Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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READ THIS. Will this affect you going forward?

"ATLANTA (AP) — A new report estimates that half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ."

flag	asked Apr 15 2011 at 19:11 Kirik 11●2

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no, but if you are eating out you are getting the same meat unless it's a special restaurant. That's my "weakest link" in my diet... – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Apr 15 2011 at 19:13

Wow, AP is garbage. They refer to it as a "bug" a "germ" and then finally as bacteria. – Futureboy Apr 15 2011 at 19:36

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Do I buy the meat? Or do I buy the information? YES, I buy conventional meat, I just haven't been able to transition to completely grass-fed/pastured meat yet. No, I don't buy the AP's "news" story. – sherpamelissa Apr 15 2011 at 19:40

ack that article is terrible - no links to the studies - improper capitalization and way to refer to the organisms in question - bad story - yes i buy conventional meat - if there really was a problem people would be dropping like flies and there really would be a news story! – Thumper Apr 15 2011 at 23:27

RG73 · Answer 1 · 2011-04-15 19:46:53Z UTC

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the commensal species typically residing on human skin and in the nasopharynx. So what if it is on meat? I would want to know what strain of S. aureus they're actually finding on meat, most of them are harmless. I mean are they finding MRSA or just your ordinary commensal S. aureus? Then I'd want to know the average number of colony forming units. Then I'd want to the know the number of CFUs surviving being cooked properly. Then, of the bugs (oh yeah Futureboy, microbiologists do, in fact, call bacteria "bugs" all the time) that survive cooking, how many survive being digested? Then, of the ones that survive the acidic stomach, how many survive being dispatched by the immune system? Now we're getting into very, very small numbers.

Can certain strains of S. aureus cause very serious, life threatening infections? Without a doubt. Should immunocompromised folks be wary? Probably. But lets just say that 1/2 the meat sold in the US is contaminated. And that most people don't have proper kitchen hygiene. We'd thus expect to see rampant, epidemic staph infections. Like half the country being infected. We don't see this. We suggests that this isn't a huge problem. I mean I have no desire to get MRSA or VRSA infections, but the likelihood is very rare that you're going to get those from meat. Especially if you take some common sense precautions in the kitchen.

Carl_Stawicki · Answer 2 · 2011-04-15 19:32:11Z UTC

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No. Words like "estimate" and "may be tainted" render the info useless to me.

answered Apr 15 2011 at 19:32

Carl_Stawicki
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Lareth · Answer 3 · 2011-04-15 19:45:51Z UTC

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Supermarket meat very often has e. coli, salmonella or trichinosis. That's why we cook it.

Supermarket or local farmer/butcher, they all (theoretically) follow the same storage requirements: below 40F or over 140F. If they (and you) are doing that then the bacteria shouldn't have much chance to multiply to the point where its toxin is a real threat.

answered Apr 15 2011 at 19:45

Lareth
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Umm, Trichenella is exceedingly rare in the US. There's something like a dozen cases annually. Again, with E. coli and Salmonella, they're commensals and live all over the place. There is E. coli that lives in the soil, that lives in the ocean, that lives in freshwater, that lives in all kinds of animals...the presence of a specific bacterial species doesn't necessarily indicate pathogenicity. Hell, there's pretty benign strains of cholera out there. The issue is whether they are strains that have picked up the genes that turn meat into food. That is strain specific, not species specific. – RG73 Apr 15 2011 at 19:50

I stand corrected. But the point remains that some pathogenic microbes are already common in factory meat. Even if this particular strain is dangerous it isn't new. – Lareth Apr 15 2011 at 19:56

animalcule · Answer 4 · 2011-04-18 15:57:27Z UTC

Yeah I buy 'supermarket meat'. I am not scared of 'germs', since I don't pay attention to food safety recommendations and yet I never get ill (used to be ill frequently, when my body and immune system were weakened by poor nutrition).

And staph of all things. Hello, human skin is covered in staph.

James · Answer 5 · 2011-04-18 17:00:52Z UTC

I suspect if we knew exactly what was in/on the foods we buy, we'd never eat anything. Not only the bugs on it, the things in it (like how many bug/rat parts per X is allowed in flours, Meat Glue, etc.). So, you can stress about it, or not. I say perform safe kitchen practices and move on.

Supermarket meat very often has staph. Do you buy it?

5 Answers