
Inside Chipotle’s Contamination Crisis - petethomas
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-chipotle-food-safety-crisis/
======
ianamartin
I'm just spitballing here, but I wonder how much of this food-borne illness is
a function of a person's environment.

I grew up on a farm in Central Texas. We fertilized our vegetables fields with
sheep manure. From our sheep.

I drank raw milk from a dairy down the road, pre-pasturization. It was
wonderful stuff. The cream would rise to the top, and my mom would skim some
of it off for coffee, but often we would just shake it up and drink it.

Until I moved to NYC last June, I still spent a lot of time on that farm with
my family, eating vegetables and fruits fertilized by feces, eating sheep and
chickens that I slaughtered myself, eating eggs right from the chickens with
the detritus of chicken vag still on them. (yeah, you would rinse the eggs a
little, but probably not enough to get rid of anything serious. The rinsing
was purely cosmetic.)

My family runs a situation that I wouldn't call either organic, nor safe by
any standards. They call it mutually beneficial.

The sheep eat the grass, then the sheep poop on the garden, the garden grows
and is healthy. The chickens wander around the garden and eat the bugs that
tend to eat the produce. The chickens also poop on the garden.

The chickens lay eggs that we mostly eat, and the ones we don't turn into more
chickens. Sometimes we eat the chickens; sometimes we eat the sheep. Sometimes
the eggs don't hatch, and we shoot them for target practice.

Anyway, my point is this: Not a single one of us has ever gotten sick from
this scenario. I'm not suggesting that it's scalable or sustainable at all.
Just that it hasn't been a problem for us.

I think it's interesting to note that a lot of people who go to my parent's
farm from places like L.A. or Chicago or NYC do, in fact have digestive
problems. I'll be curious to find out after a year or two in NYC if I have
problems when I go home.

It isn't unreasonable for multiple things to be going on here.

There's an idea that because the vast majority of people live in urban areas
and are not biologically equipped to handle natural food doesn't mean that
really natural food is bad.

It might just mean that our bodies' adapt over time.

On the other hand, I get the point that the way of doing things that my family
does is definitely not sustainable. Hell, we spend as much or more buying feed
for the animals as we would just buying the stuff we eat there.

And that's using 43 acres for 30-something head of sheep and maybe 25 hens.
And only maybe 20 acres for vegetables.

That's not even enough for a family of 5.

Though, I have to say, as proud as I am to be a part of Brooklyn, I'm probably
a little more proud of my 96-year-old dad for managing that farm and taking
care of all of it every day.

Especially in that crazy heat.

~~~
jacquesm
> I'm probably a little more proud of my 96-year-old dad for managing that
> farm and taking care of all of it every day.

You should be, that's _very_ impressive.

~~~
yareally
I'm not sure how common it is overall (since my sample size is small), but my
great grandpa and great uncle farmed their lands well into their 90s.

Anyone doing it at that age though is nonetheless impressive.

------
karlkatzke
Pro tip: if you start having bloody diarrhea, go directly to the ER. Do not
pass go, do not wait five days and seek a lower level of care.

~~~
verytrivial
This five day delay jumped out at me, as did the fact it was mentioned without
note or elaboration. This delay would not be normal here in the UK. Should it
be read as bravado or fear of invoices?

~~~
DanBC
> This delay would not be normal here in the UK.

Well, yes, it probably would be normal for many people to not see a doctor.
That's why there's been extensive campaigns on, for example, "Be Clear on
Cancer" asking people who see blood in their stool to talk to a doctor.

[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-
its-f...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-its-first-
ever-national-bowel-cancer-campaign)

[http://www.nhs.uk/bowelcancer/Pages/bowel-
cancer.aspx](http://www.nhs.uk/bowelcancer/Pages/bowel-cancer.aspx)

------
daniel-levin
>> The CDC says Chipotle has been very cooperative in the E. coli
investigation, but that the company is having trouble telling the agency which
batches of ingredients went to which stores at which times. “The system they
have is not able to solve the problem we have at hand. It’s not granular
enough,” says Ian Williams, chief of the CDC’s outbreak response and
prevention branch. He notes that “traceability from the farm to the point of
service” should be improved throughout the food industry. In recent years, the
agency has been able to find the contaminated ingredients in fewer than half
of all multistate outbreaks.

To me this suggests a very simple solution. Legislate that each ingredient
parcel must come with an audit trail. Assign to each parcel a reference number
- a UUID or hash - that can be used to trace back its entire life and history.
The solution seems so obvious that there are probably significant obstacles
against doing so that I am not aware of. If such a system is implemented, then
the next time a contamination breaks out, the source can be quickly identified
and eliminated, then apologies can be made, and business can resume as normal.

