Fw: [oralperoxide] Cleaning food and the kitchen with H2O2 & Vinegar

[Guest guest]

Misty

Here is a little tidbit that I thought everyone on this group might make good

use of. In the past I have used H2O2 to wash citrus fruit before I put it in the

blender, skin and all.

Cheers, Doug

 

 

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arch/9_28_96/food.htm

 

How to disinfect your salad

 

Between May and August, food containing the especially virulent E.

coli known as O157:H7 poisoned more than 8,500 individuals in Japan,

including 6,000 children. This is the same strain of bacteria that

tainted hamburger sold at western outlets of a U.S. fast food chain

in 1993 -- causing 700 illnesses and four deaths. But those were the

prominent outbreaks. Since the microbe's discovery in 1982, it has

become increasingly common; in the United States alone, it now

accounts for some 20,000 cases of food poisoning and 250 deaths

annually.

 

Though usually spread via raw beef or feces, the recent Japanese

outbreak may not trace directly to either. Indeed, Japanese health

officials reported last month that white radish sprouts, popular in

the local diet, might be responsible. Perhaps those radishes had been

fertilized with contaminated manure.

 

It takes more than a tap water rinse to dislodge E. coli and many

other microbial squatters. Though high temperatures kill them,

cooking is hardly a viable answer for lettuce, sprouts, and tomatoes

that go into your fresh salad. For these and other foods that are be

eaten raw, consider another solution -- well, actually two solutions,

to be delivered in tandem as disinfecting sprays, suggests Susan

Sumner, a food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State

University, in Blacksburg.

 

While at the University of Nebraska (which she departed last month),

Sumner worked out the recipe for just such a sanitizing combo.

 

 

 

Dianne Peters of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln applies the first

of two sanitizing sprays to lettuce. Credit: Univ. of Nebraska Inst.

of Agricultural and Natural Resources.

 

 

 

First, she squirts a vegetable with 3 percent hydrogen peroxide, the

same strength available at the drug store for gargling or

disinfecting wounds. She follows this up with a mist of mild acetic

acid, also known as vinegar. In truth, she says, which solution is

sprayed first doesn't matter. Nor were her sprayers very fancy; she

used the kind that dampen laundry before ironing.

 

 

 

The solutions represent an adaptation of a chlorinefree disinfection

scheme she had been working on for red meat, and which turned out to

be effective for decontaminating carcasses. In the course of her more

recent studies, Sumner found that vegetables not only tend to come

from the garden or farm bearing far more germs than red meat does,

but they also hold onto germs more tenaciously.

 

Overall, most germs that show up on produce come from the soil and

are benign. However, worrying that more toxic germs spread by feces

could show up in organic foods fertilized with manure, and realizing

that there have been reports of Shigella on cantaloupe and Salmonella

on raw vegetables, Sumner decided to develop a bactericidal treatment

for restaurants and other purveyors of salads.

 

In her tests, she deliberately contaminated clean fruits and

vegetables with Salmonella, Shigella, or E. coli O157:H7 -- all

capable of inducing gut-wrenching gastroenteritis. On its own, the

hydrogen peroxide was fairly effective against all three germs, she

found. But the best results came from pairing the two mists. For

instance, she told Science News Online, " If the acetic acid got rid

of 100 organisms, the hydrogen peroxide would get rid of 10,000, and

the two together would get rid of 100,000. "

 

" What I really liked about this treatment, " she adds, " is that every

[microbe] that drips off is killed. " So you're not just transferring

disease-causing contamination from your food to the sink, drain, or

cutting board. Speaking of which, she notes that the paired sprays

work well in sanitizing counters and other food preparation surfaces -

- including wood cutting boards.

 

As for taste, the peroxide didn't leave any lingering flavors and the

vinegar, when applied to the skins of tomatoes and peppers, proved

hard to detect. While the vinegar's trace could be picked up on

lettuce, even that isn't necessarily a major drawback, Sumner notes,

especially if it's destined for a salad to be dressed with a

vinaigrette.

 

 

References:

 

Nathan, R. 1996. Japan's E. coli outbreak elicits fear, anger. Nature

Medicine 2(September):956.

 

Peters, D., S.S. Sumner, et al. 1996. Control of pathogenic bacteria

on fresh produce, a paper (abstract #168) presented in Seattle on

July 2 at the 83rd annual meeting of International Association of

Milk, Food and Environmental Sanitarians.

 

Richert, R., J. Albrecht, S.S. Sumner, et al. 1995. Survival and

growth of E. coli O157:H7 on produce. 1995. Journal of Food

Protection 58(Supplement):19.

 

Further readings:

 

Armstrong, G.L., J. Hollingsworth, and J.G. Morris, Jr. 1996.

Emerging foodborne pathogens: Escherichia coli O157:H7 as a model of

entry of a new pathogen into the food supply of the developed world.

Epidemiologic Reviews 18:29.

 

Raloff, J. 1996. Sponges and sinks and rags, oh my! Science News 150

(Sept. 14):172.

 

Sources:

 

International Association of Milk, Food and Environmental Sanitarians

6200 Aurora Avenue, Suite 200

Des Moines, IA 50333-2863

E-mail: iamfes

 

 

Susan Sumner

Department of Food Science and Technology

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Blacksburg, VA 24061-0418

E-mail: sumners