Could there be anything worse for the chicken industry than this month's outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella that hospitalized 42 percent of everyone who got it--almost 300 in 18 states-? Yes. The government also announced that China has been cleared to process chickens for the US dinner plate and that all but one of arsenic compounds no one knew they were eating anyway have been removed from US poultry production. Thanks for that. Also this month, some food researchers have revealed the true recipe for chicken "nuggets" "just in time for Halloween.
Extreme Salmonella
Do you remember the joke "denial is not a river in Egypt"? Well "Heidelberg" is not a charismatic city in Germany when you're talking about food. It is a monster version of salmonella, some strains of which are resistant to seven antibiotics says Christopher Braden , director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention division of foodborne diseases. Thirteen percent of people affected by the current outbreak have salmonella septicemia, a serious, life-threatening, whole-body inflammation, says Braden. The contamination stems from "fecal material on carcasses, poor sanitary dressing practices, insanitary food contact surfaces, insanitary nonfood contact surfaces, and direct product contamination," says the USDA. That about covers it. The California-based Foster Farms, believed to be the source of the outbreak, has had salmonella problems for a decade says Food Poisoning News. Nor has the government shut them down, even now.
Salmonella is a "naturally occurring bacteria" says the USDA and hence allowed in food--but we are supposed to cook chicken and other products to at least 165 -F to kill it and other microbial freeloaders. But Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest disagrees with the government's leniency. Salmonella strains like Heidelberg "are too hot for consumers to handle in their kitchens," she told USA Today.
E. Coli
Just because chicken has salmonella doesn't mean it doesn't also have E. coli! Eighty-seven percent of chicken cadavers test positive for E. coli before they are sent to stores reports Salon. E.coli is considered more dangerous than salmonella by the USDA and was one of the reasons Russia banned 19 US poultry producers in 2008 (along with US arsenic residues.) Antibiotic-resistant E. coli traces were found in samples of raw conventional chicken, chickens "raised without antibiotics" and kosher chicken purchased in New York City in April. The highest E. coli incidence was, surprisingly, found in the kosher chicken. Last year, researchers writing in Emerging Infectious Diseases reported that E. coli in chicken is genetically closer to human E. coli than E. coli in beef and pork samples and could put people at risk for urinary tract infections when they are exposed to it because of its similarity.
Arsenic
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