Fancy an ice cream-is it safe if the vendor doesn't wash their hands?

S

super mam

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hi all,
the kids were waiting for the icecream van to come around... thought i'd google soft ice cream and found this......The hazzards of icecream... hope the link works... we got pizza instead...

[broken link removed]

A survey carried out by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) on the
microbiological quality of soft ice-cream, found that considerable improvements
are required during the handling and serving of soft ice-cream in retail premises.
Poor practices by the food handler can result in the ice-cream becoming unsafe
to eat and this can lead to food poisoning.
Food poisoning is an unpleasant illness. For young children, pregnant women,
the elderly and the sick, it can be serious and sometimes fatal. Typical symptoms
of food poisoning include:
• Nausea/vomiting • Diarrhoea
• Stomach pains • Headaches.
All food businesses have a legal obligation to:
• Produce food in a hygienic manner
• Implement a food safety management system based on the principles of
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point)
• Implement a traceability and recall system
• Ensure that staff are supervised and instructed in food hygiene matters.
Aim of this Leaflet
The aim of this leaflet is to assist retailers involved in the sale
and serving of soft ice-cream (i.e. whipped and scoop ice-cream)
to comply with their legal obligations. This booklet does not deal
with pre-packed hard ice-cream (i.e. ice-cream sold in cartons,
tubs or on a stick).
Click to expand...
 
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Re: fancy an icecream?

Do you suspect that your ice cream vendor does not adhere to correct handling procedures or something?
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

club man,could you open the link? did you read the hazzards of the incorrect handling and possible contamination etc?
When the ice-cream van comes around to our road, it's like a treat for the kids...we que at the van, pay for the ice-cream and run back into the house before the it all melts and runs onto our hands, but I really never looked to see if the ice cream man washes his hands after handling money?
It's just not something i really thought about before reading about it..( not food and hygene but ice-cream dangers)
thanks
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

Generations of kids have eaten ice cream from such vans - I wonder how many got sick afterwards?
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

My suggestion
Tell your local store that you will buy any bananas that they want to sell off cheap at the end of the day.
Peel them and put them in plastic bags in the freezer.
When the kids want ice cream just put some in the food processer and you have lovely soft whip banana ice cream.
Add other flavoring if you want. My favourite is wallnut and chocolate.
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

woods said:
When the kids want ice cream just put some in the food processer and you have lovely soft whip banana ice cream.
Click to expand...
Surely you have frozen banana mush? It's certainly not ice cream as we know it, Jim...
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

Soft icecreams (Mr Whippy and 99's) are unpasteurised and therefore unsafe for pregnant women.
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

If you read all the information on the FSAI web-site, you will stop eating and drinking ... and eventually die of thirst and hunger.
 
I agree bacchus pity they aren't so stringent in the hospital wards with mrsa etc. where people are dieing daily
 
Thrifty1...."Soft icecreams (Mr Whippy and 99's) are unpasteurised and therefore unsafe for pregnant women."

Can you back this statement up please ? Looking at that FSAI article listed above it suggests that the products in question are either sterilised or pasteurised or not required to be. Surely if they were unsafe for pregnant women they would also be detrimental to young children ?
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

ClubMan said:
Generations of kids have eaten ice cream from such vans - I wonder how many got sick afterwards?
Click to expand...
I would have used that argument as well. However I remember Pat Wall, then as CEO of the Food Safety Authority explaining that the bugs around then are not as same as the bugs around now. And the modern bugs have more potential to kill. I also once heard that whipped ice-cream, not kept well or in accordance with food safety procedure's is a potential source of listeria which apparently is very dangerous for pregnant women.
 
Re: fancy an icecream?

hansov said:
I would have used that argument as well. However I remember Pat Wall, then as CEO of the Food Safety Authority explaining that the bugs around then are not as same as the bugs around now. And the modern bugs have more potential to kill. I also once heard that whipped ice-cream, not kept well or in accordance with food safety procedure's is a potential source of listeria which apparently is very dangerous for pregnant women.
Click to expand...
Are you sure that he didn't say "hysteria"? ;)
 
ronny78 said:
Thrifty1...."Soft icecreams (Mr Whippy and 99's) are unpasteurised and therefore unsafe for pregnant women."

Can you back this statement up please ? Looking at that FSAI article listed above it suggests that the products in question are either sterilised or pasteurised or not required to be. Surely if they were unsafe for pregnant women they would also be detrimental to young children ?
Click to expand...

[broken link removed]
 
Dowee,

That link just explains the risks of consuming unpasteurised milk, it doesn't say that your local ice cream van uses unpasteruised milk products. In fact these days the majority of products that traditionally were made with unpasteurised milk are now made with pasteurised milk. If you read the labels of many cheeses, e.g. brie, you will see that most of them now say made with pasteurised milk. Most restaurants now even use pasteurised eggs in their uncooked egg dishes because of the risks. I'm sure if you asked you'd probably be told that the ice cream mix is pasteurised.
However, as a pregnant woman I'm avoiding mr whippy but only because of the higher risk of contamination of soft whipped ice cream which is, as far as I know, more to do with the difficulty in getting the machines completely clean at the end of every day.
 
There is a lot of information on the survey that the FSAI did in 2001 on ice cream machines around the country.
[broken link removed]

Samples of soft ice cream were tested for levels of aerobic bacteria (aerobic colony count - ACC) and Enterobacteriaceae. These bacteria were chosen as indicators of i) the cleanliness of the machine and ii) the pasteurisation processes in the case of self pasteurising machines.
A total of 552 samples were examined and of these 51.1% and 6.5% were insatisfactory for ACC and Enterobacteriaceae respecitively.
Click to expand...
 
Having so far avoided any adverse impact from HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, Avian Flu/H5N1, Mad Cow Disease etc. I think that, on balance, I'd be happy to take my chances with a 99 from the local ice cream van...
 
don't the vans have to display a current licence for health and safety to say they are up to date an been checked over
 
Of course, no matter how clean adn up to scratch(!) the van and man are, there is no guarentee the child's hands are the same. They could run straight from the sand pit in the garden to the ice-cream van......
 
don't the vans have to display a current licence for health and safety to say they are up to date an been checked over

Unfortunately the Dept. of Health -with the agreement of the FSAI, decided it was a bad idea to have an annual licence for food vans and abolished them. This is apparently a big step forward for food hygiene!!
 
Trish2006,
I was responding to a query about why unpasteurised products are unsafe for pregnant women and children. I didn't mention anything about whether ice cream van (or other) products are pasteurised or not. If you read the quote above my post that should be clear.

and for the record I've often enjoyed a cone from an ice cream van.
 
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