem. Again I do not trust certain countries, including big ag in the USA. Those pesticides wind up in us through the natural food chain.
- There are Maximum Residue Level (MRL) laws in the USA, but not in many other countries.
- Even where they exist, if MRL is not enforced, what good is the policy?
Hydro Systems
Our water systems are already in trouble, just with the fact of dwindling resources in a water hungry world; irresponsible water use; and unequal distribution of water resources. This is all made worse with chemical contaminations. Major causes of this contamination are outlined below.
- Agricultural run off
- Manufacturing chemical dumping
- Municipalities draining raw sewage into natural systems
- Fracking
- Mining
- Dumping meds in the toilet or down the drain
- Washing food with contaminated water
- Not washing + disinfecting food storage, transport or processing areas
Protect Yourself + Community
In response to what I have laid out above, here is what I think we can do to ensure safety.
Global Food
- Avoid buying food from countries whose food-related growing, transport, or processing is of concern, or who have severe pollution problems that may affect food.
- Click here: FSN, which reports the top ten countries with worst food violations.
- FoodSafety is a place to find out about recalls.
- If buying international raw food, look for certification that the food meets international safety guidelines, such as certification for “organic” foods.
- Food needs to be intensely inspected for safety at key points in the system, and without exception, by a business-independent organization.
- Treat Farm Workers with dignity shown through providing living wages, paid sick leave, good sanitation stations, and training.
My Community
How to improve food safety in my community involves local governments and local communities.
- Push for water safety in all neighborhoods.
- Push for healthy food stores in all neighborhoods.
- Support those stores who list where the food comes from, so we can select our food with more information.
- Support community gardens that are organic and focused on teaching people about food.
- Start composting to reduce artificial soil additives.
- Support local, minority-owned farms (especially any black-owned farms) and cooperatives, to lesson food’s travel time and limit the number of people who touch your food.
- Support people learning how to shop and cook, grow and preserve food safely.
- Support home mini-farms for food growing including plants, egg-laying chickens and ducks, and bees.
My Wishes for all Families
It is my wish that every home had the following:
- A good kitchen pantry and a good kitchen with enough storage.
- Every house should have solar panels on our houses and added batteries for uninterrupted power to keep freezer and fridges at proper temperatures supporting food safety.
- We should all have access to a program to teach us all how to covert our back yards (or front yards) into food producing land. It would include help to learn how to garden, how to maintain and harvest plants, how to can various foods, how to dehydrate foods and herbs, etc.
- Every house should have a house-wide water filtration system to assure clean drinking water and a rain capture system to assist watering gardens.
My Family’s Fight with Pests
My family already takes many steps focused on food safety. Here is what we do, or should be doing, with regard to natural pest prevention and removal.
- Our major food-related pest is ants who get into our house and pantry cupboards. We use citrus spray, and other more natural ways, to keep ants out of the house.
- Our second biggest pests are pantry moths. These moths wiggle their way into food containers, lay eggs and ruin lots of dried flour, quinoa, and other food. What we did was to remove everything from the cupboards, clean our cabinetry well, dumped out the food and cleaned all the containers. Then, we changed out some of the containers for those with tighter lids and now just swat them each time we find one.
- We brush webs and bugs off the windows, without killing anything and to keep the windows clear of bugs. At the same time, have screens on all windows to help prevent flies in the house.
- For spiders and other animals, we tend to just move them outside.
- We plant food in the yard with the clear understanding that they will be shared with wild animals that live in our neighborhood (birds, squirrels, raccoons, etc.). So we do not use pesticides or kill any outdoor animals due to them eating our plants, not even the gophers or voles.
- We recently repaired and repainted the house to close up any holes leading into the house.
What I Learned?
The biggest thing I learned is that making food safe is a larger problem than any one person can fix. If the food is global in nature, it is even more complicated. What I am reduced to suggesting is that it is more a matter of what mitigation steps we can take to make sure our food is safe.
The second large thing I learned is that we rely on a lot of governments, farm owners and workers, and food-related companies to keep us safe. Which means that if one part of the system is compromised, it all fails and we can get sick or die.
The third item I learned, is just how much we rely on governmental science to test and notify us when food is contaminated, through rigorous testing and recalls. As certain political people are denying science and pushing dramatic deregulation, I worry about interference with governmental agencies ability to keep our food safe and keep us informed.
The fourth and final item learned, is that by law and policy, a certain amount of contamination is allowed in our food. Although, if you take the time to read the list it is a bit off-putting, no matter how small the “foreign matter” may be. At the same time, as I have stated before, we occupy a living world so some things should be expected in our foods whether it comes straight from our garden or from a can.
—Patty
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