Posted on 12/19/2013 12:04:43 PM PST by chessplayer
A report released Thursday indicates that just about all chicken sold in U.S. stores contains harmful bacteria, and nearly half are tainted with a so-called superbug that's resistant to antibiotics.
The Consumer Reports study, its most comprehensive to date on poultry, tested raw chicken breasts purchased at retail outlets nationwide for six bacteria, then checked for antibiotic resistance. The results showed nearly half of the samples were contaminated with at least one bacterium resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics, what's known as a superbug. Slightly more than 10 percent were tainted with two superbugs.
That finding is cause for alarm, said Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and executive director of Consumer Reports National Research Center.
"We're in a public health crisis," Rangan said. "Pharmaceutical companies are not making new antibiotics."
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
Yes, I worked as a stud for the Hutterites. I’m not proud of it, but it paid my way through croquet mallet repair school.
That chicken from CHINA is probably going to come back cooked and as an ingredient of a processed meal.
I will never eat chicken for the rest of my life red meat only
“...if composted properly”. Failure in this area is why eating organic produce is literally a crap shoot.
Unless poisoning takes a while....I think I'm OK from having a wonderful roast chicken dinner.
I’m not that negative about CR. And this is important, because people DO need to take real care to cook their chicken completely and properly.
It is pretty easy to undercook a chicken, and if you do, you might well pick up a bug that we can’t cure.
It is also very important to point out that the drug companies aren’t coming up with the next generation of antibiotic, in part because of government regulation and the health care crisis caused by Obamacare.
Sounds like my house growing up. Five kids, each had their favorite piece. I have found that the key to good fried chicken nowadays is to thoroughly wash the chicken and let it soak in salt water for awhile. Takes some of the funky chicken taste out of it.
When I worked in the meat business 20 years ago we were saying the same thing. Unfortunately people die every day due to Ludditism.
Sure that’s not a pigeon?
I think one thing Mother may have forgotten was she used lard when we were kids. She passed around 5 years ago but for her last 20 or so, she used Wesson Oil.
I bet the lard tasted better.
Most people think they got sick from something they just ate (like at a restaurant) but it is much more likely to be the result of something they ate days ago.
Contaminant | Onset of symptoms | Foods affected and means of transmission |
---|---|---|
Campylobacter | 2 to 5 days | Meat and poultry. Contamination occurs during processing if animal feces contact meat surfaces. Other sources include unpasteurized milk and contaminated water. |
Clostridium botulinum | 12 to 72 hours | Home-canned foods with low acidity, improperly canned commercial foods, smoked or salted fish, potatoes baked in aluminum foil and other foods kept at warm temperatures for too long. |
Clostridium perfringens | 8 to 16 hours | Meats, stews and gravies. Commonly spread when serving dishes don't keep food hot enough or food is chilled too slowly. |
Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 | 1 to 8 days | Beef contaminated with feces during slaughter. Spread mainly by undercooked ground beef. Other sources include unpasteurized milk and apple cider, alfalfa sprouts and contaminated water. |
Giardia lamblia | 1 to 2 weeks | Raw, ready-to-eat produce and contaminated water. Can be spread by an infected food handler. |
Hepatitis A | 28 days | Raw, ready-to-eat produce and shellfish from contaminated water. Can be spread by an infected food handler. |
Listeria | 9 to 48 hours | Hot dogs, luncheon meats, unpasteurized milk and cheeses, and unwashed raw produce. Can be spread through contaminated soil and water. |
Noroviruses (Norwalk-like viruses) | 12 to 48 hours | Raw, ready-to-eat produce and shellfish from contaminated water. Can be spread by an infected food handler. |
Rotavirus | 1 to 3 days | Raw, ready-to-eat produce. Can be spread by an infected food handler. |
Salmonella | 1 to 3 days | Raw or contaminated meat, poultry, milk or egg yolks. Survives inadequate cooking. Can be spread by knives, cutting surfaces or an infected food handler. |
Shigella | 24 to 48 hours | Seafood and raw, ready-to-eat produce. Can be spread by an infected food handler. |
Staphylococcus aureus | 1 to 6 hours | Meats and prepared salads, cream sauces and cream-filled pastries. Can be spread by hand contact, coughing and sneezing. |
Vibrio vulnificus | 1 to 7 days | Raw oysters and raw or undercooked mussels, clams and whole scallops. Can be spread through contaminated seawater. |
20 years ago, all the baby boomers (those kids who had to hide under their desks during the cold war drills) were in their 40’s, early 50’s. Now they are retiring... in 20 years they’ll be dying and their cold war memories and fears with them.
I remain hopeful that there will be a concurring swing away from their neo-luddite proscriptions.
It’s gonna happen sooner or later out of necessity because food replicator technology will require irradiated food stuffs or they’re gonna get all gummed up with fungal or bacterial goo that makes back of the fridge science look tame.
Balderdash.
I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word contaminated is, because if so much chicken were "contaminated", we would be reading about people getting sick from it much more often, given the mind-bogglingly enormous amount of chicken that We the People collectively consume.
The fact is, our food supply is astonishingly safe, IMHO...
In a later comment I already pointed out I use soap and water as soon as I am done handling the raw chicken.
I remember when I got food poisoning back in 1965. My abdomen still hurts just thinking about it.
It turned out that everyone who ate the chicken and rice for supper got sick. I awoke that night with serious pain. My room mate asked. You got it too?
The Dr. was passing out paregoric in the staff center. It took around an hour but after that, I felt and was much better. They had to take a few to the hospital.
The next day the manager got on the microphone and told the staff that everyone in the nearby towns had it too, which was not true. After he quit, the staff Dr. got on the mic and said that might be true but he would recommend the kitchen crew to start washing their hands a lot more often. Everyone laughed.
We were in so much pain I was sure we would die before dawn. Then I remember thinking, ‘OMG the whole town feels like this”.
When I was able I called a few people that were there and guess what , it was just us, no one else was sick. LOL!
We had a staff of around 430 back then. I would guess that 90% got sick. Just about everyone. Fortunately this happened before the guests had arrived.
At the time Morrisons was contracted for food service. The food was really good but you always feared in the back of your mind what might happen again.
I believe our cooks who were all Black btw came up in the Summer from Florida State where they worked the rest of the year.
Hand washing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Even in a clinical setting wherein the subjects knew there would be testing, median handwashing effectiveness shows only a 60% reduction in bacterial count.
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