Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E178
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Francine: [00:00:00] When I started doing inspections and inspecting those machines, Melissa and I got a... Well, Melissa, it was Melissa's drink, and she forgot that she had set it down on a table that we have in a back room, and it literally, the ice turned pink, turned the cup pink around the inside.

Matt: Oh, gro- Wait, what?

Francine: It was a fountain beverage, turned the cup pink on the inside after, it was a day or two, turned the cup pink

intro: Everybody's gotta eat, and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points, from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine Elshaw and Matt Regusci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule: don't eat poop.

Don't eat poop.

Matt: Hello, hello, [00:01:00] Francine. You have something fun for us today, huh?

Francine: I do. So there are, there are some things that I'll eat that I'm gonna say Bill Marler probably wouldn't touch.

Matt: Or a whole lot of food safety people.

Francine: A lot of people. You know, I'm getting older. Sometimes I think it's probably questionable whether or not I should eat it, but I've always felt like, you know, I'm pretty healthy, so it's probably okay.

I'm still pretty conservative about those things, but there are things that I absolutely will not eat. Now, you will cross that line way further than I will.

Matt: 100%.

Francine: Way further than I will. For example, if you're... You know, I don't know if you'd eat this or not, but if you were in the airport, and let's say you were, you just got something to eat, and you dropped it on the floor, a piece of candy.

Would you pick it up and eat it?

Matt: It depends on where in the airport.

Francine: Baggage.

Matt: No. No. [00:02:00] If I was sitting at a seat, or if I was in the United, when I'm, like, in the United club, would I eat a piece of candy off the floor? Sure.

Francine: So what is the difference? Are the people's feet in the United club cleaner?

Matt: There's less of them.

They got other things. There's less of them. There's less. It's, there's, like, a risk analysis that goes into my head when I make these decisions.

Francine: No.

Matt: No, like if I'm sitting at my

Francine: table and- But are you going

Matt: to address bacteria? Less pathogens. Yeah. I, like a risk ana- And i- obviously, if it's, like, a, a candy with, like, a hard shell or something like that versus food dropped on the floor that was not something...

I wouldn't pick up certain food off the floor. Like, a piece of broccoli falls on the floor, that's a low-value item for me. I'm like, "Uh, no, I'm not gonna eat that." But a M&M? Sure, I'll eat an M&M.

Francine: I'm not eating it, period. [00:03:00] I'm not eating it.

Matt: And for those of you who haven't listened to our show since the very beginning, one of our first episodes in the first, I don't know, first few months, was the five second rule.

That would be a good one to go back and listen to. The things that I would eat versus Fritz. We did find one, though. Chocolate. You would pick up chocolate and eat it off the ground.

Francine: No, not in the airport.

Matt: Not in the airport, but at your house you would.

Francine: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And since then I have two Newfound- uh, well, these dogs, the way that I...

Maybe not anymore.

Matt: Okay. These dogs- You get some chocolate hair simultaneously. That's great ...

Francine: two Newfoundlands. If there's hair in my food, I'm done. And these dogs shed to high heaven, which that's really, you're bound to get hair in something anymore at my house, which is sometimes just- Yeah ... ugh. Hair makes me

Matt: Seen as- Yeah

250 pound hair [00:04:00] manufacturing machines.

Francine: Yes. It's Sometimes a nightmare. Okay. Gas station sushi, yay or nay?

Matt: I, it depends. I'm not eating gas station... When you say gas station, are you including grocery stores into this as well, like Kroger and-

Francine: No, no, no, that's Kroger. No. Okay. Not, that's not a gas station.

Matt: Okay, so if I was in Japan, I 100% would eat 7-11 sushi.

Francine: We're not in Japan.

Matt: Okay.

Francine: Yeah. We're in the US right now. This is where our podcast is recorded. If you're driving down a street, Matt, and you pass a gas station, would you... God, I thought I was overly analytical.

Matt: I would eat, I would eat, I would eat a California roll, but I would not eat a rainbow roll. I would not eat raw fish off the top of the

Francine: California roll.

Okay, there's sushi and there's sashimi. Would you eat sushi? The answer, I guess, was no.

Matt: Sashimi is raw fish. [00:05:00] Sushi is like anything, they'll call a California roll sushi. I would eat a California roll at a gas station, a spicy tuna roll or something like that bec- like a spicy California. I'm

Francine: not eating any...

Not doing it either.

Matt: How it's prepared though, it's basically cooked. It's fake crab mixed in... It's, yeah, the risk to me is not high on a California roll.

