COVID-19 random questions

[MichaelB]

Just questions not addressed in the other threads. This one is about take out food.

We’ve stopped getting prepared food at the local Wholel Foods. We’ve already cut back on restaurants. Take out food, though, should be relatively safe? That is, safer than a grocery store or any other option outside the house. The food is handled only by kitchen help. After that, the only contact is the food bag, location (door, pen, etc) , and the credit card transaction. Making sure to avoid touching the face, followed by good hand washing should take care of that.

Food delivery would be riskier, as the intermediary person and process could contaminate the food.

 

[Katsmeow]

I am thinking it might be safer to get food where you see the food prepared like at, say, Subway or Chipotle. So if a worker sneezes while making food you can't have them stop. I got an email from Pizza Hut where they stressed that their workers never actually touch the food. It would seem that if you have pizza delivery the risk would be something on the pizza box but the box usually travels in a heated container so the workers don't really have much contact with the actual box.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We decided to not go out to eat, not get carry out and started ordering groceries online and paying for them online, and I'm going to go pick them up myself. We live in a HCOL are and I think most kitchen workers here likely have low pay and no paid sick days so I don't think they could afford to stay home even if they are feeling under the weather.

 

[Sanstar]

We too are taking a break from eating out, take out or delivery. We’ll DIY our meals for awhile. Hate to take all the CDC recommended measures for over 60 y.o. and then get sick anyway because of a take out pizza.

 

[Amethyst]

Takeout food, nothing. While everyone is going, "Ha-ha, it's only toilet paper, use a corn cob" (someone's actual response on my FB page), I foresee food shortages coming next as the nation shuts down. That's when the guns come out. I'm not even remotely a "prepper" nor have ever been of that mindset, but things are going downhill so fast my breath is being taken away.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We never do takeout. We eat in a restaurant when we want to go out. We haven’t quit doing that but may soon.

 

[MRG]

We quit going out last week to sit down places even if its pretty much local folk at our normal place. Went to McDonald's drive thru couple days ago and probably will go back after the fresh berries are I picked up today are gone. I guess it's going to become picking your risks. Enough risk to stay locked in?

Yes, I can eat many things for breakfast and have more than enough plain oatmeal to eat for a long very time.

No, is it riskier to go out for takeout or groceries? I don't know. I don't think many people understand what the safest options are.

I think they very by individual and their circumstances. Is it safer for me to visit my local McDonald's or the grocery store? McDonald's get a fair amount of folks traveling through coming from where? Some would also stop and get groceries but more are passing through. So maybe the grocery store is safer? Except the exposure can be closer and longer in the grocery store. So maybe McDonald's with the people passing through and their snotty nosed bundles of joy? Wonder where they're from and how many people they have come in close contact with? Pretty sure someone in the vehicle ahead of me just sneezed.

Oatmeal it is.

 

[Dtail]

Still are going out, but thinking about it a little more. No known local cases by us, which could change everything.

 

[sengsational]

...
Food delivery would be riskier, as the intermediary person and process could contaminate the food.

Consider "door dash" versus a drive through. True, that's one fewer person that handles the food packaging, probably reducing your risk.

Consider "door dash" versus a typical take-out (or, as the UK people say "take-away"). You go into the restaurant to pick up your take-out food, exposing yourself to possible airborne particles and surfaces with possible contamination. That, as opposed to the added person intermediary who only handles the exterior of the package. I'd say that's lower risk than walking in, but that's just my uninformed opinion.

Wild speculation follows, so I'm giving fair warning. I don't know and in fact I'm not sure anyone really knows the details of transmission of this virus in places serving food. I hope that I'm wrong.

Consider ANY restaurant, including fast food, or places that claim never to have handled your food. Unless it came directly out of a machine, someone handled it. I can see how the french fries themselves weren't touched, but they touched the cardboard they come in. But someone assembled the hamburger, picked up the bun (maybe just after they sneezed on their blue gloves). I've got a degree in Industrial Engineering, and actually did "time and motion studies" on stuff like this. It seems to me that we, the humans in the kitchens of the world, simply do not have protocols to absolutely prevent the spread. I'd love to find information that puts this "logic" in the dust bin forever. It just seems to me if someone is shedding the virus in a restaurant kitchen, patrons are at significant risk because the system is designed to leverage the dexterity we have with our hands, and, up to this point, sharing very, very tiny bits of "stuff" haven't been a problem. Well, now, it appears to be a problem.

When it gets to my home town, it's zero restaurant visits, at least for as long as DW and I can keep agreeing on it.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Another random issue: hobby clubs. I participate in a homebrew club and an astronomy club and both have canceled their monthly meetings for now. Which is a bummer because I had certainly brewed the first place Irish Export Stout for the quarterly beer competition.

 

[gwraigty]

Nothing is 100% foolproof, but at many fast food/fast casual restaurants, the workers are required to wear gloves and never touch the food with their hands. DD works at Panera Bread and it is that way there.

It's a far cry from the late 70's to mid 80's when gloves didn't exist in fast food and all food was touched with bare hands. Seriously, I cooked the burger meat at McDonald's for several years. We had to touch the frozen raw meat with our bare hands to lay it on the grill. With those same hands we had to touch the lettuce, onions, cheese, buns, etc. and remove the cooked meat from the grill to finish off the sandwiches. There was no handwashing between touching the raw burger meat and anything else. We weren't allowed to leave the grill area with food down. There wouldn't have been time to wash even if we had been able to during the busiest times. It was the same at Arby's and Wendy's. I did a short stint at those places. That was the reality of food service for many years.

BTW, yes, the impact of people being afraid to go out to eat now is immediate. DD was supposed to work a 7+ hour shift today. They sent her home after just 2 1/2 hours because hardly anyone was coming in. Several other employees got sent home early throughout the day.

 

[Mdlerth]

Routine food safety procedures are still in effect

Has anybody else encountered data suggesting the germ spreads via food? I have not. Au contraire, I've seen reports that the virus is destroyed at temperatures of 60C (140F), and it wouldn't survive stomach acid regardless of temperature.

You might still pick it up from handling the surface of raw foods or packaging that had been coughed upon, but that's no different from touching an infected door handle. CDC keeps warning about transmitting it via inhalation, not ingestion.

 

[brewer12345]

Takeout food, nothing. While everyone is going, "Ha-ha, it's only toilet paper, use a corn cob" (someone's actual response on my FB page), I foresee food shortages coming next as the nation shuts down. That's when the guns come out. I'm not even remotely a "prepper" nor have ever been of that mindset, but things are going downhill so fast my breath is being taken away.

I agree. It isn't just toilet paper and groceries. Gold dealers suddenly cannot keep coins or bars in stock. Guns and ammunition are flying off the shelves. I have heard multiple instances of people wanting to make large cash withdrawals from banks. People are starting to act like the zombie apocalypse is upon us. Hopefully people calm down soon.

 

[MichaelB]

People are still going to work, and food and basic goods production and distribution continues uninterrupted. There’s no sign of food shortages anywhere in the world, especially Asia which has a head start. As for guns and ammo, we’ll, the less said about that the better.

While there may be some reports of people raising cash, I’m sure a few weeks from now we’ll be reading new reports of people’s cash hordes being stolen. It’s ironic that people here roundly and regularly criticize the media, in part for excessive sensationalism, but then embrace and repeat those same news items.

 

[audreyh1]

Because of last week’s apparent credit squeeze, I did transfer additional funds into our checking accounts. Just wanted plenty of cushion.

 

[Lcountz]

In the mid 70s I worked in a bakery...the stand-alone kind not the in-store kinds we have today..my first paying job!

Among the delicious and appetizing thing in the glass cases were decorated birthday cakes with flowers and leaves of icing, jelly and cream filled donuts, and rye breads with little seeds falling all over....!!! Smelled so good!!! Especially on Sunday mornings when trays and trays of iced cinammon buns perfumed the air!!! Ummmmm!!!!

-Behind the scenes in the back where we worked:

The pretty iced cakes? The cake baker used a spritz bag to squeeze out those florets and leaves....and LICKED the end of the spritz tube between each floret or braid to keep it clean and unclogged for the next flower....

-The "Icing" for cin. buns and the jelly and cream for the jelly donuts and the eclairs....came in 5 gallon containers. It had to be stirred before loading it into the jelly donuts or cream donut filling machine...which was a hopper with two paddles and nozzles that you jammed the donuts onto (with your bare hands) and it filled.

That icing was mixed by HAND. Or should I say...the bucket lid was pryed off, and one plunged thier ARM down into the glop to stir it. Your arm. Hairs and all. I can still feel the cold slipperiness of that yellow "custard" filling in my mind...

The owners had a family friend who was homeless. He was allegedly a baker "from the old country" who they allowed to "live" in the rear of the bakery. He was usually drunk. He fell asleep a LOT on top of the stacked rye flour bags. Sometimes he wet himself in his sleep.
While he was ON the bags. O well....rye bread is baked at high temps!!!

The icing on those cinammon buns? Spread by bare hand from the 5 gallon pail to the hot buns when they came out of the oven.

At least we were told we could NOT wear sleeveless shirt...armpit hairs and all you know...!!!


I eat at home, food that I prepare.

On a slightly different note: I never buy cold cuts sliced in the deli. You know those tubes of meat that are handled all day long by people who god knows when or if they wash or change gloves often enough. The skins on that stuff must be LOADED with bacteria...so IF I buy cold cuts I buy those little packages packed at the packing plant.

