Is your pet’s food making you sick? Study finds many don’t know the risk

From the August 19, 2020 article by Brian Wallhemer at MedicalXpress

“many Americans don’t wash their hands after feeding or playing with their cats and dogs and aren’t aware of the risk of contracting a foodborne illness from those activities.”

“Some tips to keep pet owners from getting foodborne illness include:

–Wash hands with soap and water after preparing food for pets, petting or playing with pets, and before preparing food for people.

–Avoid feeding pets raw meat.

–Handle and store pet food carefully to avoid cross-contamination. 

–Keep up with pet food recalls and keep records of pet food lot numbers and other information for potential tracking.”

Whole Chickens from Farmers Markets May Have More Pathogenic Bacteria

Chickens (Photo credit: Allie’s.Dad)

 

From the 11 July 2013 article at Science Daily

 

Raw, whole chickens purchased from farmers markets throughout Pennsylvania contained significantly higher levels of bacteria that can cause foodborne illness compared to those purchased from grocery stores in the region, according to a small-scale study by researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

..

Of 100 whole chickens purchased from farmers markets, 90 percent tested positive for Campylobacter and 28 percent harbored Salmonella.

By comparison, during the same period, 20 percent of raw, whole, organic chickens purchased from grocery stores were found to contain Campylobacterbacteria, and 28 percent tested positive for Salmonella. Just 8 percent of raw, whole, nonorganic, conventionally processed chickens from the grocery stores tested positive for Campylobacter and 52 percent of those contained Salmonella.

Overall, the chickens purchased at the farmers markets carried higher bacterial loads than the birds purchased at grocery stores.

..

“We are not doing the research to scare consumers or put people out of business; we’re here to improve public health,” she said. “We can train farmers and vendors to produce a safer product that won’t make people sick. This approach also has the potential to help consumers feel more confident about buying their locally grown and processed products.”

Bacteria that cause foodborne illness, such as Campylobacterand Salmonella, are destroyed by proper cooking of poultry products; however, they also can cause cross-contamination if they come in contact with other foods through contaminated cutting boards, sinks, countertops or utensils.

….

 

Related Resource

 

• Food Safety- CDC  – Simple steps, videos included

 

 

 

Related articles

• Chickens Purchased from Farmers Markets in Pennsylvania Contain Higher Levels of Pathogenic Bacteria (medindia.net)
• More Pathogenic Bacteria Found In Whole Chickens From Farmers Markets, Pennsylvania (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Why Lettuce Keeps Making Us Sick (modernfarmer.com)

 

Beneficial Bacteria May Help Ward Off Infection

 

English: Template for Template:Food safety (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

From the 19 July 2012 article at Science News Daily

 

While many bacteria exist as aggressive pathogens, causing diseases ranging from tuberculosis and cholera, to plague, diphtheria and toxic shock syndrome, others play a less malevolent role and some are critical for human health.

In a new study, Cheryl Nickerson and her group at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, in collaboration with an international team including Tom Van de Wiele and lead author Rosemarie De Weirdt at Ghent University, Belgium, explore the role of Lactobaccilus reuteri — a natural resident of the human gut — to protect against foodborne infection.

Their results demonstrate that this beneficial or probiotic organism, which produces an antimicrobial substance known as reuterin, may protect intestinal epithelial cells from infection by the foodborne bacterial pathogen Salmonella….

…

Bacterial Blizzard

A swarm of some hundred trillion bacteria occupies the human body, outnumbering human cells by about 10 to 1. Among these are members of the genus Lactobacilli, some of which have been associated with therapeutic, probiotic properties, including anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activity.

The current study zeros in on Lactobacillus reuteri — one of the more than 180 species of Lactobacilli. The group investigated the potential of this bacterium to inhibit the early stages ofSalmonella infection, seeking to identify plausible mechanisms for such inhibitory effects.

Intestinal infections by non-typhoidal Salmonella strains induce diarrhea and gastroenteritis, and remain a leading source of foodborne illness worldwide. Such infections are acutely unpleasant but self-limiting in healthy individuals. For those with compromised immunity however, they can be deadly and the alarming incidence of multi-drug resistant Salmonellastrains has underlined the necessity of more effective therapeutics.

The use of benign microorganisms offers a promising new approach to treating infection from pathogens like Salmonellaand indeed, L. reuteri has been shown to help protect against gastrointestinal infection and reduce diarrhea in children.

Safeguarding cells

The origin of L. reuteri’s protective role still remains unclear, and the present study investigated whether reuterin, a metabolite produced by L. reuteri during the process of reducing glycerol in the gut, could be one of the keys to protection. While it has been speculated that reuterin acts by regulating immune responses or competing with Salmonella for key binding sites, the current study represents the first in vitro examination of host-pathogen interactions using human intestinal epithelium in the presence of reuterin-producing L. reuteri.

 

Related articles

• Probiotics (slideshare.net)
• Genome Project for Food Pathogens Launched by FDA (bespacific.com)
• Tummy Troubles, Colic, and Mama’s Diet (scienceofmom.com)
• FDA plans database for identifying foodborne germs (sfgate.com)
• Genome Project for Food Pathogens Launched (fda.gov)
• Toward an alternative for antibiotics to fight bacterial infections? (eurekalert.org)
• Seeking An Alternative For Antibiotics To Fight Bacterial Infections (medicalnewstoday.com)
• The Surprising Viruses in Our Gut [The Weizmann Wave] (scienceblogs.com)