Francine: Okay,

Matt: so if it's- The risk to me would be very high for sushi, raw fish on top of it. If

Francine: there's raw fish involved, if there is seafood involved, and I know that it's imitation, I know that, I'm not eating it.

No. Oh. I'm just not.

Matt: I totally would. I would eat a California roll from a gas station.

Francine: I do know that there are some of the convenience stores don't make it there. They have it brought in. Yes. They have a commissary kitchen that they make the stuff in, and they- Yeah ... bring it in, which does that increase the risk or not?

I don't know. And no, I'm not eating it. But then again, I've inspected restaurants that legitimately are sushi [00:06:00] restaurants that don't have all the appropriate paperwork for the sushi. So what's the difference? A rare hamburger. So I grew up eating rare hamburgers. My mother ate raw hamburger. She would just take the raw hamburger and she would eat it.

And my husband and I went out to dinner last week. I don't know why this is still a difficult question for me. I do not eat rare burger. But when we go out to eat, when they ask, "How would you like your burger?" I am still so shocked by that question-

Matt: We had it last night ...

Francine: that it takes me a minute to answer the question, 'cause I don't want it burnt to a crisp.

So to say well done is a struggle. But it... Yeah, I'm just so shocked when they ask me that question. My immediate response wants to be rare, because that's how I grew up eating them, but I don't want a rare burger. No, I, no, I'm not eating,

Matt: I don't eat a rare burger

Francine: either Ice from self-serve in a hotel. Do you get ice out of a machine in a hotel?

Matt: [00:07:00] Yes, but not for what you're talking about. I will get ice in a machine at a hotel to chill things. So in the bag, in the thing, will chill things in that ice. Or, or like throwing it in a small ice chest or whatever. I will do that, but I'm not putting it into my drinks from the hotel. Now, I will go down to the lobby if they have a soda machine.

If I want ice in a drink, then I will do it that way. But I'm not a huge ice in the drink type of person. To me, I'm like, it dilutes the drink, it adds risk, it... I don't need my drinks to be super cold, so I tend to not do it anyways But no. Yes, I will use the ice in the hotel by my room, but not for drinks

Francine: I used to get ice all the time.

I prefer fountain soda. Talk about the risk that it adds. When I started doing inspections and inspecting [00:08:00] those machines, Melissa and I got a... Well, Melissa, it was Melissa's drink, and she forgot that she had set it down on a table that we have in a back room, and it literally, the ice turned pink, turned the cup pink around the inside.

Matt: Oh, gro- Wait, what?

Francine: It was a fountain beverage. Turned the cup pink on the inside. After, it was a day or two, turned the cup pink. The bacteria, the mold that I have found, I have pictures that would just... The pictures are insane from what, uh, many of the ice machines look like on the inside. She's like, "Imagine what was in that ice."

I said, "I don't need to imagine what was in that ice." Yeah. Fountain machines, the mold, if you look, especially this time of year, if you look up under the syrup, like where the dispenser is and around the chute, many times you can just see the mold there. It's so disgusting.

Matt: You don't have to use artificial coloring if that's the case.

If you wanted your cup to be [00:09:00] pink, you just have that right mold, and then boom.

Francine: Just let it sit out for a day or two and you're good to go. And, and it comes in all colors, pink, green, brown.

Matt: Yeah, you can look.

Francine: I mean-

Matt: Coke color ...

Francine: Dolly Partners, Dolly Parton's song Coat of Many Colors. This is like mold of many colors.

Pictures. I have pictures of all colors. Okay, so how about a charcuterie board that's been sitting out?

Matt: Okay, so this is, again, how my brain works. So sitting out, that's what a charcuterie board is supposed to be doing.

Francine: All afternoon. All afternoon.

Matt: After an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours?

Francine: All afternoon, I'd say three, four hours.

Matt: Okay. Three to four hours, no. One, two hours, absolutely. I'll eat that charcuterie

Francine: up. Okay, one to two hours. Yeah. All afternoon, no, I wouldn't eat that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't touch it. Cheese, maybe. If they're using tongs and it's hard cheese, then it's maybe. It depends. The cheese, it depends.

Matt: [00:10:00] Yeah, and it also depends on what's on the charcuterie board.

So

Francine: all those- And are we inside or outside?

Matt: Yeah. Yes.

Francine: So there's... Okay.

Matt: Like outside, no. Yeah, no. Inside in, in the... Our charcuterie board has everything on it because my- Grandpa helped create the company called Rapelli, that ended up becoming Brasanto, which is the... If you go to Costco and you see, like, the little, little tiny salami pucks with the cheese, and you can open it up and eat both of those.