>> The spread of norovirus in Simi Valley and Boston was caused by breaches of
protocol, Ells says

Eliminating contamination entirely is a highly desirable goal, but outbreaks
will likely continue occur regardless of anti-contamination measures. As a
result, it makes sense to make it as easy as possible to shut down outbreaks
before they become crises.

~~~
dalore
But that means government controlling our food! /s

Seriously though, where does the hash/uuid get added? The farmer? How many
people will be against tracking your food and saying this violates peoples
freedoms.

------
Animats
A previous big "natural" and "organic" company which had a major food
poisoning problem was Odwalla. Their slogan: "Killer Juice". That backfired
big-time. Sales dropped 90%.[1] Eventually they sold out to Coca-Cola, and are
now a minor brand there.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odwalla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odwalla)

------
mchahn
South Park made fun of getting sick from Chipotle many years ago.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlIHDauX3ao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlIHDauX3ao)

------
vwcx
"The CDC estimates that 48 million Americans get sick from contaminated food
every year."

~~~
aczerepinski
That stat being buried in the article felt like poor journalism to me.
Chipotle is a really popular restaurant, and the article states that 500
people got sick there since July out of (presumably) 24 million total food
illnesses during that same period. So maybe nothing unusual is going on?

~~~
dragonwriter
The impression you got is, well, somewhat distorted. While 48 million are
estimated to get sick from foodborne diseases annually, only 128,000 are
hospitalized [0]; while the ratio between 513 sick in the Chipotle outbreaks
to the 48 million annual sick from food borne diseases is miniscule (on the
order of 1 in 100,000), the ratio between even the 20 hospitalized (of 53
sick) in the _E. coli_ outbreaks in the whole set of Chipotle outbreaks to the
128,000 hospitalized annually from foodborne diseases is (while still small,
by itself) a lot bigger than the ratio of the Chipotle-sick to the annual
total sick (1 in 6,000 instead of 1 in 100,000).

(Also, the annual total sick-from-foodborne-illness count is an _estimate_ ,
the sick-from-the-Chipotle-outbreak count is _confirmed_.)

[0] [http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-
germs.html](http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-germs.html)

------
castratikron
Surprised irradiation wasn't mentioned in the article. Irradiating food can
give you the best of both worlds: retain the quality of raw food with none of
the u-organisms. They could keep a slab of Cobalt-60 in the back of every
restaurant!

~~~
mitchtbaum
Shucks, I had a feeling this was too good to be true..

[http://www.mercola.com/article/irradiated/irradiation_danger...](http://www.mercola.com/article/irradiated/irradiation_dangers.htm)

EDIT: rspeer, fair request..

> The sensitivity of vitamins to radiation is unpredictable and food vitamin
> losses during the irradiation are often substantial. [0]

> Using a Co60 source, repeated irradiation of survivors of bacterial cultures
> at a level initially destroying a high proportion of cells gave rise to
> strains which were more resistant to irradiation than the original
> cultures.[1]

> Fecal coliform concentrations higher than 10(2) CFU/g (Brazilian standard)
> were found in 97 (73%) of the samples, and Salmonella was detected in 4 (3%)
> of the samples.[2]

0:
[http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516...](http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-89132009000500026)

1:
[http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/m61-027](http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/m61-027)

2:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17536694](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17536694)

\---

> a blatant agenda

Here's a couple more in-depth articles on food irradiation to review his bias
and see if you can trust his info in the future:

[http://www.mercola.com/article/irradiated/nuclear_lunch.htm](http://www.mercola.com/article/irradiated/nuclear_lunch.htm)

[https://www.mercola.com/article/irradiated/irradiation.htm](https://www.mercola.com/article/irradiated/irradiation.htm)

~~~
CaptainZapp
You're no really trying to make a case by linking to Mercola's site?

What's up next? Chemtrails?

Edit to add : Mr Mercola and his ilk is one of the most aggressive and
virulent antivaxers.

~~~
DiabloD3
Mercola is a bit of flipping a coin, in my opinion. A lot of what he says is
"well researched", but said to pander to the crowd you're thinking of.

The articles that aren't fringe bullshit are actually pretty well done.

Unfortunately, for every legitimate article on his site, there's a "microwaves
destroy food" and "cell phones eat your soul" type of article.

tl;dr: I'd use Mercola as a secondary link backing up more legitimate primary
links, but I wouldn't base my entire argument on them.

------
rbanffy
Five days of bloody diarrhea until he saw a doctor?!

What's wrong with these people?

~~~
jackgavigan
They live in a country where they have to pay for healthcare.

~~~
arethuza
Well, someone always has to pay for healthcare - just that in some places
(such as here in the UK) we mostly pay for it out of general taxation and it
is "free at the point of delivery".

