The latest podcast in our Chew on This series highlights the important role research veterinarians play in ensuring food safety. Their research is crucial to forecasting the emergence of foodborne diseases and possible food safety.

In this Chew on This podcast, we discuss the role that veterinarians play in food safety research and forecasting with Dr. Scott Hurd, associate professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine at Iowa State University.

It doesn’t take long when talking to Dr. Doug Powell, founder of Barfblog.com, to find out that he’s got a sense of humor: “As you know, freedom of the press belongs to those who own one … and I own Barfblog, so there!”

After just a few years of publishing, his comically named internet journal, Barfblog.com, has drawn a good sized following -- approximately 10,000 people visit his site daily. His site boasts a half dozen highly educated correspondents, dedicated to improving public health by educating readers about the dangers of food-borne illnesses.

But what about that strange name … and some of the goofy stories he publishes?

“The humor makes it more relatable,” explains Michelle Mazur, a Barfblog.com contributor and a second-year veterinary student at Kansas State University, where Barfblog.com is based. “Humor is important. If you just put out abstracts every day it gets a little boring. Doug has a unique sense of humor, as do I, and so does everyone at Barfblog.com.”

“Marshall McLuhan [famed media theorist] said that those who try to distinguish between entertainment and education don’t know the first thing about either, and if I had an underlying philosophy that would be it,” Dr. Powell says. In the 1990s he worked as a journalist—the Canadian correspondent to Science and to a Canadian newspaper -- and he learned that, to hook a reader, sometimes you have to be a little silly. Most food handlers (restaurant workers, etc.) are under the age of 30, and young people don’t always think a lot about food