Natural is best?

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:00:44 GMT

we get a box of organic veggies from a local farm delivered to our doorstep every week. Most of the produce comes directly from the farm, but they do import organic veg from southern Europe also, especially in the winter time. Otherwise it would just be kale, potatoes and beetroot, could be a bit boring after a couple of months...

Agree with the transporting madness. As an example take shrimps caught in the north sea just off the shore in Germany: They travel to Morocco to be pealed and back here to be sold as local shrimps...

The German government has taken back its warning to eat lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes today as they are convinced the source of the infection have been the bean sprouts. New infections are gradually getting less, although the deaths have risen to 29.

Re: Natural is best?

Martin Atkinson — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:51:54 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]

[quote user="Bob Russell"]

Sugar snap peas from Kenya one example!

[/quote]

http://www.outbreakdatabase.com/site/search/?tag=shigellosis

This is where I buy most of my food, locally produced and sold and keeping local people in employment.

[/quote]

We also have a local farm shop and one would assume that all the produce was erm....local, even off the farm itself. But a closer look at some of the labels reveals that much is not only produced elsewhere in the UK but imported. Caveat emptor.

Re: Natural is best?

Niall Taylor — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:35:06 GMT

[quote user="mariette asselbergs"]The world is a bit mad...[/quote]

Shhhhh......

They'll hear you...

Re: Natural is best?

mariette asselbergs — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:21:16 GMT

I was at a Fera course on trapping and vaccinating badgers this week. Our lunch: the choice between brown bread with (unpealed) cucumber, tomatoes and beansprouts, or white buns with bacon and sausages.......But we had to wear respirator masks, goggles around the dangerously potentially tuberculous badgers and were not allowed to recab needles in case we pricked our fingers........ But then, we are expected to DNA eartag cows with positive TB reactions being snotted all over without all this safety stuff. The world is a bit mad...

Mariette

Re: Natural is best?

Clive Ansell — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:36:11 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]

Sugar snap peas from Kenya one example!

[/quote]

http://www.outbreakdatabase.com/site/search/?tag=shigellosis

This is where I buy most of my food, locally produced and sold and keeping local people in employment.

Re: Natural is best?

Clive Ansell — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:26:07 GMT

[quote user="Kate Richardson"]

[quote user="Dagmar Steele"]One of the weirdest things about this outbreak and one of the many unsolved riddles: Over 70 percent of the affected are women, mainly in their twenties to forties, fit, slim, healthy! Amongst the 22 casualties were only two men as far as I know, though I get the impression that amongst the women were equally elderly women and young. Why? Still guessing...genetic reasons? Because middle-aged women prepare the food for the families? [/quote]

Fat women and men don't eat salad?

[/quote]

Oh they do! . In a TV documentary looking at Glaswegians' diet a lady who looked like she had a BMI of about 3000 was asked if she ever ate salad, to which she replied "there is always a piece of lettuce in my big mac from McDonald's".

Re: Natural is best?

Bob Russell — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:58:45 GMT

With all the (rather crazy IMO) transportation of vegetables from Africa (often things that require very light cooking) it should be no surprise when this sort of thing happens.Obviously I have now decided this is the source of the problem with no scientific data to support the idea! Not cucumbers or bean sprouts!

Sugar snap peas from Kenya one example!

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:14:11 GMT

:-)) I know why I stick to chocolate :-)))

actually this has been guessed by the officials here as well - they say this group might be most affected because they are health-aware and eat salads and raw vegetables more than others.

Newest outcome is that the bug has 93% DNA from EAEC, a bacterium causing hemorrhagic diarrhea in humans in Africa. Never been found in animals, always in humans, so now they guess it went from infected humans on some kind of food and infected all these people.

Guessing guessing guessing, very interesting what modern medicine and science can't do!

Re: Natural is best?

Bob Russell — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:21:03 GMT

[quote user="Kate Richardson"]

Fat women and men don't eat salad?

[/quote]

A true vets lateral thinking!!!

Re: Natural is best?

Kate Richardson — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:57:21 GMT

Fat women and men don't eat salad?

Re: Natural is best?

jose targa — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:45:23 GMT

God save Spanish cucumber !!!!!

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:11:12 GMT

One of the weirdest things about this outbreak and one of the many unsolved riddles: Over 70 percent of the affected are women, mainly in their twenties to forties, fit, slim, healthy! Amongst the 22 casualties were only two men as far as I know, though I get the impression that amongst the women were equally elderly women and young. Why? Still guessing...genetic reasons? Because middle-aged women prepare the food for the families? Nobody knows so far. But you are right as well, there are people infected who didn't know about it until they got tested and I bet there are many more out there who are blissfully unaware. It's all very weird...

Re: Natural is best?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:29:15 GMT

I just wonder if those people who get seriously ill from this are the same bunch who are basically immuno-compromised and would suffer serious complications from other diseases like swine flu etc which would make the rest of us just feel a bit ill for a few days and not even enter into the statistics or is it something that has a high rate of complications even in otherwise healthy individuals? I would assume there were a lot of people who just got a dose of gut rot and got over it without going the doctor.

