ICE MAKING MACHINE AND TOILET WATER-WHAT IS THE CONNECTION?

Toilets are receiving much more attention than what they really deserve. It was not long ago that some one reported that toilet seat showed less bacteria than that present in a kitchen cutting board! Here comes another report with some shock value that declares that the bacterial quality of crushed ice that is thrown out from the ice making machines in many restaurants is significantly inferior to that of toilet water! How far this is universally true cannot be gauged by the limited studies conducted by the media as a part of their investigative journalism. But it does raise some inconvenient questions regarding the possibility of shirked responsibility of the restaurant management to keep their ice making machine clean and hygienically satisfactory. Also not clear is how serious is the problem vis-a-vis the safety of consumers who visit such ill maintained restaurants. Here is a take on this latest revelation.   

"The Daily Mail collected ice from ten fast-food franchises — McDonald's, Burger King, and Starbucks among them — and determined that in six out of ten locations, those innocuous-seeming cubes contained higher levels of bacteria than the water samples taken from toilet bowls at the same establishments. The Mail doesn't identify the bacteria by type or warn of a specific food-safety risk, instead noting only that four of the samples contained a sufficient bacterial load to present a "hygiene risk." So, does this mean we should all be drinking out of the toilet? The short answer is no, don't drink toilet water, but also, maybe be a little bit wary of ice. In most instances of germy ice, the likely culprit is dirty ice machines, and while the presence of pathogens like E. coli in anything meant for ingestion is cause for alarm, the Mail sort of flubs its own "investigation." The article doesn't make clear how much of the ice taken from each of the ten establishments was tested. Moreover, it doesn't emphasize how much one study parameter — fast-food workers were asked to put the ice into sterilized bags — was flawed, which renders the entire thing somewhat useless. "For the tests," itnotes, "staff were asked to provide a sample of ice in a sterile bag." The reader has to make it to the very end of the article to learn that the worker at Starbucks, for example, "inadvertently" contaminated the sample at the point of collection. While the ice at these places is no doubt bacteria-filled, it might help to have workers trained in taking sterilized samples actually, you know, collecting the sample. Moreover, this kind of study isn't particularly novel. Some highlights from the last ten years:
• In an effort to dissuade her friends from chewing on ice — a habit she found annoying — a 12-year-old kid from Tampa devoted her 2006 middle-school science project to comparing bacterial loads in fast-food ice samples and toilet water. Jasmine Roberts won a few awards and garnered national attention with her conclusion that ice-machine ice was dirtier than toilet water 70 percent of the time.
• A local news affiliate found coliform bacteria in 13 out of 25 ice samples taken from Indianapolis-area bars in 2008.
• The U.K. Health Protection Agency found enterococci and E. coli in 30 percentof ice samples taken from 88 establishments in 2011.
• And it's not just the innards of ice machines that harbor bad germs. All that sugar-filled plastic tubing inside soda machines can feed several gazillion colonies of bad bacteria. In 2010, for example, researchers from Hollins University in Virginia took samples of 90 drinks from 30 soda fountains located within a twenty-mile radius of Roanoke. They found coliform bacteria in 48 percent of the drinks and antibiotic-resistant E. coli in 11 percent.

It's pretty safe to assume that, on a widespread basis, nasty bacteria run the innards of ice machines just like Master Blaster runs Bartertown. Does that mean that ice from fast-food places will make you sick? As with most foods, the risk increases if you are either very old, are very young, or have a compromised immune system. Other than that, these studies are effective at upending one misconception about pathogens in particular: that freezing temperatures destroy bad germs. Instead of comparing ice and toilet water, it'd be good to get samples from a few more surfaces that aren't toilet water, which is usually treated with disinfectants in food service settings, anyhow".

The conclusion by the reporter that the ice is not a safety risk to normally healthy person because bacteria does not survive freezing temperatures cannot be accepted. Scientifically most bacteria might be killed at sub-zero temperatures due to cell disruption but few stubborn cells do survive capable of springing back to active life once favorable conditions are obtained. It is forgotten that many food infection episodes in the West are more or less confined to frozen foods and if such foods which are contaminated during the processing operations or storage are not cooked by the consumer there is a definite risk to the health. Another way of looking at this issue is that if these contaminated ice is used for chilling an alcoholic beverage or a carbonated beverage the safety risk is minimal or nil at at all. Still it is the primary responsibility of the food eateries to clean up their ice machines periodically to ensure that bacteria is not harbored by them. Same is true with thousands of water coolers found so commonly in public places.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

