An FYI: Salmonella Outbreak

Hmm

Salmonella-contaminated dry pet food sickened at least 79 people, including many young children, in October and November.

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I knew Mars was being very very strict lately, but I didn't know it was because there had been so many people sick from dry pet foods lately.

Hopefully people are already following the suggestions for proper food handling and preparation.

When I pour the cats' dry food I rarely wash my hands afterwards. Even if the food does touch me - though their's isn't one of the heavily fat coated types. So I suppose that's one way people could easily get infected. Plant workers would be pretty likely to be exposed to it too... DH came home from work the other night and shook dog food out of his pockets again, it seems he and other workers were having a dog food fight again.

I guess lots of people don't think about that possibly infecting them. The good news is that, Mars at least, has became incredibly strict about salmonella. Each batch is tested and will not ship until it passes test. This unfortunately means they need to store every product for around 5 days.

As for your son sneaking it... I remember doing that at around age 3, I would also pretend it was food with my ponies.

whan i was about 8 my mum got totally obsessed with me and my brother not getting salmonella, so there were no runny eggs with soldiers anymore, no licking the cake mixout the bowl when she baked,

im sure it was all fuss over nothing. we still used to eat the mix when she didnt look, and dad used to let us have runny eggs when mom was out and we were never ill.

im sure im imune to almost everything, living on my own i dont go round wiping the surfaces every 10 mins and bleeching everything and i havnt been i'll for years!

in regard to other issues vaguely related......

i think there is too much fuss over things like this, when we were kids we used to play in the dirt and mud, coming home filthy and it never hurt us. mothers these days keeping the house totally imaculate as they have a toddler, and as soon as it goes off to kinder garden or whatever thay get i'll all the time, and its because they havnt built up any imunity to anything, and as soon as they mix with other kids thats it!

but that nora (winter vomiting) virus, now thats another matter!!!

Just my luck I made cookies last night and ended up eating some of the raw dough. There was only 1 egg in the dough and I just couldn't help myself. I hope that cooking the cookies got rid of any salmonella (if there was any) or a bunch of guys at work are going to be Very upset with me.

^Salmonella in eggs is nothing new. If they've made it this long in life they're not likely to get sick from your cookies now.

im sure one egg wont have hurt anyone, dont worry, they should think themselves lucky you made the guys some cookies anyway WELDRWOMN

i did hear recently though about keeping eggs in your fridge, that you should keep them at the bottom of the fridge, not at the top in those special holes in the fridge door. as aparently salmanella is on the exterior of the shell not just in its contents, so the theory is that it is possible for things stored below the egss to become infected should anything fall from the eggs?

sounds a bit far fetched to me!

eggnog anyone?????

Originally Posted by jezmondo69

i did hear recently though about keeping eggs in your fridge, that you should keep them at the bottom of the fridge, not at the top in those special holes in the fridge door. as aparently salmanella is on the exterior of the shell not just in its contents, so the theory is that it is possible for things stored below the egss to become infected should anything fall from the eggs?

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Having worked in an egg factory as an industrial cleaner, I can safely say that yes, the above is fairly far fetched.

Eggs you buy in the grocery store are put through strict cleaning/sanitation processes (well, at least in Canada... I don't know other countries standards but I'm up to par on the CFIA's standards regarding eggs) and the chances of salmonella dropping from the egg into something else is slim to none.

Farm eggs, that don't undergo sanitation processes however...it is possible if there is a contaminant on the shell, that it could drop into something else. (a piece of fecal matter could be stuck to the egg, and drop off)

One of the not fun job perks is I've had salmonella poisoning several times. It was our job to clean the machinery that sorts/cleans/grades and packs the eggs. We dealt with the eggs straight from the farm.

My opinion only, from working with the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) : Eggs are not very dangerous if they've been cleaned. For the most part, salmonella is found on the shells, from the chickens.