In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, our hosts Matt and Francine are joined by Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, at the 2024 FDA Retail Food Seminar & IEHA Annual Education Conference.

She is the author of “The Poison Squad”, one of Matt’s favorite food safety books.

Together they explore her outrageous findings from the time before regulations that she shares in the book, as well as ways to make things change for the better.

In this episode:

💩 [00:59] Meet Deborah and “The Poison Squad” book

💩 [03:41] Food in the 19th and early 20th century wasn’t as safe as we think

💩 [08:23] Dr. Wiley, the Poison Squad, and low-dose toxicology

💩 [12:57] The embalmed milk scandals

💩 [17:48] Important regulatory movements in the US and their scandals

💩 [23:01] Good regulations with insufficient funds and little enforcement

💩 [29:06] Francine’s experience as a health inspector

💩 [31:20] How to make a difference and the holes in regulations

💩 [32:44] We’ve come a long way but not far enough

💩 [34:34] The challenges of being an informed consumer

💩 [37:04] The power of cookbooks for education

💩 [41:57] Why our lifespan increased over the last century

💩 [44:07] The “good old days”

💩 [46:23] The ongoing battle against food adulteration

💩 [48:30] Food safety in the future

💩 [50:45] Consumers misdirected anger and Boar’s Head outbreak

💩 [55:19] Revolution by inch

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Learn all about Deborah Blum and her books at deborahblum.com.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Back to your question, ‘How do we make things change for the better?’ We have people like you. We get the word out. We let people know that there are these issues. We don't quit talking about them. Eventually, we get change. It's never as fast as I want it to be. I've come to accept that sometimes you get revolution by inch.” – Deborah Blum

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

We'd love to hear from you!

Connect with Deborah, Francine, Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen? on Amazon!

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Produced by Ideablossoms

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, our hosts Matt and Francine are joined by Patrick Quade, Founder and CEO of Iwaspoisoned.com, at the 2024 FDA Retail Food Seminar & IEHA Annual Education Conference.

They talk about Iwaspoisoned.com, which is a food safety crowdsourcing website. People can come to the website and report a food safety issue, and that data is then used to detect outbreaks, clusters, and trends in real time.

Tune in to hear about the great impact this technology can have in food safety by allowing companies to prevent instead of react to challenges.

In this episode:

💩 [01:28] Meet Patrick Quade

💩 [03:16] How Iwaspoisoned.com came to be

💩 [07:43] Food poisoning reporting and underreporting

💩 [09:56] How Iwaspoisoned.com evolved into a business

💩 [12:14] Concerns around the name Iwaspoisoned

💩 [14:03] How they were able to foresee Chipotle’s series of foodborne illness outbreaks

💩 [17:40] How they deal with inaccurate reports

💩 [22:10] Making it easy to report

💩 [23:31] Study on Norovirus outbreaks and Iwaspoisoned.com reports

💩 [27:07] Iwaspoisoned.com around the world

💩 [28:16] Handling unusual or criminal reports

💩 [30:22] Brand-specific insights

💩 [32:47] Encouraging consumer, government, and industry participation

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Check out iwaspoisoned.com.

You will find the post on LinkedIn that helps explain what Patrick’s B2B company, DineSafe, does here.

Catch up with the episode Matt and Francine talk about a woman charged with murder for allegedly poisoning her ex-husband's family with Beef Wellington: Episode 38.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“We detected the first major Chipotle outbreak in real time, Simi Valley in 2015, and most of their subsequent outbreaks in real time. They lost 10 billion in market cap from top to bottom, from their peak at the start of their string of food poisoning outbreaks to the bottom.” – Patrick Quade

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

We'd love to hear from you!

Connect with Patrick, Francine, Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen? on Amazon!

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, our hosts Matt and Francine are looking into their very own crystal ball and diving into “The Future of Food Safety” on their Keynote at 2024 FDA Retail Food Seminar & Annual Education Conference.

They talk about what golden calves they think are going to die over the next couple decades and why they're going to die with emerging technology and increase in consumers.

As usual, they say what needs to be said regardless of how controversial. So tune in for a very insightful episode.

In this episode:

💩 [01:12] The origins of “Don’t Eat Poop!”

💩 [05:52] Matt’s and Francine’s backgrounds

💩 [08:10] Assessments and data management are going to change

💩 [08:56] Federalism is too complicated for food safety

💩 [12:10] Boar’s Head Listeria Outbreak: questions and lessons

💩 [15:15] Future of accountability in food safety

💩 [17:01] The possibility of getting fired for doing your job

💩 [20:38] Emerging technologies and the demand for food safety data

💩 [25:19] Kitchen robots and the challenges of inspecting them

💩 [28:58] Marketing that doesn’t meet the FDA Food Code

💩 [30:13] The need for food safety in politics

💩 [31:40] Being a health inspector, a thankless job

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Catch up with previous episodes mentioned:

Episode 80 | Don’t Drink Poop! Olympians Swimming in the Seine

Episode 53 | Good Job! You’re Fired. Food Safety: The Industry You Can Lose Your Job by Doing It Too Well

Episode 63 | The Future of the Fast Food Industry and Robot Food Safety (the one about Flippy, the kitchen robot)

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Where we see the future going is not a political issue, but it is a voter issue and consumers are voters. And this is going to be a huge impact. And as congress, as state administrators, and as local councilmen and women start looking at this, they're going to see that it doesn't matter. It is a nonpartisan issue and consumers are going to make a lot of changes over the next decade.” – Matthew Regusci

“We're here, guys. Technology isn't stopping. It's going to continue to go. We're not going to slow it down and they move at a much faster pace than we do. By the time we get there, they're going to be doing something else. And we need to make them care about food safety before they kill somebody. And they're not looking to do that. That's not what they want to do, they just don't understand food safety.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

We'd love to hear from you!

Connect with Francine, Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen? on Amazon!

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms