As part of the charitable giving during the holidays, my workplace raises money through bake sales, pot lucks, etc. This week was a chili cook-off. What is customarily done is that several people cook chili and all of them are combined into one pot, called HoBo chili. It actually sounds quite disgusting when you think about it, but nonetheless. Here is my brother's take on it, who is an epidemiologist (definition of epidemiologist) .
HoBo Chili may taste yummy but is it worth it? Food-borne illnesses are mostly caused by bacteria transmitted from hands of kitchen workers. Consider that each pot has a particular probability (i.e. risk) of harboring one of these harmful bacteria. If these "components" are
combined the risk will be additive simply due to the fact that 20 persons have contributed to the overall risk of an infected HoBo serving. One other thing to remember, food borne illness is often transmitted via fecal-oral route.
One may ask, "what if we kept the chilis separate and we sampled each one, would this be just as risky or unhealthy?"
Yes, it would be the same if every person samples all the chilis. However, its unlikely that many people do this. The HoBo sample facilitates the maximum exposure.
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3 comments:
scott- you missed my last line:
One other thing to remember, food borne illness is often
transmitted via fecal-oral route, so next time someone says the chili
is shit, kindly say "no thanks, you fuggin hillbillies".
brandon
Yeah, the "oral-fecal route" is promoted by the almost universal habit of people not washing their hands after defecating. That, combined with the "dry wipe" technique used makes me wonder if this is indeed a 1st world country.
Go bidets (and hand-washing).
The Fecal-Oral Route. This sounds like what they should rename the Ohio-Pennsylvania Turnpike to.
Does it ease you to know that the chili was heated to 250-F? At least that's what the roasters were set to. Maybe that makes matters worse.
I'm glad I only served it.
G. William
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