Almond issue letter

[Guest guest]

Here is a letter forwarded to me from our friend Dr. William Harris

of Honolulu, Hawaii:

 

 

July 11, 2007

 

To whom it may concern:

 

I wish to protest the impending decision by the California Almond

Board to pasteurize most of its annual almond crop. As a consumer, I

prefer to eat my food raw and since raw unblanched almonds are an

important protein source in my diet this decision appears to me

arbitrary and illogical.

 

However, as a retired clinician it seems to me the decision is also

ill-founded scientifically. It would appear pasteurization has been

selected as a legal response to a spate of salmonella enteriditis

cases occurring in the years 2001-2006 and well documented in a

series of peer-reviewed articles:

 

(1.J Food Prot. 2007 Apr;70(4):820‑7. Prevalence and amounts of

Salmonella found on raw California almonds. Danyluk MD, Jones TM, Abd

SJ, Schlitt‑Dittrich F, Jacobs M, Harris LJ.

 

2. J Food Prot. 2006 Aug;69(8):1851‑7. Survival of Salmonella

enteritidis phage type 30 on inoculated almonds stored at ‑20, 4,

23, and 35 degrees C.Uesugi AR, Danyluk MD, Harris LJ.

 

3. J Food Prot. 2006 Jul;69(7):1594‑9. Monte Carlo simulations

assessing the risk of salmonellosis from consumption of almonds.

Danyluk MD, Harris LJ, Schaffner DW.

 

4. J Food Prot. 2006 Apr;69(4):712‑8. Growth of Salmonella

Enteritidis phage type 30 in almond hull and shell slurries and

survival in drying almond hulls. Uesugi AR, Harris LJ.

 

5. J Food Prot. 2005 Jan;68(1):191‑8. An international outbreak of

salmonellosis associated with raw almonds contaminated with a rare

phage type of Salmonella enteritidis. Isaacs S, Aramini J, Ciebin B,

Farrar JA, Ahmed R, Middleton D, Chandran AU, Harris LJ, Howes M,

Chan E, Pichette AS, Campbell K, Gupta A, Lior LY, Pearce M, Clark C,

Rodgers F, Jamieson F, Brophy I, Ellis A; Salmonella Enteritidis PT30

Outbreak Investigation Working Group.)

 

While I accept the evidence that the Salmonella may well have been

passively transmitted by almonds, particularly those that became damp

after falling to the ground, it would seem there are other

unmentioned considerations.

 

Plant foods are not an intrinsic source of nutrients for the microbes

pathogenic to humans that over a 500 million year period have adapted

to their host's " internal milieu " . Specifically, Salmonella grows

best on a media enriched with beef extract and bile salts, both

slaughterhouse byproducts. (Baron EJ, and Finegold SM. Diagnostic

Microbiology. p A-24 C.V. Mosby. St.Louis 1990. ISBN 0-8016-0344-7.)

There is no mention of almonds or almond extract anywhere in this

book devoted to the arcane topic of laboratory culture media for

pathogenic organisms. Out of 116 laboratory culture media used to

grow and isolate bacteria that cause human disease, 97 contain

blood, milk, serum, brain, heart, bile, eggs, and other animal

material.(Ibid p 657 )

 

It appears that almost all human contagious disease originated from

domesticated animals in which the organism was benign until it

mutated and jumped the species barrier into humans (E. Fuller Torrey,

M.D., Robert H. Yolken, M.D. Beasts of the Earth: Animals, Humans,

and Disease. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 2005 ISBN

0-8135-3571-9). This thoroughly referenced and scrupulously

scientific work concludes that domestic fowl first blessed us with

the Salmonella organism but notes also that it can be transmitted by

cattle and cattle manure.

 

 

The initial Salmonella outbreaks seem to have involved almonds grown

and processed by Paramount Farms, Lost Hills, CA 93249. A visit to

their web site http://www.paramountfarms.com shows a huge green

almond orchard adjacent to their processing facility which is in turn

surrounded by a vast expanse of desert. An online tour through the

facility shows state of the art almond and pistachio processing, with

in-house laboratory and quality control staff. However, it is also

clear that the orchard is green only because of abundant irrigation

equipment, some of which on a windy day might reasonably spray

contaminated water into the fruit bearing branches of the almond trees.

 

Further investigation shows that the water that nourishes the farms

around Lost Hills comes from the Feather River basin 400 miles away

in the northern Sierra Nevada http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1204/

Clemings/Clemings.html

 

Water disputes are not unheard of in this dry area http://

www.ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/cases/1978/tsun_lee_031478.html

and as an economic measure the open aquaducts are geomembrane lined

to avoid extensive subgrade preparation or large right‑of‑ways for

equipment.

 

On occasion the Lost Hills Water District has made small trials to

determine if drainage water can be reused on selected crops, such as

pistachios.

http://www.owue.water.ca.gov/agdrain/case_detail/case_detail.cfm#Lost

 

Almost all of Lost Hills' residents are migrant farm laborers. About

75% of the population are engaged in agricultural positions, speak no

English, and the median income of males is only $17,804. http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Hills%2C_California

 

Among the counties of California, Kern County (of which Lost Hills is

a part) ranks in the top ten for total livestock and livestock

products including beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, swine, goats,

small animals and poultry. http://cekern.ucdavis.edu/Custom_Program813/

 

Since almonds themselves are unlikely nutrient hosts for Salmonella

it would seem more reasonable that the outbreaks were due either to

contamination of the irrigation system by sewage runoff from nearby

animal agriculture, or from the unwashed hands of the poorly paid

orchard and plant workers. Recent outbreaks of E.coli in spinach and

other field crops have made big headlines, but in every case the

origin turned out to be sewage runoff from adjacent cattle operations.

 

I urge you to abandon the almond pasteurization scheme, which will

make your excellent product less desirable to me and many others, and

instead focus your attention on the points above. If the

contamination is in fact due to neighboring animal enterprises, those

enterprises should be held legally accountable, rather than placing

blame on raw almonds, a blameless product.

 

Sincerely,

 

William Harris, M.D.

 

 

Dr. Harris is a raw foodist and is the President of the Hawaii

Vegetarian Society, the largest vegetarian society in the US.

Here is Dr. Harris' website: http://vegsource.com/harris/