Gross Shopping Cart News

Fuel for my Germaphobia  . . . from MSNBC.com:

"Every day, parents blithely drop their toddlers into the baskets of shopping carts, never giving a moment’s thought to who might have had their hands on the handle last. Preliminary results from a new study show that may be a mistake.

Researchers from the University of Arizona swabbed shopping cart handles in four states looking for bacterial contamination. Of the 85 carts examined, 72 percent turned out to have a marker for fecal bacteria.

The researchers took a closer look at the samples from 36 carts and discovered Escherichia coli, more commonly known as E. coli, on 50 percent of them — along with a host of other types of bacteria.

The study’s results may explain earlier research that found that kids who rode in shopping carts were more likely than others to develop infections caused by bacteria such as salmonella and campylobacter, Gerba said.“That’s more than you find in a supermarket’s restroom,” said Charles Gerba, the lead researcher on the study and a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona. “That’s because they use disinfecting cleaners in the restrooms. Nobody routinely cleans and disinfects shopping carts.”

Shopping cart handles aren’t the only thing you need to worry about when you go to the local supermarket, Gerba added. In other research, he’s found that reusable shopping bags that aren’t regularly washed turn into bacterial swamps. “It’s like wearing the same underwear every day,” Gerba said."

I alway try to use disinfecting wipes or a shopping cart cover and diligently wash my both cart covers and my reusable bags.  This article made me feel less like I'm being obsessive and more like I'm being proactive and smart!

Do you want ammonia with that?

At a meeting this morning, I heard a mom discussing the use of ammonia in beef to kill E.coli.  I was shocked and appalled to think of industrial cleaner being regularly used in food.  When I came home, I was compelled find out more.  Here's what I discovered:

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, beef processed with ammonia has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef in 2008 alone.  Worse yet, beef processed with ammonia has been routinely exempted from testing for Salmonella and E.coli.  When testing has been done on the ammonia-processed meat, it has been found to actually have higher levels of both salmonella and e.Coli than traditionally processed meat. Yuck!  I'm so glad I'm a vegetarian.  

The total lack of concern for the health and wellbeing of consumers by farmers, people in the food industry and the American governement is both scary and terribly disappointing.  It's truly horrifying to think of all the toxins that we are consuming and being exposed to unknowingly.  

Source: The New York Times: Safety of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned