04/30/97 Nutrition Experts Help Feed Thousands During Flooding

Nutrition Experts Help Feed Thousands During Flooding

CHICAGO, April 30, 1997

Dietitians offer tips for food safety

While the devastation of massive flooding in North Dakota will be felt for months to come by flood victims, their immediate needs for safe water and foods have been aided through the expertise of dietitians and foodservice workers.

Thousands of residential, institutional and commercial kitchens and food stores in the flooded region have been wiped out from flood damage. "Most people don't think about the availability of safe foods, let alone specialized nutrition needs of the sick, until they become scarce," said Colette Iseminger, R.D. (registered dietitian), who is stranded on the Minnesota side of the swollen Red River, away from her husband and three children in Grand Forks, N.D.

Iseminger saw the patient population of Riverview Health Care Center, Crookston, Minn., swell from four to a capacity of 30 overnight after North Dakota's United Hospital was evacuated and patients were relocated. She and other nutrition professionals are using their disaster training developed by hospital dietitians to feed thousands of sick and well people during the flooding.

Dietitian Gloriann Kramer, a nutrition science instructor at Concordia College in Moorehead, Minn., across from Fargo, has organized the production of 470,668 sandwiches with the help of more than 900 students and community volunteers who have contributed 2700 hours of time to assist with food preparation. She now calls herself "the sandwich lady".

Concordia's institutional kitchen, which was declared an official feeding site by the Salvation Army, temporarily lost its clean water supply. Like other foodservice operations, it had more than 400 gallons of clean water used for sanitation and cleaning in reserve. Ironically, conserving water is now important, and most feeding sites and hospitals are using paper plates and plastic ware to cut down on water use.

Kramer, who teaches institutional and quantity food preparation, said restaurants, grocery stores, and individuals will need to throw out practically all their "flooded foods," in addition to sanitizing dishes and utensils. The following safety measures should be followed by individuals or foodservice establishments following flood damage:

Discard all wooden spoons, plastic utensils and baby bottles and pacifiers
Throw out practically everything, including meat, poultry, fish and eggs
Throw out all fresh or frozen flood-damaged produce
Toss all foods in boxes, foil or cellophane
Discard spices and seasonings, including your salt and pepper
Get rid of all foods stored in canisters, including flour and sugar
Toss any dented, leaking or rusted cans

Undamaged can goods can be salvaged, according to Kramer. She suggests removing can labels and using permanent marker to identify the can's contents, then scrubbing with a brush and strong detergent. If you have a dishwasher available, run the cans through a wash cycle similarly to how you might normally wash glasses.

Or, dietitians recommend fully immersing cans in a solution of two teaspoons of bleach per quart of water for 15 minutes, then letting the cans air dry. All non-porous dishes and glasses should be sanitized the same way.

The American Dietetic Association is the nation's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. With nearly 70,000 members, the Chicago-based ADA offers food safety tips through its latest consumer publication, ADA's Complete Food & Nutrition Guide (Chronimed Publishing, 620 pages, $29.95).

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