Med News Today

More contamination on the way?

A food safety expert says the U.S. better be prepared for more contaminated food.

Sanford Miller, senior fellow at the University of Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy, says consumers should prepare for a series of bacteria problems in the food supply.

Miller says the lines of defense against the multitude of organisms in the world are under constant threat of breaking down. He says the breach can come from a variety of sources, including the water used to irrigate produce, which is what he thinks happened in the case of the contaminated spinach.

But the E. coli that attached itself to the spinach crop, he says, could come from a variety of sources.

"If the producers were organic farms, it might be improperly processed organic fertilizer. A less likely event would be storage of the product at relatively high temperatures such as might have occurred if a refrigerated railway car lost its temperature control. Probably, a number of factors were involved," Miller said.

posted by nattietodd @ 8:52 AM