But I'm not naive. I bet those workers could tell stories too.


My sister was a bar tender in the 1980s and they sold fried shrimp at the bar..The about to spoil or spoiled shrimp were dunked in a bleach solution, rinsed, and cooked!!!

We were all tougher those days!!!

Enjoy your store bought buns and cakes folks!!!!

 

[braumeister]

But I'm not naive. I bet those workers could tell stories too.

Of course. Had never heard some of your items before, but very believable.

Anyone who has ever w*rked in any food prep capacity will have many stories like these. I certainly remember some of my own, from a summer job in a Howard Johnson's kitchen in my youth. I still have to smile and shake my head when I remember what used to go on.

But we're a pretty resilient species, all in all.

 

[Nemo2]

Almost 60 years ago I was employed for a short period at a plant making a 'Spam' type product outside Adelaide, South Australia.....and....well...

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

We are in lockdown mode here in our canton in southern Switzerland (bordering Italy), where hundreds have the virus and today our sixth death. As of today everything is closed, except food markets and pharmacies. So, take out is not an option. Everyone is asked to stay home and not go out until further notice. There is real worry about a surge in cases and not enough medical resources to handle them.

So, my wife and I go out for groceries at a supermarket. The staff all wear masks and gloves (those stocking shelves, cashiers, etc.) and they are continually decontaminating elevator buttons, grocery carts, etc. Once at home, I wash all the jars, cans, fruit and vegetables with hot water and soap before storing them. Can't do much with boxed things, like rice, except rub a bit with a paper towel. So far, no sign of the illness with us. But fingers crossed.

This, unfortunately, is likely to be your future in the US as well, from what I can tell. Alas.

-BB

 

[CaptTom]

I got an email from Pizza Hut where they stressed that their workers never actually touch the food...

...Something I've suspected for some time

When I was working making pizza, everything was done by hand. Well, there was a machine to kneed the dough, but that's about it. I've never been a fan of machine-made pizza.

I'm not ready to abandon the local restaurants and take-outs yet. And they are taking precautions. The place I was in yesterday had nothing on the tables; no salt shakers, ketchup bottles, tent displays with drink and dessert menus. The servers wash their hands often and extra care is being taken in the kitchen. They're seating parties at alternate tables, never next to another party.

These folks all might be out of a job soon, and we might be eating rationed food. I'm willing to support them and eat well for as long as I can.

 

[Dalmore]

Has anybody else encountered data suggesting the germ spreads via food? I have not. Au contraire, I've seen reports that the virus is destroyed at temperatures of 60C (140F), and it wouldn't survive stomach acid regardless of temperature.

You might still pick it up from handling the surface of raw foods or packaging that had been coughed upon, but that's no different from touching an infected door handle. CDC keeps warning about transmitting it via inhalation, not ingestion.

+1

 

[Nemo2]

it wouldn't survive stomach acid regardless of temperature.

I could be wrong, but I believe that the 'stomach acid' idea has been debunked.

 

[ERD50]

Another random issue: hobby clubs. I participate in a homebrew club and an astronomy club and both have canceled their monthly meetings for now. Which is a bummer because I had certainly brewed the first place Irish Export Stout for the quarterly beer competition.

I have to think about this next week, there are two different meetings I'd really like to attend, because I finally have some fresh beers on tap to share (had a lull in my brewing for a while).

So I'm 65, in the 'older' category, and much of the club is 20-30-40 somethings. They could be silent carriers! I don't get out much, and I've missed the last 2 or 3 month's meetings, so I really would like to make one of these.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

... Once at home, I wash all the jars, cans, fruit and vegetables with hot water and soap before storing them. Can't do much with boxed things, like rice, except rub a bit with a paper towel. ...

-BB

I'm not a micro-biologist, but I have learned a thing or two from my beer home-brewing experience.

True, you can't easily sanitize a cardboard box of something, but I believe that a lot of the germs ride along on dust particles. So if you wipe the box down with a wet/damp cloth that has sanitizer on it, you are probably going a long way towards removing any contaminants from the box, and killing them on the cloth, while not actually sterilizing the box per se.

Better than nothing, at least. It's all about playing the odds, you can't really sterilize things in practice, but you can make big improvements.

-ERD50

 

[sengsational]

I got an email from Pizza Hut where they stressed that their workers never actually touch the food. It would seem that if you have pizza delivery the risk would be something on the pizza box but the box usually travels in a heated container so the workers don't really have much contact with the actual box.

Go long on Pizza businesses!

I had that thought when I was talking about 'life after CV" and my prediction about certifications for restaurants that never touch the food (and I mean never touch, not "only touch with gloves", which is meaningless). You watch pizzas being made and they get pulled from a super hot oven and right into the box. Even if someone sneezed over the box before hand, the surface of the pizza is probably hot enough to deactivate the virus.