Subject: Re: HACCP "Rules"

From: Elaine Ingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 09:10:38 EST

Let's use some common sense in this discussion about encountering human
pathogens.

The simple solution is to wash your hands, face, etc.   Wash your food before
you eat it.

Most of us wash our hands and our bodies for the simple reason that each time
we go to the toilet, we get E. coli, and any other human pathogen in that
room, transferred to our surfaces.  Humans encounter pathogens all the time.

We deal with that bacterial load in two ways.  By washing them off our
surfaces with soap.  And, by letting competition with the "good guy" bacteria
and fungi  - that grow using the "good guy" bacterial and fungal foods
released with sweat or perspiration - kill the human pathogens.  The "bad
guys" don't survive on a healthy body surface.

Your body surface is aerobic and has competitive bacteria and fungi growing
on it.  Only when you are sick, and your body defenses not what they should
be, can the pathogens win the competition on your body surface.  Or if you
never wash, and certain areas of your body become anaerobic.  Thus the need
for cleanliness in a sick person's presence.

The simple solution for E. coli getting onto crop surfaces is to wash the
surfaces before consumption, or treat with heat adequate to kill the
pathogens.    The heat treatment is generally called cooking.

Please, let some common sense be part of this discussion.  There's a
difference in getting human pathogens on the surfaces of food plants that
might not be washed before being consumed (thus the 90 to 120 day rules), and
getting human pathogens on your surfaces, a hazard that occurs everyday from
a variety of sources.

Everytime you touch a door handle in a public building, or even in your
house, you are probably picking up an enormous load of human pathogens.  So
why not go ballistic about that?  Touching a door handle is much more
hazardous than the bacteria you might get on your body surfaces from spraying
a manure solution, or poorly made compost tea.

The simple solution is to wash your hands.  When applying manure, the simple
solution is to wash the pathogens off yourself and your food before you eat.
Simple, but effective.

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

---

From: Elaine Ingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 03:54:48 EST

Would you rather eat apples sprayed with some toxic chemical to prevent
disease, or sprayed with a compost tea to prevent that plant disease?    If
you forget to wash apples sprayed with the toxic chemical, what effect will
the toxic chemcial have on you?

Will compost tea or the toxic chemical have more detrimental effect on your
health, or your children's health, if you forget to wash the apple before you
eat it?

So, you don't spray your apples with toxic chemical because you have no
disease?  Then you aren't going to spray tea either, are you?  The tea is
applied where you need to apply, for a particular reason.  No disease, no
tea.  Eat away.

But of you have disease for which you apply toxic chemical or tea, wouldn't
it be wiser to wash the apple before eating it?   I really doubt you eat
pesticide-sprayed apples without washing them.

Bird manure contains pathogens.  If birds poop on fruit, you should wash it
before you eat it.  If you are downwind of a dairy manure pile, or a chicken
coop, or an anything containing high numbers of E. coli or other human
pathogens, you should wash your fruit before you eat it.   If there is a
potential source of pathogen, then take precautions.

How long after a bird poops on the fruit until the pathogens are likely gone?
 That's what the 90 to 120 day waiting period is about.  Given time, lots of
air, lots of competing organisms, the "bad bacteria" will be out-competed and
removed.

Addition of beneficial bacteria and fungi to an apple's surface might speed
the process of removing pathogens through competition and consumption.  That
would be some interesting research.  So, maybe applying good compost tea
would result in safer fruit, and less likelihood of contamination.

Elaine Ingham