Bacteria from Raw Chicken

Kevster

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

Incidentally, when I was doing microbiology we were always taught that the most common cause of food-borne illness was actually human Norovirus. This got into the food through contamination from people who did not wash their hands properly - as it is generally a human infection, not an animal one. Campylobacter was the most common bacterial cause of true "food poisoning" but was far behind Norovirus in terms of number of outbreaks.

Yeh, I meant that Campylobacter sp. is the most common bacterial cause, but I also think that it's the most common cause overall. I have studied Norovirus too and believe that it's mostly the cause of illness during winter-time ('mostly'). That's why it has the generic name of the 'Winter vomitting bug'. ... ...what a charming name.

Kevster

sunnyjim wrote: »

Yeah, but back to my quote. As far as I understand, E. coli lives in the GI tract of an animal... So for it to get on to an animal, it would need to be rolling in its ****e? Maybe there could just be call for cleaning the coats of the animals on a regular basis?

Indeed, it only lives in the colon because that's where the optimum temperature for E. coli growth is (i.e. 37 celcius). Some of you might be surprised to knowe that E. coli grows in our own colons too. In fact, bacteria - in general - can constitute 50% of the weight of our faeces. Other recognisable bugs that grow in our colons are Salmonella spp., Bacillus spp., Enterobacter spp., Clostridium spp.; etc.

GradMed

and I just had my bacterial gastroenteritis lecture yesteray

hedgeh0g

My partner really likes to recycle everything. She insists on recycling plastic frozen zip bags that contained meat and chicken so they can be reused. They are first washed with washing up liquid, but I fear the worst will hapen.

How dangerous is this?

Kevster

There's little danger with that, hedgeh0g. Really, the molecules in washing-up liquid act to 'pierce' the bacterial cells and effectively rupture them. Plus, the whole rinsing with water would wash most of them away anyway. There'd be very little nutrients for them to use too in order to survive. So, everything about what your partner does goes AGAINST the poor ould bugs... ...:cool:

sunnyjim

Kevster wrote: »

Hi,

That's very interesting about the beef. It makes sense I guess because beef does appear tougher than pork and chicken. It probably wasn't Campylobacter on the rice thuogh, as it doesn't grow on Carbs like that. Bacillus cereus is actually notorious for food-poisoning from rice.

Just out of interest, why would the campylobacter not colonise on rice? What sort of environment would it preferably grow on?

MrCreosote

sunnyjim wrote: »

Just out of interest, why would the campylobacter not colonise on rice? What sort of environment would it preferably grow on?

It could colonise rice. But because it originates from an intestine it's normally meat it'll get into contact with first during slaughter/processing. You could transfer it to rice though from meat or dirty utensils.

Bacillus cereus gives that vomiting very quickly after taking it in. Campylobacter usually takes a couple of days to bring on symptoms.

locum-motion

MrCreosote wrote: »

Bacillus cereus gives that vomiting very quickly after taking it in. Campylobacter usually takes a couple of days to bring on symptoms.

Must've been B. cereus that got me, so.

sunnyjim

This thread is quite interesting!

So what's up with the campylobacter that make it take as long as it does to bring about a reaction? Slow to colonise, weaker toxins...?