BIOFILMS-A SERIOUS CHALLENGE TO SANITATION SCIENTISTS

Man has been striving ever since his advent on this planet to keep the harmful microorganisms at bay and this endeavor is still continuing even to day. An array of technology to destroy pathogenic microorganisms is available for the industry that has been able to ensure safety of foods manufacture by them to a reaosnable extent. Traditional technologies like salt steeping, sugar infusion, sun drying, fermentation etc are supplemented by modern ones involving high temperature treatment, water removal at controlled temperatures, low and very low temperature preservation, high pressure processing, aseptic packing, vacuum packing etc. Still there is nothing absolutely safe in the light of continuous modification in the behavior of microbes to overcome all the hurdles created by man. Latest finding that bacteria  like Listeria and others can form highly impenetrable biofilms within which they survive under severely adverse environmental conditions is startling to say the least. Here is a commentary on this new phenomenon which will keep the industry on its toes when it comes to ensuring food safety.

"The slimy film that forms in damp areas, typically around drains and in trunk lines, is known as biofilm. Harboring pathogens such as Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli, biofilm creates a protective environment for illness-causing microorganisms to thrive.Eliminating biofilm and the pathogens it breeds has proven to be difficult for the food processing and retail sanitation industry. It tends to persist in damp areas and is resistant to traditional cleaners and sanitizers. Typical drain cleaners such as enzymatic cleaners, drain openers, and hard surface sanitizers don't have EPA approval to remove biofilm and are ineffective against the pathogens found in it." 

If claims by some of the manufacturers of sanitation aids are to be believed, specially formulated preparations are required which can only penetrate biofilms and destroy the bacteria residing within. As most of these products are patented and branded, very little is known regarding the scientific basis of such claims. Most difficult task in a food processing facility is to access remote nooks and crevices where there may be dampness, ideal for harboring biofilm clusters and which can infect the food during contact with the surface when processing is going on. Still efficient preparations containing active chlorine does a decent job with minimum risk of contamination. If biofilms pose real danger to the food processing sector as being claimed, it is time that safety authorities revisit the range of sanitizing agents approved and include more efficient ones for tackling dangers posed by the biofilms of pathogenic bacteria.    

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

LIFE AMONG THE CLOUDS-NEW FINDINGS

It looks like microorganisms are going to play an increasing role in the lives of humans with whom they have close association. The story of microbiome in the human body is now well known and over 1000 species of microbes cohabiting within and outside human body have a profound influence on the quality of health of the people. Microbes also are involved in production of many chemical substances and food materials of immense value complimenting human effort to ensure food security. Recent discovery that microbes can convert 30% of all plant materials on this planet into consumable forms of food is indeed reassuring. Equally true is the fact that there are many destructive bugs which can cause serious health problems including fatal conditions. While man has learned to live with these diverse microorganisms living near him , the new startling discovery that these tiny creatures can also live in highly hostile conditions that prevail in thin and rarefied air thousands of feet above the earth raises many questions regarding their role on climate moderation and well being of humans. Here is a take on this new revelations.       

"To find out, Nenes had some of his students hitch a ride on a NASA airplane that was on a mission to study hurricanes. They made multiple flights and were able to collect air samples from about 30,000 feet over both land and sea. The samples turned out to contain some fungi — and a lot of bacteria. "And this was a big surprise because we didn't really expect to see that many bacteria up there," Nenes says.It's not exactly a friendly place. It's cold, it's dry, and there's a lot of damaging UV light. But Nenes says the bacteria seemed to be able to handle it. "They were alive," Nenes says. "More than 60 percent of them were actually alive, and they were in an active state that that you could say they should be metabolizing and eating things that are up there." Back on the ground, other members of the research team used genetic techniques to identify the bacteria. One of them was Georgia Tech microbiologist Kostas Konstantinidis. "We were able to see at least close to 100 different species, of which about 20 were in most samples," Konstantinidis says. Some of those 100 species were from the ocean. Others came from the soil and from fresh water".

It will be interesting to know further about their nature and impact on humans on earth and whether some of the pathogens identified would be more virulent than their earth bound counterparts? Will the current antibiotic therapy be effective against them? With the frequency of high altitude flights, including outer space flights, increasing will there be more transfer of them to ground level mingling with the existing cocktail of microbes? What will be the consequences? A more detailed and intensive study including genetic mapping of these high altitude microorganisms only can find answers to these vexing questions. An international study on these issues is called for with minimum delay 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

KITCHEN VS TOILET-NEW FINDINGS

Food safety is now one of the hottest topics receiving serious attention from the safety agencies, paradoxically in developed countries where foods are supposed to be handled/processed, distributed, stored and tested at laboratories with most modern and sophisticated instruments. Still episodes of food poisoning from pathogens that infect foods are much more in these countries than that reported in undeveloped and under developed countries. Why? Is it because of the extra susceptibility of the population there with low immunity and resistance? How can that be when they have access to best foods that can be purchased in their countries, churned out by their modern food industry? Here is an interesting story coming out from the US which highlights the paradox.

