104 suffer food poisoning after eating bentos in Tokyo

"Officials believe the norovirus came from gloves worn by employees who prepared the bentos" They want you to believe that because actually the virus is transmitted by fecally contaminated food, or by the vomit of an infected person. So it's easier to say "It was their gloves" instead of "Somehow their poop or vomit got into the obentos"

Frankly shocked this isn't a daily occurrence. B/C at least once a day I see a guy walk out of a bathroom stall, let alone a urinal, who seems to think soap and water is beneath him. And I work at a university, supposedly domain of the intelligent.

I'm with you on this one. I once witnessed a fast food employee come out of the stall, turn on the water, moisten his fingertips slightly, then leave. We will never go there again.

Woe-woe! Me too. I always notice that after a tinkle, some here guys dont wash their hands. I hate running my hands under the freezing cold water this time of year, but @ least im clean.

A large portion of obento factory workers are foreigners who couldn't get other jobs. Watch them blame it on one of them.

Common around the world. You just need one guy that does not wash his rubber gloves after doing poop, and it could be all over for many. But then again...who uses rubber gloves in th etoilet except for cleaning...oh, I get it. Sato-kun, clean the toilets and then get back there putting rice in the bento boxes.

Maybe the toilet cleaning gloves and the food handling gloves were used in the wrong order, but what ever these bento things are often sickening and the reason I don't eat them, often they are made and left sitting around without proper refrigeration, then put in a van and driven around the city being delivered.

Not a very sanitary or safe way of handling food, chicken and fish don't like sitting in the sun like that.

Since some over 10 years, it is compulsory to have your food in a refrigerated area when selling food for the outside markets in France, as it was the case for food for covered markets. I think it applies to EU. Here in Japan, although they are super clean, the fact to let food at air temperature leads to food poisoning all the time. Of course, they never tell about the final casualties (at 81, food poisoning is a harsh struggle for your body...). So personally, I avoid cold bentos, and I recommend you to do so.

They said norovirus not e coli. However norovirus seems unlikely since it is highly contagious and everything would need to be cleaned and disinfected. And, only 2 employees were infected? The whole place should have been. Where did the virus come from? It didn't just appear on a pair of gloves....

I was just talking with someone the other day how I think bentos are plain nasty. Cooked foods that are supposed to be eaten hot served at room temperature ( often just sitting around for hours before they are eaten )? I'm not surprised when I hear about people getting food poisoning off these things.

Bentos are a scourge on the food chain. My J-co-workers gobble them to the last grain and pronounce themselves satisfied while I quietly slip half of mine into the gomibako hoping no one will notice. In a word: inedible.

There's at least one reason why the Chinese (and Indians for that matter) prefer to eat rice hot.

I've come to expect a lot of people here not washing their hands after having had a quick slash, but it's plain disgusting when they've just had a crap and walk straight out the door without using the wash basin (not that there's usually any soap in many public toilets).

Everyone is mixing up a Noro virus infection with spoilt food. This case was caused by someone in staff infecting the food with a virus, it had nothing to do with how the food was stored.

This kind of thing happens occasionally in hotels, ships and other places with large kitchens with many staff, and a shop that delivers over a thousand lunch boxes every day is probably sizeable. If they are part time workers, they probably don't get sick days and go to work too soon after recovering or infected the food before they showed symptoms. It takes extremely little to contract a noro infection, a person vomiting in a large restaurant would expose nearly everyone to sufficient numbers of the virus. Cold water has limited effect on Noro virus.

I have also noticed dismal hand hygiene however...

@ wipeout - just what do you think they were contaminated with?

When do workers wear gloves while preparing food? I been to numerous bento shops and restaurants, and I seen a lot of workers prepare food with their bare hands.

Food hygiene is a total joke here, I've been in loads of kitchens and behind bars and they would be closed in seconds in west. The ironic thing is that these places are spotless when it comes to what the customer can see. Problem is to sell food and drinks the requirements are very few and inspections lacks. I remember the night before we got our license i was so nervous. The next day the inspector came, made a few notes about where our fridges were and checked we had 2 sinks and that was it, less that 5 minutes and not 1 question. When i ran a place in Scotland years back i spent weeks preparing documentation and training staff about which knife and what chopping board etc. While I'm ranting one other thing UNCOOKED CHICKEN!!!

wipeout: Not sure why you're suddenly jumping into other nation's examples of e.coli poisoning when we're talking about Noro, but that aside Kobe is right about the food hygiene here being a joke. Yes, you hear often about health inspectors coming in AFTER THE FACT and declaring a place suspended for a couple of days, but s/he is right that so many kitchens here would be closed in the bat of an eye-lid if things were as strict as in the West. So, before you start talking about food poisoning cases that have happened in other nations 19 years ago or so, you might just want to keep in mind this kind of mass food poisoning here happens all the time -- usually to kids on field trips and/or with bentos in cases like this.

between Jan 31 and Feb 5.