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:22:24 GMT

if you put the numbers of ill people into perspective to the population (i.e. the city of Hamburg has 1.8 million inhabitants and 850 confirmed cases, 150 of them suffering from HUS) it is a media frenzy I suppose! The scary thing is that they cannot find the source of the infection so what to tell your children? Would I be somewhere else in Germany i would probably just wash the stuff and eat it but it all started just here.... Well, it'll pass like all the other food worries did and I'll be glad when its over!

Re: Natural is best?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:40:16 GMT

I hadn't realised the health implications were so bad in Germany Dagmar, I thought like most of us that it was just more media frenzy, a bit like when my daughter was stuck in Japan, not a million miles from Fukushima post earthquake, the western media painted an apocolyptic picture, we were far more worried than she was. I still think the biggest tragedy is the amount of stuff getting thrown away because of an over-reaction to the situation when 99.9% of the fresh food would undoubtedly be perfectly fine, which is not only a terrible waste but is pushing up the price of food and possbily putting innocent producers out of business. Still can't see why you can't wash the tomatoes and cucumber though - OK lettuce is a bit more difficult.

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:51:41 GMT

Re the common sense advice: Of course we wash and cook everything at the moment, but I'm so fed up with no fresh stuff like lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers on the menue!

Re the bean sprout farmer: The are bang in the center of the outbreak in Germany, not in Spain! And so far all samples tested negative, meaning they haven't finished examining all of them yet.

Re the communication within the country: I am still waiting to discover a single advantage of federalism..... surely this situation proves there are many disadvantages!!!

Re: Natural is best?

Emily Nightingale — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:36:40 GMT

Oddly on the news broadcast I saw just now, in defence of the beansprout farmer in Spain, the reporter said "out of a total of 74 samples, 34 were negative for E.coli.."

Does that mean the other 40 were positive then??? I love media statistics.

Re: Natural is best?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:26:15 GMT

Surely common sense should prevail here: I assume all fresh food is contaminated with something nasty, if not life threatening bacteria then toxic chemicals so I wash and/or cook everything doesn't matter what was on it then.

Re: Natural is best?

Bob Russell — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:30:54 GMT

Apparently not the bean-sprouts now!

I am relieved that the German government seem just as capable of talking through their nether regions as the UK government are!

I assume organic sprouts are cleaned in fresh spring water and non-organic get washed with chlorinated tap water! I prefer the later. Unfortunately until the real source is identified control is going to be difficult.

Re: Natural is best?

Peter Ding — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:36:00 GMT

Who on earth produces inorganic bean sprouts?

And if that's pedantic why would anyone apply either a chemical fertilizer or manure to a sprouting seed that will be eaten in a few days?

i.e. Why do the media apply the word "organic" in a totally superfluous meaningless manner?

" Intensively produced" would be far more accurate and significant. The high temperatures perhaps leading to bacterial proliferation.

Re: Natural is best?

Alex Gough — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:26:33 GMT

Echoing Martin's sentiments - sounds horrendous.

Alex

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:27:59 GMT

thnx Martin, I thought it doesn't sound as bad from a distance as it does in the midst of it. There are about 700 people who have developed the so called Hemolytic uremic syndrome, going into complete renal failure (which may well be permanent) and about half of them are developing neurological symptoms from personality changes, sight or speech impairments to coma. So far there have been 21 fatalities. The hospitals in northern Germany are more than full, some of them setting up temporary intensive care wards. The rest of the country is not affected as bad as that, but it is a bit scary and certainly devastating for the infected.

Re: Natural is best?

Martin Jones — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:37:50 GMT

Good grief Dagmar - is it really that bad? in truth, we in the UK are now so used to food scares that it becomes difficult to be objective about the actual risks. That hundreds of people were critically ill, rather than just unwell, is something which wasn't entirely clear over here. I hope you and yours stay well - and remember, as a vet with a good grasp of bacteriology, you're well-placed for advice.

Re: Natural is best?

Dagmar Steele — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:47:31 GMT

let's wait and see if this outbreak can be linked to the discussed sprouts - so far no lab results are out, it is only known that the sprouts have been delivered to the sites of some major clusters. I would be very happy if this is the case as it would put an end to this dreadful situation.

Re Spain: There were EHEC on the cucumbers found, just not the same strain, so the advice not to eat them has been a sound one anyway (or would anyone have fancied a go???) In all fairness I do understand that Spain and Spains farmers must be very upset but I also think German authorities had no choice but telling their people what they had found on the cucumbers. There are hundreds of people critically ill and many still in life-threatening condition. Each not prevented case is one too much.

To clarify: I am living in Hamburg and I am experiencing this thing first hand though to my great relief no one of my family is amongst the infected so far.

Re: Natural is best?

Martin Jones — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:40:05 GMT

Hardly surprising when they force the damn things at 38C in a nutrient rich medium. Apparently, the USofA has had a health warning out on beansprouts for ten years or more, advising the sick, lame and helpless to avoid.

Watch this space for the next bit of 'altruistic' goodwill showered on Spain by the German government.