On 8/1/2010 9:12 PM, Bob Terwilliger wrote:
> J. Clarke wrote:
>
>>> Well, chickens are obviously not affected by salmonella the way people
>>> are.
>>
>> So you're saying that something that is harmless to a chicken embryo is
>> dangerous to an adult human? Try again.
>>
>> (a) Most eggs do not contain salmonella. There is one rare strain that
>> can infect an intact egg, but only if the parent chicken's ovaries are
>> infected. It is estimated that one in 20,000 eggs are so affected.
>>
>> (b) Egg white contains several mechanisms that inhibit bacterial growth--a
>> reasonably fresh egg, even if infected, is resistant to bacterial growth.
>>
>> (c) In any case, cooking an egg will kill all salmonella present in the
>> egg.
>>
>> (d) Unlike botulism, which does not affect intact eggs, salmonella leaves
>> no residual toxins--salmonella only makes you sick if you get a pretty
>> good dose of the live bacteria.
>>
>> (e) If you're really that worried about it, put all your eggs in a 145
>> degree water bath, stick a thermometer into one of them and when it's read
>> over 140 for three minutes you've got pasteurized eggs.
>>
>> Of course if you have AIDS or some other immune system deficiency you need
>> to be more careful--in that case you probably shouldn't be buying any eggs
>> that aren't factory-pasteurized to begin with.
>
> None of those points actually challenged what I wrote. I didn't say anything
> about the health of a chicken embryo. I didn't say anything about methods of
> killing the salmonella bacterium. I didn't say anything about the prevalence
> of salmonella in the chicken population.
>
> The CHICKEN WHICH LAID THE SALMONELLA-INFECTED EGG was obviously infected
> with salmonella. Chickens (along with turtles, iguanas, and doubtless
> numerous other species) routinely carry around salmonella with no apparent
> ill effects. That's what I wrote, and what you failed to address. Try again.

Fine, live your life in terror of food.