On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 246

Food-Borne Infections Beyond the possibility that it may chip away at our longevity by contributing to heart disease and cancer, meat can also pose the much more immediate hazard of caus

Food-Borne Infections

Beyond the possibility that it may chip away

at our longevity by contributing to heart

disease and cancer, meat can also pose the

much more immediate hazard of causing

infection by disease microbes This problem remains all too common

Bacterial Infection Exactly because it is a

nutritious material, meat is especially vulnerable to colonization by microbes, mainly bacteria And because animal skins and digestive tracts are rich reservoirs of bacteria, it’s inevitable that initially clean meat surfaces will be contaminated during slaughter and the removal of skin, feathers, and innards The problem is magnified in standard mechanized operations, where carcasses are handled less carefully than they would be by skilled butchers, and where a

single infected carcass is more likely to contaminate others Most bacteria are harmless and simply spoil the meat by consuming its nutrients and eventually generating unpleasant smells and a slimy surface A number, however, can invade the cells of our digestive system, and produce toxins to destroy the host cells and defenses and to speed their getaway from the body The two most prominent causes of serious

meat-borne illness are Salmonella and E coli.

Salmonella, a genus that includes more

than 2,000 distinct bacterial types, causes

more serious food-borne disease in Europe and North America than any other microbe, and appears to be on the rise It’s a resilient group, adaptable to extremes of temperature, acidity, and moisture, and found in most if not all animals, including fish In the United

States it’s especially prevalent in poultry and eggs, apparently thanks to the practices of

industrial-scale poultry farming: recycling