How does salmonella get into food?

With the Mars pet care salmonella contamination in 2008 and the peanut butter contamination throughout human products and one dog biscuit brand in 2009, salmonella is on everyone’s mind. 

What is it, how does it get into food products, and how big of a problem is it?

What is salmonella?

Simply put, it’s a diarrheal disease that comes from feces.  In most cases, it resolves itself without antibiotics, but, of course, in people with weaker systems, it can be fatal.  In fact, it can be the source of typhoid fever. 

Symptoms appear within approximately 8 to 72 hours after ingesting the contaminated food and may last 2 to 7 days. They include:

• Diarrhea (usually non-bloody)
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Abdominal pain
• Headache
• Fever

How big it is.   Big.  24 outbreaks related to tomatoes alone since 1990, let alone all the other many types of food outbreaks.  What’s really frightening is that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) says probably only one in 30 cases is ever reported.

It looks like we’re seeing more cases of it in the last 15 years, probably because food processing facilities are aging and, naturally, develop leaks.  And then there is our dependence on food produced in other countries or just the declining nature of general quality control.

Scientific American says there are some 40,000 cases of salmonella infection each year; about 600 of them are fatal.  Last spring, an outbreak that killed one and sickened some 1,300 people was linked to Mexican Serrano peppers. In the past 15 years, only two outbreaks have been  linked to peanut butter.  In 2006, more than 620 people were sickened in 47 states by salmonella in Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter (none died), and in 1996, it struck more than 500 peanut-butter lovers in Australia.

How does it get into our food?

It gets into food through animal feces.  Quite often, the water used to irrigate a field has animal feces in it.  So that is one way for contamination to occur.

But it can also occur at the manufacturing facility.  Think about it.  Salmonella was found in the water on one production plant roof.  It likely came from birds.  Water leaks into the facility, gets into a storage bin, gets onto someone’s hands, voila.  You have contamination.

It’s all about the poop because salmonella is in the gut of many animals.  You find it in the large animals like horses and cows and in the small animals like birds and mice. 

Salmonella is hard to kill.  If it gets onto raw peanuts, it’s killed by roasting.  But if it gets into the peanuts after roasting, pretty much nothing else can kill it.  It can survive for months in the product.

 

Sources:

http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2008/06/politicsoftheplate_06_11_08

http://infectiousdiseases.about.com/od/g/a/Salmonella.htm

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=salmonella-poisoning-peanut-butter

Copyright 2009 Teresa Holladay
The Holistic Pet Food Blog
http://holisticpetfood.wordpress.com