Would you chop your vegetables on your toilet seat? I think pretty much all of us would say No. But maybe we should think again. Dr Chuck Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, studies how diseases are transferred through the environment. This involves swabbing household items and measuring how many bacteria - and what sort - develop. He particularly looks for faecal bacteria such as E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus. His studies have found that on the average in the toilet seat there are 50 bacteria per square inch.  "It's one of the cleanest things you'll run across in terms of micro-organisms," he says. "It's our gold standard - there are not many things cleaner than a toilet seat when it comes to germs." We should be more worried about other household items, it seems. "Usually there are about 200 times more faecal bacteria on the average cutting board than on a toilet seat," he says. In the kitchen it doesn't necessarily get there through actual contact with faeces. It comes via raw meat products or the viscera from inside of the animal, where a lot of the faecal bacteria originate.

The research studies which claim that the toilet seat used every day in these households is microbiologically much superior to the kitchen cutting board probably can be believed because every house wife considers toilet as the dirtiest place at home. Naturally that makes them use some of the most powerful germ killer chemicals known with plenty of water, giving no chance for the microbes to proliferate, though theoretically toilet is the most concentrated source of E.coli! The fact is that same attention is not given to wash thoroughly utensils, cutting boards and other paraphernalia in the kitchen, raising the chance for microbes to survive and proliferate. The problem becomes more acute for those house holds cooking both animal foods and plant derived ones regularly. While such reports may ring alarm bells among many families, there may not be really a dangerous situation as almost all foods are cooked at temperatures above 100C causing a 100% kill of these vectors. Of course salad vegetables and other cold foods may be vulnerable to cross contamination and it is advisable that separate boards and knives are kept for them as far as possible.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

PLASTIC FROM BACTERIA-TECHNICALLY FEASIBLE?

Fast depleting fossil fuel resources is raising alarms all around with private and public funded research efforts striving to evolve alternate sustainable energy sources. While tapping solar energy, wind energy, wave energy, geothermal energy, etc can help to fill the gap to some extent after the era of easy and cheap fossil fuels, still there is no clear solution to this vexing problem. One of the areas where fossil fuels have contributed enormously is in the manufacture of a variety of plastics for packaging consumer products including food and it is an irrefutable fact that both production and disposal of plastics pose technical, environmental and economic challenges. There are alternate technologies for production of plastics from basic chemicals produced by the plants and some microbiological sources though they have not yet gained universal acceptance. Recent break through in research studies to convert carbon dioxide, the very villain of peace to day in the global warming debate, are considered exciting and here is a critique on this development with some far reaching future potential to clean up the Globe.

Today, the world consumes 120 million tons of the chemical ethylene to make the world's most widely used plastics. Almost all of that ethylene is derived from fossil fuels. Between 1.5 to 3 tons of carbon dioxide is released for every ton of ethylene produced, which is why plastic has such an enormous carbon footprint. Now, researchers have inserted a gene into bacteria that turns it into one of the world's most efficient factories for ethylene by eating carbon dioxide, instead of releasing it into the air. On the opposite end of the plastic production line, a newly discovered fungus in the Amazon eats plastic, finally giving us a way to get rid of the stuff. The new cyanobacterium works in the opposite way of traditional plastic production: Its photosynthetic capabilities means it harnesses today's photons from sunlight (as opposed to old photons stored in the energy of chemical bonds in petroleum) to add carbon from the air to ethylene molecules. This saves six tons of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of ethylene created: Three tons are absorbed by bacteria and three are avoided from the usual fossil fuels, says the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Our peak productivity is higher than a number of other technologies, including ethanol, butanol, and isoprene," said NREL principal investigator, Jianping Yu, in a release from the Lab. "We overcame problems encountered by past researchers. Our process doesn't produce toxins such as cyanide and it is more stable than past efforts. And it isn't going to be a food buffet for other organisms."

The new genetically modified bacteria offers exciting possibilities if harnessed properly. The fact that it can create the basic building blocks of plastics by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide has future repercussions for both the packaging industry as well as environmental managers since it will considerably reduce the green house effect due to carbon dioxide while providing an inexhaustible source for making plastics for consumer use. The commercial feasibility part of the research has to be established in no uncertain terms and if technical feasibility is confirmed all countries in this Universe must join hands to evolve this technology further to the point of global use. The technological developments for optimizing the production of ethylene by the bacteria and exploitation of the Amazon fungus must be a common property of the mankind and there should not be any reservation on the part of NREL to share this with the world community at large.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com