Interview+with+Real-life+contact

1. Q. What makes peanut butter "natural?" A. "Natural" for PB means that it does not contain any additives beyond peanuts and salt (things like sugar or emulsifiers).

2. Q. Is "natural" better for the consumer's health than processed? A. For people that want to limit their intake of sugar, it may be but there is no scientific evidence that "natural" PB is any better for one's health than "unnatural". Much of this in my opinion is a marketing tool to increase profits but some people think it tastes better so it's up to you! Natural PB also needs to be temperature controlled (refrigerated) to maintain its stability.

2. Q. What is the difference between "natural" and "organic" peanut butter? A. As stated above, Natural PB can only contain peanuts and salt. Organic PB means that the peanuts must be grown under a USDA certified organic supervision and conditions - there can be no synthetic pesticides or herbicides applied to the peanut plants or associated growing fields. Only natural (that word again!) chemicals can be applied - manures to fertilize and other very ingenious methods (pheromones to attract certain insects away from the field) to limit insects, rodents and other pests from destroying the peanut crop.

3. Q. What is something one should look for when selecting peanut butter to make sure that it is safe? A. From a food safety standpoint, we need to assume that products being sold into interstate commerce are safe to consume. If not, they would be in violation of FDA and USDA regulations. By a combination of federal oversight and internal industry standards, the United States has an amazing history of innovation and the manufacturing of safe food products. It is unfortunate and tells a story of how inter-connected (many products being used as ingredients in other products) the food industry is. One relatively small company like PCA can pollute a large portion of the food chain. That said, if I were to recommend a selection criteria, it would be to stick with the more popular brands and avoid PB that may be outsourced from another country (somewhat unusual) that may not have the same product safety controls. The recent issues with PCA in January and ConAgra a couple years before are two examples of internal control processes around sanitation and subsequent product safety breaking down.

4. Q. What is salmonella and what does it do to the consumer? A. Some background for you salmonella is called a "ubiquitous organism" - that means it can be found everywhere. It takes a very small number of salmonella cells (only 15 - 20!) to create an acute human reaction and because of the most common symptoms (nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, fever, headache, and severe body aches) the very young, sick or aged are the most frequently affected and have the highest fatality rates. Salmonella has an overall mortality (death rate) of about 10% compared to about one percent for other acute microbiological infections. It generally takes 8 - 48 hours after consuming salmonella in food to begin feeling sick (the time difference depends on one's health, size of salmonella dose, and even specific type of salmonella). The symptoms can last for 2-4 days and can be much, much longer. Salmonella can be found very frequently in raw meats, poultry, eggs, milk and dairy products, fish, seafood, yeast, coconut, sauces and salad dressings, cake mixes, cream-filled desserts and toppings, dried gelatin, peanut butter, cocoa, and chocolate.

5. Q. What caused the salmonella outbreak from peanut butter this past January? A. The specific cause of the outbreak was around poor sanitation practices that were tolerated in the plant. It can get very technical but PCA (Peanut Corporation of America) had very weak programs and did not properly react when they first found a case of salmonella in some tests within their plant. It was made much, much worse because the people running the plant made some bad choices that were based more on making money than protecting their customers from getting sick. Some of these people will rightly be going to prison because of what they did. The only good thing has been that the entire peanut industry (and much of the overall food industry!) have made some very good changes in how they both monitor and control salmonella in their plant environments, and how they as responsible managers and citizens will protect the public. Worrying about being sent to prison may have an effect there too.

6. Q. When people started getting sick from salmonella, who figured out where it was coming from and how? A. This is a great question. Several years ago, we may not have ever figured out the source of the problem but FDA now has a very sophisticated computer monitoring program and relational database that collects information on food borne illnesses from reporting sources at the state and county level around the country. This allowed them to quickly react and start looking at the trends of illness and eventually link the problem back to PCA. In the past, this information may have stopped at only the state level so the linking of illnesses was much more difficult for a problem that was at a national level. It is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) based in Atlanta, GA that is the federal watchdog of the database.

7. Q. What can be done to prevent further salonella outbreaks? A. This is the question that the FDA, USDA, and food and drug industries spend a huge amount of time thinking about! Problems like salmonella are always evolving and there is ALWAYS something new to learn about and control. The answer lies in cooperation and data sharing across all of these agencies and industries. Most major food companies including Nestle' have agreed that new technologies and information that relate to food safety will not be used as a competitive advantage against each other. in other words, we will share with each other anything we learn that can keep the public safe. I work for Nestle so can only speak to our programs but we spend a huge amount of time and money in developing very sophisticated processes that protect our consumers (and for my products for medical use, our patients!). There is far too much to list here but as an example, we carefully control traffic and access to food production areas and constantly verify all parts of plant cleaning and sanitation. We train our people on the importance of product safety and control of salmonella. We test or monitor the critical process attributes from every batch to be sure there is no salmonella (or any other pathogen) present. There must be a close partnership with FDA and USDA and more money must be allocated to these agencies so they can better assist those smaller or new businesses and industries lacking the resources of the larger ones!

8. Q. Are there any other health risks that the public should know about? A. As I noted just above, there is always something new that will come up and surprise us. It may be a chemical like melamine, a new species of salmonella, or something we can't even yet imagine! As an example, Listeria was not a recognized food pathogen to control until relatively recently. Bacteria are always evolving so our best defense is to react quickly to our data as it comes up and change or processes as needed to assure the public's safety and trust. Another way of answering your question is what worries me the most in potential health risks are things that we DON'T yet know about!