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Carl K. Winter, Ph.D., food toxicologist and UC Davis researcher was
winding up his recent appearance before a Baltimore audience, when the
crowd fired up lighters, held them aloft and began swaying to Winter's words.
It wasn't unexpected, really.
The audience - at a Hard Rock Cafe - was responding to one of Winter's
big crowd pleasers: "They Might Kill You/We Are the Microbes," based
on Queen's anthem "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions."
The lyrics include: "We'll mess up your kidneys/GI damage we'll
do/We go by clostridium, E. coli, salmonella/Just to mention a few."
In the last year, Winter, 41, has come into great demand because of
musical parodies like " We Are the Microbes" and his latest, "
Beware La Vaca Loca,"
a Ricky Martin-ized look at mad
Cow Disease.
"He's got a huge fan following in
the Department of Ag headquarters here in Washington," said Andy Solomon,
spokesman for the USDA. "You'd Better Wash Your Hands, is really a classic."
The song is on Winter's second home-produced CD, "Sanitized for Your Consumption,"
which came out this summer, one year after his debut, "Stayin' Alive."
The disc for "Stayin' Alive" features an image of Winter a la John Travolta
in "Saturday Night Fever."
Instead of a leisure suit, however, Winter wears a lab coat and holds a burger that,
according to the lyrics, should be heated "Up to one-eighty-five, one-eighty/Ah, ha,
ha, ha, stayin' alive."
The vast majority of Winter's songs have similar food safety themes.
He is the FoodSafe Program director in the Food Science and Technology department at
University of California, Davis, and he sees the songs as education as well as entertainment.
The Institute of Food Technologists has sanctioned his performances as scientific lectures,
which means he's getting lots of calls to appear at professional gatherings--more than he can agree to.
"Something I never envisioned," he said.
The downside is this: After serious panel discussions on food toxicology, attendees only want to
talk to him about his songs.
Still, his music addresses many of the serious, controversial and newsworthy topics of his field.
His songs take on issues of food irradiation, pesticide use and residue, E. coli, olestra and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Some songs have more basic topics, like handwashing for hygiene.
The range of subjects means some of his songs appeal to food professionals, some to home cooks
and some to kids.
His own 6- and 7-year old kids like to listen to his CD in the car focusing on their favorite
parodies. "over and over and over," Winter said.
As a result of his Web site and news stories, he gets dozens of requests a week for CDs.
He offers them for free, though he says he'll accept donations to pay for needed singing lessons.
A recent Swedish headline, "En Elvis Presley i kolibakteriernas varld" refers
to his nickname, bestowed by UC Davis public relations staff: the Elvis of E. coli.
All this is heady stuff for someone who never planned a career in music after less-than-successful
college band days in Davis.
"In college, I played for some miserable bands, where frequently there were more people on
stage than in the audience," he said.
Now he's the only one on stage. The music is created with a synthesizer and computer.
The vocals are all him.
Despite the relative success of his CDs - he's distributed about 2,000 to nearly 20 countries - he
has no illusions about going pro.
"My job is to get information out. I'm not trying to do this to make money. I don't
have an enormous ego, or a huge staff of handlers," he said.
And, his recent album may be his last. He acknowledges that the topic of food safety only goes
so far and his last album is padded with one Monica Lewinsky tune.
"I'm running out of topics."
Winter's songs may be downloaded from his Website, http://foodsafe.ucdavis.edu/music.html.
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