Food safety falsehoods from the free-range

Fresh from the Michael Pollan school of “don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food,” comes Joel Salatin of Virginia, telling Australian farmers that industrial-scale agriculture has created problems for farmers who want to slaughter on farm and sell locally.

"What’s stimulating it is squiggly words, 30 years ago who heard of campylobacter, who heard of listeria, e-coli, salmonella, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, avian influenza.”

From wiki, not the greatest source but certainly sufficient to quickly counter the claims of Salatin:

The symptoms of campylobacter infections were described in 1886 in infants by Theodor Escherich. These infections were named cholera infantum, or summer complaint. The genus was first discovered in 1963; however the organism was not isolated until 1972

Listeria monocytogenes was first described by E.G.D.Murray in 1926.

The genus Salmonella was named after Daniel Elmer Salmon, an American veterinary pathologist. While Theobald Smith was the actual discoverer of the type bacterium (Salmonella enterica var. choleraesuis) in 1885, Dr. Salmon was the administrator of the USDA research program, and thus the organism was named after him.

The verotoxigenic forms of E. coli were discovered in the late 1970s, and first identified as a source of human disease in 1982.

Campylobacter, listeria, E. coli and salmonella are all natural. So is small pox. Doesn’t mean I want it.
 

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About Douglas Powell

A former professor of food safety and the publisher of barfblog.com, Powell is passionate about food, has five daughters, and is an OK goaltender in pickup hockey. Download Doug’s CV here. Dr. Douglas Powell editor, barfblog.com retired professor, food safety 3/289 Annerley Rd Annerley, Queensland 4103 dpowell29@gmail.com 61478222221 I am based in Brisbane, Australia, 15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time