SALMONELLA is a food borne bacterium whose most common source has always been external contamination (such as dirt and foreign matter) caused by poor handling. Cooking. Generally kills it, but a dose of it — for example, in raw or undercooked meats or poultry — can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, and can be fatal in the very elderly or very ill. Recently an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association pointed to eggs as the major cause of a particularly severe kind of salmonella outbreak in northeastern states in the past 12 years. Cases of this kind of salmonella increased six fold from 1976 to 1986 (up from 1.2 to 7 per 100,000 people), and over three fourths of the outbreaks are thought to have been caused by Grade A, whole fresh eggs. But in these cases, poor handling may not have been to blame. Researchers suggest that the bacteria came from inside the hen, rather than by the usual route of cracked or dirty eggshells.
Does this mean you should give up eggs altogether? What about, egg containing products such as mayonnaise, or foods like hollandaise sauce or Caesar salad?
If you’re using commercial products eggs, you’re safe, since the eggs will have been pasteurized. Its fresh raw eggs and soft cooked eggs (poached, Sunnyside up, soft scrambled, or in barely cooked sauces or homemade ice cream), that may pose some risk. The Centers for Disease Control has not made hard and fast recommendations, but it does counsel caution, as with other raw foods such as oyster or steak tartaric. Of the 11 people who died from egg borne salmonellosis is between. January, 1985, and May 1987, 10 were living in nursing homes and the eleventh was 70 years old.
To kill salmonella, if present, you would need to boil an egg for seven minutes or fry it for three minutes per side. (Sunnyside up won’t do the job, but poaching for five minutes is okay.) Hard cooked eggs may not appeal to you, but if you are in poor health, are elderly, or live in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, or Pennsylvanian, you’re better off to avoid raw and soft cooked eggs for now. Don’t have the Caesar salad or the omelets. Pass up the hollandaise. When buying eggs for other purposes, get graded, government inspected eggs—that’s no guarantee they won’t have salmonella, but at least they must be washed before marketing and kept under refrigeration. Store them in the refrigerator. If you find a cracked egg in the carton, throw it out. Cook egg dishes well, keep them refrigerated and try to use them as soon as possible.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 27, 1988
