>Is heating the only way to knock back Salmonella spp.?
>
>I seem to recall years of food safety bulletins recommending good
>hygiene (washing hands, work surfaces, etc.) with hot water and soap
>as a way to control the bacteria, which can live on anything wet,
>including pet turtles. (Though one wouldn't want to wash a turtle
>with hot water and soap....)
>
>I personally wouldn't want to expose my own green foods to a
>surfactant (soap). But what about rinsing sprouts in a solution of
>lemon juice and water or vinegar and water before eating them? Or
>serving them with low pH condiments? What pH would it take to
>knock back bacteria of this genus, in general?
>
<snip>
I have been involved in the California Peer Review Project, which is
evaluating materials that are often proposed as "less-toxic alternatives"
to various chemical. Vinegar was evaluated for "potential health and
environmental effects, as well as efficacy, in cleaning applications,
including clean up of kitchen and bathroom soil, microorganism removal,
hard surface cleansing, and glass cleaning." (Note: we didn't specifically
look at vinegar as a food disinfectant, but did look at some disinfectant
properties.)
Findings:
"Vinegar's removal of kitchen and bathroom soil has been the subject of a
scientific peer-reviewed study, which showed that vinegar's cleaning
ability is the least effective when compared with several other alternative
cleaners such as borax, baking soda, and ammonia, and less than commercial
cleaners as well. In a non-peer-reviewed study, the attitudes of volunteers
toward cleaners, of whose identity they were unaware (blinded), were
examined. In these studies, vinegar also consistently ranked in the lowest
category for both ease of cleaning and satisfaction with the cleaning
results.
"Vinegar has been shown in two scientific studies to reduce microbial
population levels during cleaning. Although one of these studies showed
that a 1:25 dilution of vinegar in water did not reduce microbial levels
sufficiently to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's criteria
for classification as a disinfectant, no such testing was performed for
undiluted vinegar. The evidence is inconclusive as to whether vinegar's
action against microbes is due predominantly to removal from surfaces
cleaned (such that populations remain on the cleaning utensil) or to
vinegar's ability to inhibit microbial growth. "
You can find more informaiton about this and other reviews, as well as
information on the project in general at <http://www.peerreview.com.> If
you have trouble with that site, try
<http://www.peerreview.com/main_text.htm>
****************************************
Kathy Brunetti, Agriculture Program Supervisor
California Department of Pesticide Regulation
830 KStreet, Sacramento, California, USA 95814
voice (916) 324-4100, FAX (916) 324-4088, brunetti@empm.cdpr.ca.gov
Our Web site: http://www.cdpr.ca.gov
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