"Michael Pollan, a journalism professor who has written extensively about food safety, said all the recent problems stemmed from the intensive, industrial-style agriculture increasingly practised in the United States.
The 0157:H7 strain of E.coli was unknown until cattle were taken from their traditional grazing grounds, pushed into industrial feedlots and fed grain and corn instead.
Faeces from those animals, in turn, can sometimes enter the water supply on big farms and find its way into irrigation canals in vegetable fields.
Professor Pollan recently likened many US farms to giant "petri dishes" in which all sorts of bacterial cultures could grow and thrive. Fast-food chains have taken steps to safeguard their ground beef - which can easily get mixed with faeces - but vegetables represent a new front in the fight for public health."
3 comments:
"- which can easily get mixed with faeces -" ?? Er, not in my house.
Interesting post. I seem to have read lots of things about other problems caused by this type of farming.
This has happened just recently with spinach, so I'm hoping this gets addressed. I wonder if irradiation would kill it, or is it in the plant itself? I think Europe irradiates some of its food during the processing.
Ol' MacDonald had a toxic cow...ee eye eee eye oooooohhhh. Damn, the more I learn, the worse it gets.
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