By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety Recent news reports regarding the romaine lettuce outbreak have, yet again, raised concern about pathogens in our food supply. In particular, leafy greens continue to show up as a source for outbreaks. Two outbreaks since late fall have implicated romaine and/or leafy greens. In both […]
E. coli
Food Safety and Foodborne Illness: There Will Always Be Surprises
By: Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH Senior Extension Educator/Food Safety I took on food safety as a focus of my Extension programming in the early 1990’s: little did I know that for the next 20-plus years my food safety educator life would be full of surprises. Early on, the issues were what a consumer would […]
Poop Happens
By Diane Wright Hirsch, UConn Extension Educator Farm animals poop. Why should that matter to me…a frequent farm visitor? We all poop. Dogs poop, cats poop, cows and even goats poop. It is a natural process that rids our bodies of indigestible food and waste products. Unfortunately, it is also a way to carry […]
Safe Food Handling from Farm to Table
Written by Patsy Evans for Naturally@UConn and originally posted on October 14, 2014 Hearing the word ‘outbreak’ makes many people anxious. E. coliO157:H7, spinach, 2006. Salmonella, peanut butter, 2009. Listeria, cantaloupe, 2011. Diane Hirsch, UConn Extension educator for food safety, easily lists previous food-borne pathogen outbreaks. But, fear does not paralyze her. Instead, she works in classrooms and […]