Food recalls have been in the news lately. Not a day goes by it seems and we have another recall due to bacterial contamination or undeclared ingredients.
When it comes to bacterial contamination of meat, eggs and dairy, it seems the most common culprits are E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria, though the list is actually quite a bit longer.
An awful lot of folks point to these alerts as proof that there is something wrong with our food system and thus a reason they grow their own food.
Now, I’m not going to argue that our large-scale agriculture model is problematic because I agree that it needs a LOT of improvement, but using these recalls as a defense of home grown meat, eggs and dairy ignores one very vital fact; these bacteria can easily be in YOUR animals and not show any symptoms. Many of the bacterial contaminants that cause a lot of concern naturally exist in the gut. A very common route for contamination of meat is leakage of the intestinal contents during processing, and this can easily happen with an inadvertent and all-but-imperceptible nicking with a knife. It can happen to a worker dressing out animals in a massive processing operation and it can happen to the person who processes their own meat animals (and maybe even more so when a person is first learning.) Improper sanitizing of work surfaces and tools are another mode of contamination.
In dairy animals, not only can the doe, ewe or cow be infected with a bacteria that passes through the milk, but if the animal is milked into an open bucket, the milk can get contaminated from dust particles floating about the milking area or bits of dirt that fall from the animal’s belly and into the bucket of milk. Some of potential pathogens can be tested for.
My only point here is that home growing our own meat/eggs/dairy doesn’t make us immune from bacterial contamination. We can be just as likely to experience contamination, and we need to take common-sense precautions in handling, processing and testing.