On Monday, August 2, 2010 at 6:38:01 AM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
> 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.