Watching CSI Miami a couple of nights ago really freaked me out. It was the E.coli poisoning episode where a girl who'd eaten a salad in a restaurant fell ill and died a week later. The CSI team found that the E.coli was in the irrigation system of a big commercial farm which supplies fruits and vegetables to restaurants.
Me, I love having the grilled chicken caesar salad at McDonalds. Its convenient since McD's is just behind my apartment. I also like to buy ready packed salads from the supermarkets - I just open the pack and its ready to eat, I do not need to rinse them at all.
That episode of CSI maybe based on the 1996 E.coli outbreak in the Eastern U.S. which was traced back to Fancy Cutt Farms in California.
According to health authorities, the company was rinsing lettuce in dirty, bacteria-laden water, in a shed 100 feet away from a cattle pen, right in the path of dust-borne manure.
It's not that the fresh produce itself is dangerous. The E. coli bacteria breeds in animal or bird manure, which can come into contact with fresh produce in the field, during the packing or shipping process.
Increased public demand for fresh fruits and vegetables, and the growing popularity of ready-to-eat packaged salad mixes and fresh juices, has encouraged many small companies to enter an increasingly competitive field.
In particular, small-scale farmers who used to just grow lettuce and radishes have now started cleaning, chopping and processing their own salad mixes. Some of them have little understanding of correct safety procedures and have little incentive to implement them. And because most of this produce is eaten raw, high-heat techniques to kill bacteria such as boiling or pasteurization are not applicable.
Scrupulous cleanliness at every step of the operation, from harvesting through processing is paramount.
The story adds that another serious health hazard concerns the cleanliness of shipping trucks, which is also not regulated. Trucks used to transport poultry from farm to market one day can be used to ship fresh vegetables the next day, and there is no law which states how that truck must be cleaned.
This episode urged me to do some research about E.Coli and I found the following excerpt:
Experts in foodborne illnesses are urging consumers to wash their lettuce carefully, leaf by leaf. Simply giving a head of lettuce a quick rinse under the faucet doesn't wash away E. coli bacteria and other possible pathogens that could be contaminating the inner leaves, according to Ross Davidson, a clinical microbiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
Davidson performed a study in which he sprayed heads of lettuce with E. coli and then washed them three different ways. One group of lettuce was cored and the head was rinsed under a stream of tap water. A second group was cored and dipped several times in a sink full of water. In the third group, the lettuce was washed leaf by leaf in a sink of water. The study showed that washing the leaves individually was significantly better at removing E. coli from the lettuce than the intact washing.
Health officials do not know how widespread E. coli contamination is in produce, but in the past couple of years, a handful of outbreaks have been linked to lettuce, alfalfa sprouts and apple juice, Davidson said. It's also unclear how E. coli gets into lettuce. Davidson suggested two possible routes: through lettuce fields that are contaminated with water from cattle farms; or through unsterilized manure used to fertilize lettuce fields.
Well, for one I will think twice before having McD's salads again, unless I bring it home and rinse it a few more times...
The following are other precautions we can all take when preparing food at home:
Always wash fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly before eating.
Always clean any surface that has come in contact with raw meat before any other item is placed on that surface. FYI, it is better to use a plastic cutting board than a wooden one (though a wooden one is aesthetically more pleasing, it also breeds bacteria if not properly cleaned).
Always thoroughly wash hands after handling raw meat, and before handling any other utensil or food item. Always cook meat until the juices run absolutely clear.
Prepare meat and poultry separately from fruits and vegetables, and use separate clean utensils for cutting and mixing.
At the store, trust your senses. Look for fresh-looking fruits and vegetables that are not bruised, shriveled, moldy, or slimy. Don’t buy anything that smells bad. Don’t buy packaged vegetables that look slimy. Buy only what you need. Keep meats separate from produce.
Handle fresh fruits and vegetables carefully. Put produce away promptly, and keep it in the crisper. Remember to keep all cut fruits and vegetables covered in the refrigerator, and throw away produce you have kept too long. Wash all fruits and vegetables in clean drinking water before eating. Do not use detergent or bleach when washing fruits and vegetables. Store prepared fruit salads and other cut produce in the refrigerator until just before serving. Discard cut produce if it has been out of the refrigerator for four hours or more.
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Remember the old folks way of washing the veggies in salt water? That is always a good way to do it since ecoli does not survive well in salt water.
ReplyDeleteI thought of it but was not sure if salt actually works! Thanks for letting me know - I'll soak all veges in salt water from now.
ReplyDeletePlastic chopping board was once required by the European authorities. The assumption was plastic cleaned better than wood. Once there are cuts and scratches on the plastic surfaces, it is harder to clean and bacteria can grow within those cuts.
ReplyDeleteSo both wooden and plastic chopping boards are not safe. In KL, I used a chopping board made of glass but can't seem to find those here...
ReplyDeleteI guess if we change the plastic boards every couple of months then it should be fine.