People associate Listeria with milk, but in fact, Listeria can be found in almost any environment. It’s frequently found in raw meat, poultry, milk, vegetables, soil, open water, animal feces, and other common locations. Listeria is also an incredibly durable strain of bacteria; it can survive refrigeration, deep freezing, wide pH ranges, high salt content environments, low moisture environments, and even oxygen-deprived anaerobic environments.
If you remember the Blue Bell ice cream recall in 2015 - the maker took a huge hit. They basically replaced their entire production line - and still found listeria in their plant afterwards! Its a tough bugger to control.
Right - but the eggs are boiled/cooked. Obviously a post processing issue. I wonder if washing the eggs before eating would be enough (and wouldn’t work when used in salads. I’ll stick with my carnivore diet thank you!)
Survives boiling?
I suspect it has to do with the peeling and packing. And why would you buy hard boiled eggs? How hard is it to make them at home?
I’ve been craving deviled eggs. Add a bit of onion, fresh garlic, mustard and Miracle Whip. Yum! (But I have 2 freezers full of the last 2 holiday’s food!)
“People associate Listeria with milk”
processed lunch meat like olive loaf and such have to be produced in extremely sterile environments so as no to end up hosting listeria ...
Thanks. The temperature required to kill off Listeriosis is 165F, or 74C. which temps pasteurized products reach. But all that freezing food can do is delay the growth of the bacteria. Once un-thawed, the germs continue to multiply inside of the food.
Store-bought sanitisers, especially ones that contain quaternary ammonia or chlorine solutions, are effective in killing listeria. They recommend scrubbing food preparation surfaces with bleach, or the aforementioned sanitisers before cooking.
They advise waiting 10 minutes before rinsing down the surfaces, then allowing them to ‘air-dry’. All cutting boards should be vigorously washed in hot, soapy water, and food preparation washables like aprons, dishcloths and tea-towels must be washed regularly on a maximum heat setting. https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/how-to-kill-listeriosis-listeria-bacteria/
For most healthy people, the infection doesn’t pose much of a threat, even if it makes you sick for a day or two. But for some people, the [Listeria] infection can be serious or even life-threatening, particularly pregnant women and their babies, people whose immune systems aren’t working right, and seniors. If you belong to any of those groups, you need to be extra cautious.
When you get a listeria infection, the signs typically include: Diarrhea Nausea Achy muscles Fever They could appear a few days after you eat the bad food, or they might take a couple of months to show up. If you have any of those symptoms, contact your doctor. If the infection spreads to your nervous system, it’s more serious. This severe form, called listeriosis, is fatal for 20% of people who have it. This happens most often with the very young, the very old, and people with weakened immune systems. https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/food-poisoning/what-is-listeria#1
5 Foods Most Likely to Be Contaminated
1. Canned and raw seafood. 2. Fruits of all kinds. 3. Foods that are refrigerated for long periods of time. 4. Preserved and smoked meats. 5. Root vegetables and ground-grown vegetables like squash.https://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2011/10/21/the-latest-on-listeria-where-the-germs-lurk/#4c2e313a7b37
But how does the bacteria get through the (unbroken) shell into the egg?