Subject: Re: E. coli - one more example

From: Elaine Ingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 15:57:11 EST

In a message dated 11/4/2002 4:47:52 AM Pacific Standard Time,
[email-masked] writes:
>
> uhhuhh, we find them quite often in cheap foodstuff (when MBM
> was still allowed, we found them regularely in 70% of mixtures
> containing MBM)  with the usual aerobic colony counts of 10 ^8 to
> 10 ^9 / gr - incubation in usual temperature chambers (overgrown in
> foodstuff with colony numbers above). simple pretesting by vicam,
> our experienced technicians have a success rate of about 90%
> counterchecked by serology.
>

And what was the oxygen concentration in the cheap foodstuffs?

And wait a minute on the "aerobic plate counts".  There is EVERY probability
that the organisms that grew on that aerobic plate were present as SPORES in
the food you were talking about.

Can you find DNA of other organisms in foods with E. coli growing?  Sure.
I'm not disputing that.  But, if the conditions in the food were too low in
oxygen concentrations for them to grow, they weren't growing and competing
with the E. coli IN THE FOOD.

That's the problem with plate counts - you have no idea of the metabolic
condition of the organisms in the original habitat once they grow on a plate.
 You have no clue.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com