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Table of Contents
Fresh!... is
best, panel 1
Preserving Traditions, panel
2
Working Together.....Partnership
Committee members, panel 3
Foodborne Illnesses -
What are the risks?, panel 4
Laboratory testing, panel 5
Foodborne Illnesses - Safe, Simple Solution!, panel 6
What to look for!, panel 7
Panel 1
Fresh!... is best
A program created to preserve and
protect traditional foods of the Vietnamese
community.
Panel 2
Preserving Traditions!
Vietnamese cooking has a rich and
diverse history, making it among the best-tasting
and most sought after of Asian foods.
The challenge facing commercial
food manufacturers, however, is how to prepare
certain dishes in the traditional Vietnamese manner
while limiting potential for the growth of
illness-causing bacteria.
The goal of the “Fresh is Best”
program is to protect traditional cooking methods
used in Vietnamese restaurants and markets by
encouraging the use of safe food handling
procedures.
Panel 3
Working Together.....
The Orange County Health Care
Agency is responsible for regulating safe food
handling practices of all of the restaurants and
food markets in the county. The Health Care Agency
has joined with Vietnamese community civic leaders,
health educators and food industry representatives
to form a committee dedicated to preserving these
traditional foods.
This committee is known as the
Partnership Committee, and it is very pleased to
announce that their work is finished and has been a
success!
Partnership Committee members:
Civic Leaders
Lou Correa
Supervisor, 1st District
Orange County Board of Supervisors
Van Tran
Assemblyman / California Assembly District 68
Andy Quach
Councilman / City of Westminster
Health Educators
Audrey Bich-Thuy Doan
Vietnamese Health Educator / OC APICA
Ngoc Diep Tran
Formerly with OC APICA
Melissa Calicchia, M.S.,
Technical Director / Food Safety Solutions, Inc.
Lan Quoc Nguyen
Board Member / Garden Grove Unified School District
Food Industry
Tony Lam
Executive Vice President / Dang Vu, Inc.
Khuong Dinh Nguyen
Vice Chairman / Dalat Supermarket
Tom Quach
District Manager / Lee’s Sandwiches
Regulators
Patricia Gentry, REHS
Program Manager / Orange County Health Care Agency
John Ralls, REHS
Supervising Environmental Health Specialist / Orange
County Health Care Agency
Richard Ramirez, MPA, REHS
Regional Food Specialist / U.S. Food and Drug
Administration
Panel 4
Foodborne Illnesses - What are
the risks?
Foods prepared with cooked
rice, rice-flour, beans or vegetables may support
the growth of illness-causing bacteria.
Cooked rice or rice flour, beans,
and vegetables are main ingredients in many
traditional Vietnamese foods. In the home, it is the
custom to store foods made from these products at
room temperatures once they have been prepared.
While this practice is acceptable
at home where foods are made in small batches and
are consumed in a short time period, foods made at a
restaurant or market are often produced in large
batches and it may be many hours before they are
consumed.
When cooked foods are left out at
room temperatures for extended periods of time, the
foods may end up supporting the growth of
illness-causing bacteria.
Food scientists, therefore, tell
us that when the traditional foods are made at a
commercial kitchen, the safe thing to do is to
refrigerate them or keep them hot.
This will help to minimize the
risk of the foods being contaminated by an
illness-causing bacteria.
Panel 5
Laboratory testing
The Partnership Committee needed
be certain that traditional Vietnamese foods (such
as Banh Bao, Banh Cuon, and Xoi) truly posed the
health risk that food scientists predicted.
Extensive laboratory testing
proved that bacteria will grow in the majority of
these foods at room temperatures. This means that
traditional Vietnamese foods cannot be kept at room
temperatures for extended periods, as they may pose
a health risk if not handled properly.
The question now becomes how to
insure public safety while preserving cultural
traditions.
Panel 6
Foodborne Illnesses - Safe,
Simple Solution!
Monitor the length of time food
is out on display in an effort to reduce or
eliminate the potential for illness-causing bacteria
growth.
Although laboratory testing proved
that illness-causing bacteria can grow on these
foods, the growth takes several hours. Under a
recent change in public health law, food that is
commercially made and that follows a time as a
public health control procedure may be held at room
temperatures for up to four hours. These foods must
be handled according to a written procedure that has
been reviewed and approved by the Health Care
Agency.
The Partnership Committee has
developed an easy-to-use procedure template for the
traditional food manufacturers to follow. It is
called the Fresh is Best procedure.
This procedure allows foods to be
displayed for up to four hours after they have been
made. This means that the foods can be made in
Vietnamese restaurants and markets using the
customary home-style methods. It also means that the
foods will only have been made hours ago!
Panel 7
What to look for!
So, what is it consumers should be
looking for?
Be sure to check for an expiration
date on the food packaging to see if the food is
more than 4 hours old. The date will be printed on a
sticker similar to the one in the example photo to
the left.
This “Fresh is Best” expiration
sticker will let you know the food is fresh and
safe!
When you go to stores to purchase
these Vietnamese delicacies, be sure to look for
these stickers on product labels or packaging.
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