RE: "FOOD WITHOUT FEAR" [FW]

["Lorraine Marceau-Day" <day@LSU.EDU>]

1)   Food irradiation of immediately picked, processed or caught foods has

the distinct advantage of eliminating potential pathogens (if high enough,

Gram-Positive spores as well,  as in,vis a vie, the Anthrax problem).

2)   The problem with cooking foods that are not as fresh as they ought to

be is that even though you may kill the pathogen [by burning your meat],

you do nothing to remove the protein toxins (such as occurs in botulism or

cholera) and it is these microbial products that can cause persistent

food-poisoning.

3)   Hundreds of thousands of food-poisonings go un-reported in this

country annually (and to think we have to report picocuries per gram of

radon in our water supply).

4)   Something else to think about:  The effective dose for E.coil 0157H7

is less than 10 organisms per ml and about the same for Listeria. Ergo the

largest recall in history for Listeria contaminated hamburger meat last

month.  By the way Listeria is a psychrophil - it adores the refrigerator.

If you are a child, are immuno-suppressed or elderly, you might not weather

such a contamination.  We should all champion



Lorraine Day, PhD

day@lsu.edu



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