Elvis of E. coli releases second food safety music CD

CHICAGO -- Who says learning about a serious subject, such as food safety, can't be fun? Certainly not Carl K. Winter, Ph.D., also known as the "Elvis of E. coli" and "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Pesticides."

Winter, a food toxicologist at the University of California at Davis and director of its FoodSafe Program, debuted his second food safety music CD, "Sanitized for Your Consumption: A Menu of Musical Morsels," last month at the Institute of Food Technologists' 1999 Annual Meeting in Chicago. His new CD also arrived in time for National Food Safety Education Month this September.

It features eight parodies of popular songs with modified lyrics about contemporary food safety issues, such as proper handwashing and home food handling practices. For example, in his tune "Don't Be a Gambler," based on Kenny Roger's "The Gambler," Winter sings about thoroughly cooking hamburgers, followed by the refrain:

You gotta know when to heat 'em
Know when to eat 'em
Know when to wash your hands
And decontaminate
There's no need to gamble
When you're eatin' at the table
Or you'll be sick in the bathroom
When the evening's late

Other songs about microbiological food safety are "You'd Better Wash Your Hands" based on The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "They Might Kill You/We Are the Microbes" derived from Queen's "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions." The topics of Winter's other parodies vary widely, including pesticides ("I Sprayed It On the Grapevine" based on Marvin Gaye's classic), fat replacers (olestra is the lyric substitute in Joe Cocker's "Feelin' All Right"), alternative food processing technologies ("Food Irradiation" is based on Little Eva's "Do the Locomotion") and junk science (an original tune called "Political Hay"). With a synthesizer and computer, Winter produced these tunes at "Spare Bedroom Studios" (home).

"In this era of nanosecond attention spans and education via entertainment, I've found that the musical approach successfully reaches audiences that don't respond well to traditional methods of education," says Winter.

In July 1998, he released his first CD, "Stayin' Alive: A Hearty Helping of Food Follies and Science Serenades," which also addresses food safety issues.

###

For more information about Winter's CDs, downloadable music files and lyrics, check out his web site at http://foodsafe.ucdavis.edu/music.html.

Carl K. Winter, Ph.D., is Director of the FoodSafe Program and Associate Extension Food Toxicologist in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California at Davis. He is also Chair of the Institute of Food Technologists' (IFT's) Toxicology and Safety Evaluation Division, member of IFT's Expert Panel on Food Safety and Nutrition, and IFT Food Science Communicator.

---

---