He helped found that company, and he was on the board for... up until he passed away last year. So, you know, we have that type of stuff. We have olives. We have cheese. We have everything on the- And I grew up eating charcuterie, so my grandpa, if a charcuterie board lasted for a couple, few hours outside, he would toss it all before anybody else could eat anything else.

So I just took that to heart. He was pretty confident on how long that would last. So, yeah.

Francine: Okay. So how about [00:11:00] milk? One, one day past the best by date. Milk has a sell by date on it. Milk comes with a sell by date.

Matt: Sell by date, right.

Francine: So let's talk about the sell by date.

Matt: One day past I would. One, yes. But one day past the sell by date, my wife is chucking that, but I would.

Francine: Since my father-in-law, if it's sell by date, he's like, "Done. It's good for a week past the sell by date."

Matt: Correct. Yeah.

Francine: So I will use it. Our refrigerator's a good temperature, and I know that. I'll use it clear up to a week past the sell by date.

Matt: Yeah.

Francine: So, yeah.

Matt: Our refrigerator, though, because we have so many people, is not.

It holds temperature great from 10 o'clock at night to about seven o'clock in the morning, and between 7:00 and 10:00, that is being opened and closed, opened and closed, opened and closed all day long. So my wife is like, "No."

Francine: And I just, like, a gallon of milk. Or you probably don't buy just a gallon. You probably buy 20 gallons at a time, so-

Matt: We buy, like, four at

Francine: a [00:12:00] time

that comment. Yeah, see, unless the dogs are opening and closing the refrigerators when we're not here, I don't think they've learned how to do that yet. Ours is not opened and closed that often. So yeah, ours is good for the full week after we purchase it. How about yogurt one month past the date?

Matt: No. One month- Yeah

past the date? No.

Francine: Now, I think usually the yogurt is one of those things that if I was a day past the date, I would still use it.

Matt: Oh, 100%. But again, my wife is like, "No." Anything past that date, my wife is like- We're chucking it. But me, no. But the kids will come to me and be like, "Is this still good?" Like, let me see the date.

Let me give it the sniff test. Let me give it all that stuff. And, 'cause some of it is not really pathogens, it's mold and stuff. So, um, you know, is it funky? Then throw it.

Francine: Okay. So I'm just gonna throw this out here. I know the answer, but you know, some of our listeners may not. [00:13:00] Vegetables on the same cutting board after raw chicken.

Matt: Oh. That adds the most amount of flavor to my fruits and vegetables. No. Chicken doesn't even end up on my cutting board. The only time raw chicken ends up on the cutting board is if I have to cut the chicken up into small little pieces. But even then, I use the plastic ones, and it's right over the trash can, and then we sanitize the hell out of it afterwards.

Francine: So we talked about these before- The counter afterwards ... cutting

Matt: boards.

Francine: And I didn't have any that I liked, and so my daughter-in-law and my son for my birthday got me some real cool cutting boards with the different colors.

Matt: Yes.

Francine: Yes. So I couldn't... Yes. Yeah. So I now have some.

Matt: Yeah. So I'm doing that. I'm giving my kids microplastics.

Um, no, for sure, but rather that over salmonella.

Francine: Yeah. Uh, raw cookie dough.

Matt: Uh, yeah This is where everybody's gonna be like, "Matt, are you serious?" I will [00:14:00] eat a little bit of raw cookie dough when my kids make cookie dough and stuff like that. I will do a little bit just because it is so damn good. It is, it is so good.

Francine: A risk? Is that what you're telling our listeners, Matt? No. No. So I used to, I grew up with my mom letting us lick the beaters. I grew up eating the raw dough. I gave it to my kids when they were little, God forbid, and there's times that I really want to, and it's okay until you put the egg in it. Right. If you eat before you put the egg in it-

Matt: Yes

Francine: but, you know, then you can't add the flour and-

Matt: No, no ... I don't, you know what? I

Francine: eat it after the egg is in it. I don't do

Matt: it all the time. Which is so funny, 'cause what

Francine: I,

Matt: I just said, all the things that I do to keep from getting salmonella on the kitchen, and then, yes.

Francine: And then you eat raw dough.

Matt: One of my dirty pleasures is a little bit of the cookie dough, and I maximize the amount of chips per dough.[00:15:00]

Get the maximum amount of chocolate chips per risk of salmonella.

Francine: Oh, my God. Yeah, I, not gonna lie, there are times that I really wanna eat that cookie dough.

