Food fear factor

In an era of tainted products, US inspectors are able to examine only a tiny fraction of imports. What's a consumer to do?

DR. ANITA BARRY, of the Boston Public Health Commission, doesn't care what country her food comes from, or whether it's organic. But she washes all produce carefully. (Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff)

The "Shop the World" grocery aisles may seem like a perilous place these days. Two years ago, government inspectors discovered poisonous tuna steaks from Vietnam. Then came salmonella-tainted cantaloupes from Costa Rica. This summer, it was contaminated peppers from Mexico. And last month, federal authorities reminded consumers to avoid any foods containing milk from China that might be poisoned with melamine - a compound used to make plastics.

This industrial chemical had been found in infant baby formula, killing three babies and sickening some 50,000 in China. Now, traces of it are suspected in some brands of China's exported candy, cookies, and beverages. Boston's inspectors, acting on a federal alert, last month confiscated more than 200 bags of White Rabbit Creamy Candies from five Asian food markets in Boston. Tests results are pending.

What next?

Reassuring news is not around the corner. The federal Food and Drug Administration says it can inspect only about 1 percent of the imported foods it regulates. But the need for safeguards has never been higher; as much as 15 percent of the typical American diet comes from imported foods, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Federal health authorities say tainted food products from all sources sicken about 76 million people a year and kills some 5,000 people annually - more than the number who die from drowning or fires.

Just how should consumers approach their food shopping without resorting to radical, paranoid measures? We asked three Massachusetts food-safety specialists whose jobs put them in regular touch with the latest health alerts and up-to-date studies. Just how do they keep their kitchens safe?

Along with offering practical advice, they remind us that today's food supply overall has never been safer. Although some tainted products will inevitably infiltrate the nation's food supply, the United States acts swiftly to alert the public and find the cause of the contamination, they say.

These specialists also said that distant lands are far from the only source of trouble. One of the worst food-poisoning outbreaks in Massachusetts in the past year originated from listeria-tainted milk produced in Shrewsbury.

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Dr. Anita Barry of Hingham, director of the infectious disease bureau for the Boston Public Health Commission, cares little if the items she buys come from Mexico or Maine, or are labeled organic or conventionally grown.

She focuses on washing all produce thoroughly - including immersing a batch of grapes into a huge bowl of water to make sure all of the skin gets washed. The only time she cares where the fruit or vegetable is from is if there has been a government-issued health alert of that specific product.

She tries to keep a "common sense" approach as she strolls the grocery store aisles. In fact, the main question on her mind is: Where can I get the best bargain today? BJ's? Shaws? Stop & Shop?

But she takes food poisoning seriously, knowing the statistics of the millions sickened each year and having once herself had a gut-wrenching episode after eating what she now believes were tainted crabs. (She recovered relatively quickly, as most healthy people do.) And she believes the main focus of food safety should be what consumers do in their own kitchens.

The 54-year-old wife and mother of two keeps hand-washing soap near the faucet because many food-bourne illnesses originate from germs that travel from our hands to our food to our mouths. She uses only plastic-made cutting boards because wooden ones, she said, can have germ-trapped cracks. She makes sure not to re-use a knife that has been used to cut raw meat - unless it has been washed first to avoid cross-contamination.

Her central advice is to take sensible measures and realize, "Nothing in life is totally risk free."

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When Zach Conrad of Brighton visits the produce section, he looks out for the new mandatory "country of origin" labels. He has good reason.

As a former coodinator at the nonprofit Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., he helped push for last month's implementation of the federal law requiring this labeling for most imported meat, poultry, seafood, and produce. He and others argued that these labels are critical to help consumers and inspectors identify tainted imported items when problems emerge. These days, Conrad is looking at labels to avoid buying anything from China, even nonmilk products, because he thinks the country cannot yet be trusted to monitor food quality.

"I'm really skeptical about anything that comes from China now," said Conrad, 25, now a graduate student in public health and nutrition at Tufts University.

At his apartment kitchen in Brighton, Conrad's refrigerator and pantry is stocked primarily with organic food items based on this belief that today's organic farmers, among other things, take greater care around sanitation and safety issues.

He said he bristles at the expensive, "elitist" reputation of organic foods, though one of his professional goals is to help make organic products more affordable for everyone.

As a bachelor, he said he has the luxury to cater his food shopping to only himself. He meticulously studies what he buys, describing himself as at the "reasonable extreme" of cautiousness.

In general, he said he has a bias in favor of US-grown and locally-produced foods, in part, he said, because it is better for the environment when less energy is spent on food transportation, but also because he has more trust in the American food regulation system than that of any other country.

"I'd much rather choose the US products," he said.

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Inside his apartment kitchen in the western Massachusetts town of Sunderland, David Nyachuba, an assistant professor who specializes in nutrition and food safety at UMass-Amherst, makes sure that he has plenty of one thing: Thermometers.

When Nyachuba cooks meat, poultry, eggs, or fish, he uses a thermometer to make sure the food is cooked thoroughly at temperatures high enough to kill bacteria and viruses. He said beef, for instance, needs to reach at least 160 degrees for 15 seconds. It is equally important to make sure to have a thermometer in the refrigerator that registers below 40 degrees to limit bacterial growth.

Nyachuba, 33, said he teaches these principles - as well as the importance of proper hygiene and avoiding cross-contamination - to cafeteria workers and restaurant chefs who attend his extension school courses about how to maintain safe kitchens that serve the public.

As for his own grocery shopping, he said he buys what he feels like eating, and feels confident that the US food-inspection system will alert the public - through the media - when a problem arises. For now, for example, he avoids Chinese products that contain milk, such as cookies. But he'd buy apples or soy sauce imported from China.

He believes the latest concerns over melamine-tainted products from China are overblown. He said only 4 percent of contaminated food is because of the introduction (accidental or deliberate) of chemicals, such as melamine or cleaning agents. The overwhelming majority of food poisoning, he said, relates to ingesting harmful viruses and bacteria, such as salmonella and E. Coli - and much of this can be reduced with proper cooking and hygiene practices.

Said Nyachuba: "I'm not paranoid, but I'm careful."

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com