Anyone who eats a 5 day old bento is looking for food poisoning!

Food hygiene is a total joke here, I've been in loads of kitchens and behind bars and they would be closed in seconds in west.

My student worked in London for a couple of years as a cook. He was amazed that every single night, after closing, the ventilation fan was dismantled and cleaned! It made him realise how grimy and disgusting most kitchens are here in Osaka. He doesn't eat out very much.

Wipeout please chill, i was just talking from experience, I've worked in the industry for 20 plus years and while in England,Scotland,Australia,NZ. random food inspections are not just the norm they are expected and awaited and this keeps a lot of businesses vigilant. Here the rules are lacks and i have never seen an inspector in 6 yrs of being open. Where in the past it was a bi yearly event.

here ends the lesson.

@ wipeout - How is naming the specific contaminant "less exact"? Or do you plan to avoid answering this question too.

I have to say a lot of toilets in japan are just nasty . Even some of the ones in shopping malls . Nothing to wash your hands with or dry them with . As for the obento box incident . If more people learned how to cook their own food then food poisoning cases will decrease . We all know that obento boxes are not that good for you so why do we eat them I ask ? Can't cook won't cook that's what it is . Going back to the shopping mall. There are many restaurants of all kinds there and many people too. Bad toilet and hygiene by just a few staff and customers there and it's food poisoning all over again. Above all . Washing ones hands takes a min or two but we need something to wash them with .

Maverick7Feb. 12, 2015 - 09:35AM JST I have to say a lot of toilets in japan are just nasty . Even some of the ones in shopping malls . Nothing to wash your hands with or dry them with . As for the obento box incident . If more people learned how to cook their own food then food poisoning cases will decrease .

Probably a bit of a hit and miss when Japan is one of very few developed countries with a significant portion of the population still cooking. And bentos aren't "bad for you" in the sense that they aren't generally made with preservatives as a matter of course and are generally discounted after several hours on display. I don't know where you buy your food, but five days old bentos are not the norm.

I worked with bar licensing a few years ago and would be happy to inform you fire regulation inspections and other security requirements are often just as lack as food hygiene.

Kobe White Bar OwnerFeb. 12, 2015 - 01:15AM JST

Perhaps some were as worried as you before their initial health inspection and decided to drop it, because I know of several places that have been open for a couple of years with no kind of licensing or permits at all. :) If they are "caught", there are no consequences, just a deadline to actually get the permit.

Wipeout

I really enjoyed reading your dismantling/dissecting that haterinjapan's "argument" that everything in the West is better, yada, yada, yada!

In fact, lots of contamination stem from improper use of gloves, rather than unwashed hands.

Kobe bar owner

Yeah, we all know that things in Britain are way better than in Japain, don't we?

http://www.lbc.co.uk/thirty-possible-food-poisoning-cases-in-west-london-13331

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28804267

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/salmonella-outbreak-three-deaths-as-health-officials-confirm-spread-of-severe-food-poisoning-9672766.html

And don't even get me started on the lack of hand hygiene in this country!

This from a proud Brit.

B/C at least once a day I see a guy walk out of a bathroom stall, let alone a urinal, who seems to think soap and water is beneath him.

My father in law perhaps? Back on topic, hygiene standards have to be improved

wipeout

You're right on the money.

Contamination has more to do with improper use of gloves than dirty, scrubby finger nails.

"They say the contaminant was norovirus. I have no reason to disbelieve that" - I guess you don't live in Japan then, because they're all about spin not upsetting people. By saying it came from (norovirus on) the gloves, it's easy for customers to picture employees changing gloves, and all is well. If they had said poop or vomit (thus the virus), albeit small quantities, got into the obentos, nobody would buy from there again. That's why they couldn't say that. Do you think norovirus just flies around by itself? No, it has to ride on poop, vomit, or other bodily fluids. So it didn't get on the gloves by itself. BTW, I worked in care facilities for several years, I didn't just read about this online.

For good or bad, noroviruses are invisible to us without a microscope. If viruses and microbes are big enough to be visible to the naked eye, just the thought of it freaks me out. Let alone appetite!

But fortunately, this is definitely not the case so far, and we're grateful for the benefits which nature has bestowed upon us as we cannot cut a deal with mother nature anyway.

Hope employees in food service business companies pay attention to hygiene and wash their hands thoroughly as if someone is watching. That said, um,..they say like "He that gives to be seen, will relieve none in the dark."

Glad to know I'm not the only one who is struggling with the obdurate refusal to use soap after the toilet here. Constant fight with my in-laws. I've had more food poisoning in Japan than I ever had in my whole life before I came here.