Website offers patrons advice on eatery safety

Sure, it's good, but is the food at your favorite restaurant safe and prepared in clean conditions?

Thanks to a Department of Health and Hospital website that went live Monday afternoon, you can find out what violations state sanitarians find at different types of establishments where food is served. Inspectors look at schools, day care centers, grocery stores, hospitals, nursing homes, sports facility snack bars and even the local convenience store that keeps boudin hot in a rice cooker on the counter.

The website — www.eatsafe.la.gov — is easy to use and allows visitors to see what problems were found in inspections and if the problems were corrected while the inspector was on-site. Click on the Inspection Reports tab on the right-hand side of the page.

DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein said at a press conference Monday that there are three goals of the website:

?Food safety for the dining public;
?To hold restaurants and other places that serve food accountable;
?And to hold DHH accountable as a customer-friendly agency that serves the public.

"Louisiana is known for the unique culinary experiences it offers residents and visitors alike," Greenstein said. "To maintain our rightfully earned reputation of having the best food in the nation, restaurant patrons must have confidence in the sanitary conditions of our food establishments."

The secretary said the new service is not a direct result of questions raised about the safety of Louisiana seafood after the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But it works with the testing to assure that restaurants do their part in serving safe food.

Louisiana's Gulf seafood is "the most vigorously tested seafood on the planet," he said. "It's the best-tasting in the world and it's safe." Restaurant inspections "have one grade and it's pass-fail," Greenstein said. "If it says 'Open,' they have passed the test." Food establishments know what inspectors are looking for, he said, so "it's like knowing the answers before the test is administered."

Yet a glance at some restaurants' inspections find that hazardous cleaning chemicals are stored alongside or above food preparation areas, food is left out in uncovered containers, food is not properly refrigerated and floors are not clean.

Facilities that are inspected are encouraged to correct problems while the sanitarian is still on the premises but that doesn't mean that the problems won't show up on the report. The website indicates which violations of the health safety code were corrected immediately.

On its website, the Louisiana Restaurant Association advises its members "this is not a scoring or grading system. It will only list the critical and non-critical violations in technical detail." DHH says critical violations, indicated with an asterisk, are ones that if left uncorrected could lead to food contamination and illness.

Non-critical violations are not directly linked to food contamination but if left unattended could lead to problems.

If a problem is found that cannot be immediately corrected, a sanitarian sets a time frame for compliance and then re-inspects the facility.

"Our goal is not to find inefficiencies," Greenstein said. "Our goal is food safety." Although food-related illnesses have sprung up, "our restaurants have not been the source of food-borne illnesses.," Greenstein said.

The LRA has a training program, ServSafe, that teaches its members how to handle food safely.