Probiotics FTW! Is there no limit to their utility? Since less cooking = healthier meat when bacteria are not a factor, our days of cooking meat beyond rare or medium-rare may be numbered...
Mixture Limits E. Coli, Salmonella in Meat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 22, 2006
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- Consumers soon should be able to buy beef and
poultry products that have an added level of safety against two
sometimes fatal sources of food poisoning.
A researcher at Texas Tech University applied a mixture of four
different lactic acid bacterium to ground beef and found the combination
reduced the presence of salmonella and a harmful E. coli strain by as
much as 99.99 percent.
The Food and Drug Administration in December said the mixture was safe
for beef and poultry products. It isn't known when the treated meat
carrying special labels will hit the market, and basic food safety
practices won't change.
The university released news of the treatment earlier this week, months
after Tech researcher Mindy Brashears' study on the combined bacteria
was published in the Journal of Food Safety.
The mixture will be marketed by Indianapolis-based Nutrition Physiology
Corp. Company president Doug Ware declined to name the companies that
will use it.
Salmonella is a bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal
cramps and in some cases requires hospitalization. It can be deadly
unless those infected get antibiotics right away. Of the estimated 1.4
million cases of salmonella each year in the United States, about 400
people die, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
E. coli O157:H7 can cause severe abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea.
Other symptoms include vomiting and low-grade fever. An estimated 73,000
cases and 61 deaths occur annually in the U.S., according to the CDC.
Texas A&M University food microbiologist Alejandro Castillo said
Brashears' results look ''very promising.''
''However, until the mechanism of bacterial reduction is understood, the
food industry and the scientific community must be cautious and refrain
from taking this study as a final solution for the control of E. coli
O157:H7 in beef,'' he said.
Brashears said the mixture is the first post-production treatment that
continues to work. It was effective for up to 60 days in frozen ground
beef and about a week in refrigerated beef, Brashears said.
''It has that residual effect,'' she said.
Lactic acid bacteria also has been used in recent years to control E.
coli in live cattle and dairy cows.
The study also showed the mixture doesn't affect how meat tastes.
Stan Gilliland, a food microbiologist at Oklahoma State University, said
the technology has potential.
''This is just another hurdle to reducing the incidence,'' he said.
''But it may be an extremely important one. The thing is you're not
spraying a chemical on it.''