Matt: Oh, I have fulfilled the temptation every single time.

Francine: When did bread dough start causing, or flour start causing E. coli? Like, what?

Matt: Right?

Francine: So we used to...

My daughter loves raw bread dough, and so do I.

Matt: Really? Okay.

Francine: So I used to bake bread. I used to save her the raw, some of the, just a small piece of the raw bread dough. Now that's not even safe anymore.

Matt: You love raw dough.

Francine: Oh, my God, I love it. No. With the yeast and the... Oh, my God, I love it. It's so cheesy. Not

Matt: a fan.

Bread, 100%. Cooked, 100%. Raw bread dough?

Francine: The wooden spoons with cracks, do you use those?

Matt: No. If it's cracked, it's dead. It's done. It's not even for food safety risk, it's just because I'm like, "Ugh."

Francine: [00:16:00] Yes.

Matt: Also, maybe it's PTSD. There were a whole lot of those damn spoons cracked on my butt, so like with that spoon I'm like, "You're going in the trash.

You're done."

Francine: Fries found in the car next morning.

Matt: Fries found in the car the

Francine: next morning? Fries that he left in the car overnight.

Matt: No. First off, french fries that are not hot are disgusting anyways. No. You know, that drives me crazy when my kids, when I say my kids, I mean my teenagers and 20-year-olds, will bring a car and I'm like, "Okay, can I use your car to go X, Y, and Z?"

And they're like, "Only if you don't complain about what's in the car." I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what is in the car?" Because I cannot stand food being left out in the car. And they'll, like, go at night with their friends, and they'll go through a drive-through or whatever, and then they won't throw it away. I'd be like, "The trash cans are outside by the car.

Why can't you just walk 10 steps to the..." Okay, whatever. But no, definitely no. Anything that's been in the car overnight, no. [00:17:00] Disgusting. Yuck. There's no redeeming value. Blegh.

Francine: Bread with one fuzzy spot, cut it off?

Matt: No. Cheese, yes.

Francine: Well, depends what kind of cheese, but-

Matt: Yeah. Yes,

Francine: yes ... and you have to be able to cut the one-inch circumference around that spot of mold, but yeah.

Matt: Yes. Hard cheese, yes. Soft cheese, no.

Francine: Right. I can remember growing up, my mom, my grandma would be like, "It'll be fine. It's, they make penicillin from it. It's off the same kind of mold." But yes, yes. Yes. Wild mushrooms from your backyard. No.

Matt: Oh. I love mushrooms. I am not eating wild mushrooms from my backyard.

That is 100% not true, and I live in Colorado, so who knows? Those wild mushrooms could make me have some sort of psychedelic trip. Who knows what my neighbors are planting or what got loose.

Francine: They can kill you quickly. You grab the wrong mushroom, you... It, like, it's an intoxication. You'd be dead very quick.

Okay. So the dog licked your ice cream. I just knew somebody [00:18:00] that used to share their milk every night with their cat.

Matt: Oh. It's okay to love your cat, but come on, seriously.

Francine: Yeah, but still- That's like- I'm not sharing my food with... No. I'm not letting my dogs eat my food and then eat it with them. Not happening.

Matt: 100%, not happening, and I think it's disgusting, and my kids, they really love our dogs, which is great. It's a great companion relationship thing or blah. But I had the dog would, like, licking their face, and they're like, would open up their mouth, and I'm like, "No, no. Stop it. That is disgusting. Don't do that again ever."

No. Again, it's okay to love your dog, but don't love your dog. That is not okay. Gross.

Francine: So there are... Okay, first of all, I am really weird about eating and drinking after people, period. Oh, yeah. Not gonna happen. There are probably a handful of people that I would eat or drink [00:19:00] after And they're like all one degree away from me.

I just, I am really weird about eating and drinking. And there's one thing I just am not eating or drinking after anybody except maybe... I've gotten maybe a little bit better in the last few years. Ice cream, dairy products. I just think it is so gross to eat or drink like milk and ice cream. I, I don't know why, it's just a thing I have.

But do, do you share ice cream spoons?

Matt: Sure.

Francine: Okay. No. I- But, but you have

Matt: to remember-

Francine: You have a big family. You s- Yeah. You guys are sharing.

Matt: Yeah. And it's, I grew up in a big family, and it was never an issue in my family growing up. And then we have a big family, and it was never an issue with my family. No, whatever.

