Diseases in our Vegetables

What diseases are in our vegetables?

Diseases that are in our vegetables include salmonela, e-coli and typhoid fever bacterium.

How do these disease get into our vegetables?

Diseases like salmonella can get in our vegetables by coming into contact with contamenated water or with raw meats. 

What are people doing to make sure that these diseases don't get in our vegetables? 

Techniques that are used to test the foods for disease are  sample testing which test for bacteria which should have been washed away.  There are also quality testing which is when they taste the food.

Which vegetables are affected by these diseases?

Diseases like selmonella can contaminate any vegetable that comes into contact with the bacteria.

Thesis: 

There are many diseases that can harm us in or vegetables like  salmonella and e-coli.

Introduction:

We chose to look at what diseases are in our vegetables so we did reaserch on this and wrote this report.  Diseases like salmonella and E_coli can be tranfered to your food through even just touching a contaminated source.  These diseases are able to infect most people and sometimes lethal.  We shall also tlak about how some of these diseases come into contact and contaminate our vegetables.  There are many diseases that can harm us in or vegetables.   

What diseases can taint our vegetables. well one of the diseases we shall be talking about is salmonella or also known as salmonellosis.  Salmonella can get into our vegetables by just coming into contact with a source of the disease. Once salmonella is in your system it takes abot 12 to 72 hours before you start to get side affects of salmonella the side affects of this disease are fever, abdominal, and diarrhea.  There is not just salmonela there is also E-coli 0157:H7 which can come into contact the same with the vegetable the same that salmonela can but it is worse.  It can cause bloody diarrhea, vomiting, and high fever most people will get better in 5-7 days but in some cases it will kill you. 

There are disease that can affect us through our food.  Like cholera which is not a comon disease in the U.S. but it is very comon in most 3rd world countries because they do not have sanitary water and food.  this disease is very deadly if not treated right away because this disease causes watery diarrhea and vomiting which will dehydrate someone very quickly and cause death within hours.  Another disease that affects many peolple in foreign countries is typhoid which can be spread by anyone that is shedding salmonella.  Typhoid can cause 103-104 degree fever and stomach pains. 

There is an extensive cleansing process which is done to ensure that there is no possible way that no food could get infected and even worse infect someone.  When processing these vegetables 2 qualified managers need to be present during the growing and processing.  According to Janice Scott this a very careful process that requires a lot of attention.  The people who oversee the cleaning and pacaging of the vegetables must have taken a course in college for foods processing.  Janice Scott who oversee's the people who do this process told the very extensive process to me that they go through.  This included washing packaging and food, pre-cooking the food and checking the ph levels along with other specific levels.  She gave me an example of pickled beats in which cooling what which is used to clean the can got into pickled beats when canned which caused the pickled beats to be more watery than they should have been.  The ph levels at first were fine but after getting the recalled product back ph levels read off than expected for the pickled beats.

Conclusion: 

These diseases aren't all of the diseases but you should still take procautions like washing and cooking foods thoroughly to ensure you don't contract and spread these diseases.  These diseases can be life threatening younger people or people with impared immune systems.  But the elderly can be at a big risk too.  Salmonella, e-coli and typhoid fevers are not to be underestamated and are deadly.  This is a food epidemic that not only affects vegetbles but all other foods like meat and dairy too.

 This shows the risk of one typical year for vegetable born disease epidemic outbreaks.

Sources:

1) "CDC - General Information on Salmonella." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/general/index.html>.

2) LaRosa, Steven. "Vegetables." Lifespan. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. http://www.lifespan.org/services/infectious/diseases/sal_sal-veg-qa.htm

3) Scott, Janice K. "Food Safety." Personal interview. 29 Mar. 2011.

4) "CDC Foodborne Illness Annual Report - NBA FOODAdvocate." NBA FOODAdvocate - By Richard J. Arsenault of Neblett Beard & Arsenault. Web. 30 Mar. 2011. <http://www.nbafoodadvocate.com/cdc-foodborne-illness-annual-report-4723>.

5) "Forecasting Long-Range Transport of Downy Mildew Spores and Plant Disease Epidemics." Welcome to APSnet. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/DownyMildew.aspx>.