------
pella
related : TED: How I fell in love with a fish (video)

"sustainable, self regulating, environmentally friendly fish farm"

[https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with...](https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish)

------
horsecaptin
Brace yourselves: people who know nothing about food production are about to
give their informed opinions.

~~~
dang
Maybe so, but snarky pre-emptive dismissals are worse. Please don't post
unsubstantive comments to HN.

~~~
horsecaptin
What are you talking about? I posted this fairly late after reading through
the comments. It was upvoted all the way to the top. I'd say that's pretty
substantiated.

~~~
dang
Snark, indignation, and drama always get upvoted. That is a bug in human
nature, not evidence of comment quality. HN is a site that tries to care about
quality and thus is not driven solely by upvotes. Think of it as a
constitutional democracy.

I said your comment was unsubstantive (not 'unsubstantiated') because it
didn't contain any information, just a snarky putdown of hypothetical other
users. Such a comment is merely a status move and those are always
uninteresting, despite their popularity.

~~~
horsecaptin
That's a fair point. Much appreciate the explanation.

------
dkural
Organic food is overall a net negative for the environment. Due to higher crop
loss, more land is used for agriculture, even when taking fertilizer-related
energy use into account. Many pesticides target genes only found in the
disease vector (easy to establish this via genomics) and have no impact on
humans.

~~~
ArtDev
No. 25% lower yields are a small price compared to traditional pestcides. From
increased cancer rates, dead pollinators, heavy metals and hormone disrupting
chemicals we cannot even begin to quantify the cost of heavy pestcide use.

GMOs are a better solution, we can agree on that.

~~~
DiabloD3
GMOs aren't totally the answer either. There are no proper FDA guidelines on
cross-kingdom gene transfers (ie, corn with squid genes in it).

Accelerated breeding programs to, for example, use genes from one Nightshade
in another, and then use a standard hybridization process to further select
desirable traits _without_ harming the viability of the plant (which, for
futher example, many tomato and pepper breeds are simply shitty plants that
require a lot of trellising and other tender loving care to produce a useful
yield) is the better solution.

Also, another very useful solution that small time farmers deploy is using
predator species (bugs, nematodes, other things that eat or otherwise stop
harmful bugs), or planting companion crops, such as basil and onions and
garlic alongside tomatoes and peppers to deter common pests.

------
gadders
I hope Patio11 has sold (or at least hedged) his shares:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3770787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3770787)

(Although looking at the long term share history, he's still up on the deal).

------
draw_down
I think it's really silly to make this about organic or sustainable
ingredients. It's a simple matter of food safety, handling & cooking food
correctly. All the talk about "smugness" smacks of _ressentiment_. Not a good
look.

~~~
asift
There are legitimate health risks associated with shunning modern technology
in favor of organic food:

>"Contrary to popular wisdom, organic produce is not pesticide-free. Instead,
it’s grown with primitive pesticides that can be significantly more hazardous
to humans and to the environment. Organic agriculture also lacks the benefits
of the many crops genetically improved with modern molecular techniques, like
Bt-corn, which reduces the population of insects that allow toxic molds to
infest corn. (Organic corn has higher levels of the toxins produced by these
molds.)"

>"Chipotle rejects modern synthetic fertilizers in favor of suppliers who use
manure on their crops. This approach may be “all natural” and “organic” and
make some customers feel warm and fuzzy, but it should not come as a surprise
that applying stool, feces and excrement to growing fruits and vegetables
significantly raises the risk of spreading disease. Bruce M. Chassy, food
science professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
scoured U.S. Food and Drug Administration data to conclude that organic food
is four to eight times more likely to be recalled over safety concerns than
conventionally grown products."

Source:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2015/12/14/chipotle-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2015/12/14/chipotle-
the-long-defeat-of-doing-nothing-well/)

~~~
cwyers
Right. Modern agriculture wasn't invented because people were bored or stupid,
it was because pre-modern agriculture made lots of people either sick or
malnourished.

------
mindslight
I thought the whole point of eating at bland restaurants was to not get sick?

------
seibelj
McDonald's: "With all of the antibiotics in our livestock, you can be sure we
killed the E-Coli"

~~~
justin66
I'm just glad we have a safe fast food burrito option which follows
conventional agriculture practices with its food supply.

Let's hope this trendy organic thing stays isolated to Chipotle. A world where
Taco Bell causes anyone needless gastrointestinal distress is not a world I
want to live in!

~~~
ArtDev
Last time I went McDonald’s I got sick (salad). Last time I had food poisoning
it was at a Subway.

Personally, I prefer Chipotle anyhow.

~~~
cafard
Actually, McDonald's caused a small typhoid outbreak in the Maryland suburbs
of Washington, DC, about thirty years ago. An employee who prepared salads was
a carrier for typhoid, contracted in her(?) native country.

