Generally, people have at least a passing knowledge about bacteria and food. It’s widely understood that bacteria will grow in food that’s not cared for properly, and can make someone sick. But, there’s one word you can say that’s almost always greeted with blank stares, TOXINS.
Incident #1: A contestant on one of those who’s-the-best-cook TV shows thought she had made too many orders of spaghetti. I’ll call her Spaghetti Girl. Knowing the head chef accepted only the freshest dishes, she tossed the extra spaghetti into the trash. Later she realized that her order-count had been correct all along, and she was one order short because she had thrown it away. To keep the pace going she made a fateful decision. The discarded pasta was retrieved from the garbage, and then placed it into a pot of boiling water. Alas, there was a witness, the head chef. When he challenged her sanity, her explanation was, “the boiling water, at 212⁰, will kill any bacteria from the trash can.” She was dumbfounded when the head chef rejected her reasoning, and then ordered her to prepare fresh spaghetti.
Incident #2: A previous student owns a small meat-and-three café. I’ll call him Mn3. He thawed a roast, overnight on the counter, at room temperature. Later, because he had taken my on-demand ServSafe® class and passed the exam, Mn3 realized his mistake of leaving the roast in the temperature danger zone for too long. Mn3 reasoned that cooking the roast to the proper internal temperature would kill any bacteria, and make the roast safe to eat. However, when he served the roast, dozens of customers still got sick.
What MAJOR thing did they both miss? TOXINS!
The bacteria left toxins behind. It’s like bacteria going to the bathroom, and the stuff left behind is dangerous. Even in an oven at hundreds of degrees, or in a pot of boiling water, toxins can’t be cooked away. Neither cooking nor freezing bothers them at all. Picture them in the boiling water, paddling around wearing sunglasses and colorful microscopic floaties. They’re happy wherever they are. So, at every temperature, they remain dangerous and able to make people sick. In these incidents, festering bacteria left toxins behind on the roast and in the trash can where it could be transferred to the spaghetti.
Spaghetti Girl was bumped off the show, although the head chef never mentioned toxins. The audience was left with the impression that she was eliminated for getting an order wrong, not for serving food out of a toxin-laced garbage can.
Mn3 was reported, investigated and shut down. Before he was allowed to reopen, he had to repeat the entire ServSafe® training class. Before he started his on-demand class retake, he sent me an email. He wrote, “Tell me about toxins, please!!”
What can we learn from this, besides a lesson about toxins? Nobody knew. Not Spaghetti Girl, not Mn3, not the Head Chef, or the TV producers; not one of them showed the slightest understanding about the danger of toxins and food. So, a valuable teaching moment for everyone was missed.
That’s how we got here. FUSION MINUTE™ is received by Mn3, and also by a producer of the TV show that featured Spaghetti Girl and her toxic noodles. So, this is me telling everybody, including Mn3, about toxins. Sadly, until Spaghetti Girl and the head chef start reading FUSION MINUTE™, they’re on their own.
