Killing E. coli in Lettuce With Irradiation
Texas researchers say they have found a way to kill E. coli in lettuce and other fresh produce using low doses of irradiation that don't also destroy the texture of the food.
The goal was to kill E. coli 0157:H7, Salmonella and other pathogens in leafy green vegetables and other fresh produce, including fruits. The team of Texas AgriLife Research engineers at Texas A&M University says it has developed a way to cut by as much as half the amount of irradiation needed to kill 99.999 percent of these organisms..jpg)
Dr. Carmen Gomes, AgriLife Research food safety engineer, and her colleagues found they could significantly reduce the amount of radiation needed to achieve the result if the produce was packaged in a Mylar bag filled with pure oxygen. Besides the food safety benefit, it is a way to preserve quality of the produce, she said in a Texas A&M report. Previously, higher doses of radiation were proven effective in killing harmful bacteria, but they made the food mushy. In other words, tests showed modified packaging containing either pure oxygen or the nitrogen/oxygen mix increased the sensitivity of E. coli, Salmonella or Listeria to radiation without changing the way the radiation affected the vegetables.
The AgriLife Research Food Safety Engineering Team at Texas A&M began work in 2002 with a $1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant. The team is the only one in the nation doing research that focuses on accurate dose calculations and dose distribution within a variety of complex-shaped foods, such as blueberries, bagged spinach and lettuce, mangoes and cantaloupes, according to the university.
E. coli in lettuce, spinach and other fresh produce has been identified over the past several years as an emerging public health threat. As recently as last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that fresh produce increasingly has been implicated in viral disease outbreaks.
"Fewer than 10 infectious viral particles are sufficient to cause disease and these organisms are resistant to (chlorine) disinfectants at concentrations that reduce bacterial levels. Contamination of fresh produce could pose a health risk to humans because fresh produce is eaten raw. High levels of viral contamination can result in large outbreaks,'' according to a letter in CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases publication.
According to a 2010 study published by the Produce Safety Project, 39 percent of E. coli outbreaks and 54 percent of E. coli illnesses linked to FDA-regulated food items were attributable to produce at an estimated cost of $39 billion per year.
When people are sickened or killed in these outbreaks, they have turned to national food safety law firm PritzkerOlsen, P.A., for representation in Salmonella and E. coli litigation. Our firm represents victims of food poisoning around the country and has collected millions of dollars for families and individuals who incur large medical expenses, remarkable pain and suffering and losses to income from infections caused by contaminated food. To speak to a food safety lawyer at our firm, call 1-888-377-8900 (toll free) or complete the contact form on the side of this Web page.
Not surprisingly, Michigan agriculture officials have determined that iceberg lettuce associated with an E. coli outbreak that has sickened people in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Canada came from California, which produces the majority of the commercial lettuce in the United States.