I'll share anything and then, yeah. If someone is sick, then we kinda lock that down because when someone in our house gets sick and it goes through the whole entire house, [00:20:00] it is two weeks of hell. So I'm like, "Don't share that. Don't share that." But in general, yeah, I have no problem with it, like at all

Francine: A bulging canned food

Matt: This, that is a huge negative

Francine: We bought broth, chicken broth, at a store a couple weeks ago, a week or so ago, and I buy these things and open them.

Tim does not. Tim opened it, and when he opened it, they have that protective seal on the inside. You pull the tab. Yep. There was no tab in there.

Matt: Oh.

Francine: Yes. We bought two of them.

Matt: Was there a tab in both of them?

Francine: It was spoiled. I didn't pick it up off the shelf. I don't, didn't notice. It was... I wish I'd picked it up because I'm sure that the box, it clearly wasn't good, so I'm sure the box was probably [00:21:00] not.

Typically, those boxes are kind of sunken in. They're... The box was probably bloated. I would probably just notice it when I picked it up because you handle the things. It's like when you collect money at cash register, if something doesn't feel right, you notice it immediately because you collect so much of it.

It's like if you, you drop a coin in a cash drawer and it's silver, you notice as soon as it hits the change that it sounded different because it didn't sound like everything else that hits the drawer. When you handle so much, you just notice it. So when I picked it up, I probably would've noticed that it didn't feel right.

He wouldn't have because he doesn't, he just doesn't grab things like that.

Matt: That is the type of perception that is leaps and bounds above me. So that is fascinating. I wouldn't either. Here's the issue, though, and you're, like, saying when things are bloated. You aren't at sea level. You're at an altitude of, what, 1,000?

Francine: I don't know. [00:22:00]

Matt: I am in Colorado Springs, okay? So if I did not purchase anything at the grocery store because it was bloated Half the items would, in a grocery store would, would cease to exist to be ... Because if nobody's been to the Front Range of... And this was something I had to, like, learn. Because I went from the coast of California to the Front Range of Colorado, and the pressure here is so much different than in California.

And so bags of chips are 100% bloated. They're huge. The first thing that we, like, went to a- we went to... When we moved in Colorado, we didn't have everything set up in our kitchen, we didn't have a lot of stuff, so we're, like, eating out every day. And we went to Chick-fil-A, and I opened up a ranch packet for one of my kids, and quarter of the contents of the ranch packet splattered all over my shirt because it's so [00:23:00] pressurized.

And then somebody sitting next to us was like, "Oh, are you not from around here?" And I'm like, "No, I am not. I am now, but I'm not. I have not been." And they're like, "Oh yeah, you wanna open up the ranch slowly and away from you." There's techniques here in Colorado for that. Yeah. Everything is expanded.

Francine: We're at, like, less than 900 feet-

Matt: Yeah

Francine: above sea level. Fun fact, when we do inspections, that's one of the things that we look at for spoilage is bloating. Like, lids and not just cans, but the tops of lids, because we don't have that problem.

Matt: Yeah, we totally do.

Francine: Yeah. Yeah. So-

Matt: Not

Francine: in canned food,

Matt: though.

Francine: I'm sure- ... clearly out there aren't... things out there, inspectors out there aren't looking for bloated lids or anything like that.

So wow, that was fun. It

Matt: was fun. Is that the end of your list?

Francine: Well, oh, no, the list is, like, incredibly [00:24:00] long. We don't... I mean, you wanna do more?

Matt: No, I think we're good. We should do another one of then if we should go more. I think I failed this test. I failed this.

Francine: How about Chinese food that's been in the refrigerator for eight days?

Matt: No.

Francine: Yeah, no, me neither. I'm not eating it after, like, a day. Even though the

Matt: MSG probably preserved it. No, not after eight days. After a few days, though, but, but okay- Chinese food does not last more than a couple days in our house. When we have leftover Chinese food, it is gone. My children devour that leftovers super fast.

So anything that's more than four days, I'm chucking. Yeah.

Francine: Yeah, I don't. I- after a day or two, I'm probably throwing it away. My favorite is Thai food. My God, I love Thai food. I love Thai

Matt: food. I love Thai food. Absolute

Francine: love. Yeah, we don't have enough any Thai restaurants around here. When I went to Florida a couple weeks ago, my friend Donna took me to this amazing Thai restaurant.

Probably the best Thai food I've ever [00:25:00] had in my life. It was so good.

Matt: Next time we're going, doing a conference, we should find Thai food. We can, like, Uber Eats it or something like that if there's nothing next to us. Okay. That was fun. On that note, don't eat poop