hello micha,
>U.S. Scrambles to Ensure Egg Safety
>But critics say plan to eradicate Salmonella strain is
>an overreaction
>The plan, details of which are still being finalized,
>could possibly lead to wholesale pasteurization of the
>nation's egg supply -- a change as radical as the
>campaign to pasteurize milk 80 years ago.
first: it's very rarely the inside of the egg, which is the
dangerous part of the salmonella problem, because it's not the
bacteria themselves, but the fast built-up of exudates after
breaking up the egg shell, which might be contaminated. the grade
of the exterior contamination with dirt/faeces is in the
responsability of the producer, the built-up of endotoxins isn't.
that's in the hand of the consumer, the food manufacterer, the
cooling chain during transport, the caterer and so on..
you can very well use a 4 week old egg taken out of the
refrigerator, use it for a tiramisu (you would not use such old
eggs for other reasons anyway, would you?), eat it the same day
and you will not run into troubles. but you definately will, if
you leave that same tiramisu for 10 hours in the hot sun without
any cooling. why ? because you might have contaminated it during
the preparation..
grabbing for the big bucks by suing the manufacturer of a
product, any product, seems to me like passing the buck. Where
does a company's responsibility end and our OWN responsibility
begin? it's a ridiculous concept, if consumers believe, that they
themselfes are not responsable at all for their own health beyond
the usual things the farmer has to take care of (would you sell
eggs, which were laid into grass contaminated with faeces and
which you found two days later ?? i wouldn't)
i always wondered about your million $ law cases, where someone
sues a company, because he prefered to ignore TRIVIAL human
intelligence below average. a doctor, who smoked for 30 years and
then sued the tobacco company, is an idiot, from whom his license
should be taken away the same moment, he brings his case to
court..
i'm waiting for the day, someone will sue the wild life
department of arizona, because they did not install large plates
at the grand canyon, which tells the visitor not to play around
with rattle snakes and putting them in their travelbag to carry
them home to their new york apartment's bath tube..... there's a
saying here over in europe, that when a german falls down, he does
not try to get up, but instead is looking around at first, whom he
might sue.. a widely known concept: first blame it on someone
else...
(although some cases seem all too obvious, here's an example, why
on the other side it is not sooo easy, whom to blame. you
remember the famous lawsuit of the lady, who burnt her "private
parts" from a coffee from mchotleg ? i once talked to an
engineer, who worked in the same business here and who told me,
that in fact the company respectively the coffee cup manufacturer
were responsable for the accident. he said, that according to
"usual", "social" and "generally accepted" standards the coffee
was MUCH too hot and according to technical "state of the art"
the cups were really designed very badly and they would NEVER
have passed internal tests in his company!! a simple test at the
manufacterer should have should have shown the "mal-design". a
proof, that it is not always so easy to jugde as it seems at
first look)
a nice example abound the strange impressions people have about
natural food and other natural products. half a year ago i was
expert in a court case, where the owner of a horse stable brought
an action against a farmer of having sold spoiled corn to him. as
it turned out, the farmer had unloaded the corn before the
stable. two days later it had rained heavily and after that the
stable owner let the corn lay outside without any shelter for a
whole week. no wonder the corn spoiled. before the court i
compared the case to a butcher, who is being sued of selling
spoiled sausage. this one sells his sausages like thousands of
other butchers. the seller of the sausages goes home, lays his
sausages on his sunny balcony for one week and after that
complains, that the butcher had sold him spoiled and molded
sausages...
that seemed even reasonable to the judge, case closed in favor of
the farmer...
>Reimann, a recently retired UC Davis professor and one
>of the nation's top authorities on egg-related safety
>and epidemiology.
>``What's going on here is sort of a media scare, and
>regulatory agencies feel compelled to do something.''
that professor should be re-activated immediately!!!!
surely there is an important and first front responsability of
the chicken farmer, but he can't be sued for consumers behaving
like total idiots. the last bigger salmonella case here (one death
and several people getting severely ill) happened in a home for
seniors. reason: a potato salad, of which the uneaten rest of the
meal was served again two days later and the salad was not even
put in the refrigerator !!!!
>health departments orchestrated a public-education
>campaign designed to teach restaurant workers and home
>cooks how to handle eggs properly to avoid under
>cooking or contaminating other food with bacteria.
i think this to be the best way to solve the problems. the large
majority of incidents does not happen in private household kitchens,
but in these of caterers and nursing home kitchens..
the message is clear: if you're a farmer, try to keep the
eggshells as free from contamination as possible, keep your
stable clean and watch for diarrhoea.
if you're a consumer, make sure the eggs are thoroughly cooked,
and be aware of items that use raw eggs as ingredients. foods
containing raw eggs include: homemade ice cream, cookie batter,
caesar salad, and hollandaise sauce.
besides here's the most strange thing: no microbiologist collegue
up to could explain to my, why the lowest incidence of salmonella
in eggs occures in summer and the hightest in spring (with e.
coli it's jut the other way round). that's contrary to usually
accepted knowledge. anyone able to offer a thesis ???
klaus
---------------
klaus wiegand
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