Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week we come together right here, we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. It is so good to be back with
you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis. There's a lot
of talk right now about food safety, and part of
it is because we're about to go breathe the supermarkets
and make our giant Thanksgiving meal. But we're also talking
(00:29):
about it because of E coli. We've had not one,
not two, but now three E Coli outbreaks around the
country in the past few weeks. The first one including
those onions on certain cheeseburgers at McDonald's, the second one
with the organic carrots that were sold at Target, Stop
and Shop, Wegmans, Trader Joes and other chains. And now
just a few days ago we heard of a new
ground beef we call at certain restaurants. It's a lot
(00:52):
to talk about. So doctor Shira Darone is here. She
is the chief infection control officer at Tuff's Medicine. If
you've listened to the show for a while, you know
she's been on here talking about COVID. But I called
her back to give us some insight about this. So
doctor deerund appreciate your time here. Again, let's start with
this question. When somebody comes down with E. Coli? What
kind of symptoms do you normally see?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, usually if you have so ecoli is a is
a bacterial infection and it can cause all kinds of
different types of infections. But usually if you have acquired E.
Coli from a food source, like in this case the
affected organic cars, what you'll have is gastero intestinal symptom.
(01:36):
So you may have nausea, vomiting diarrhea, you may have fever,
you may feel generally achy or weak, and you know, obviously,
as we did here, you can develop a severe infection
with sepsis, and even some people can die from ecoli.
There is a syndrome that can be triggered that it's
(01:59):
called hemolytic uremic syndrome that leads to kidney failure. But
the early symptoms would generally be gastrointestinal.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Now, obviously we're getting into the depths of flu season
right now, and so how can somebody tell look, this
could just be flu. Sometimes I'm dealing with how do
you know when there's the difference between flu and E Coli.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, I mean so flu influenza is a respiratory infection,
and you know, generally it starts with respiratory symptoms, meaning
you know, a cough, maybe a sore throat, and is
accompanied by fever and body aches. Whereas I would expect
that if somebody is suffering from E. Coli infection, that
(02:42):
that would manifest more as nausea and vomiting diarrhea and
abdominal pain. So they are fairly different. You know, we
are not expecting anybody who hasn't eaten the affected organic
carrots to get sick, So you know, I wouldn't recommend
that anybody with you know, those types of gastrointestinal symptoms
(03:06):
nazi bomiting diarrhea necessarily heads straight to the doctor's office
or the emergency room to be evaluated for E. Coli.
But if you have eaten the recalled carrots, you know,
that's when you want to be vigilant regarding you know,
the developed the development of those types of gastroine testinal symptoms.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, how do these foods become contaminated anyway? I mean
it seems like we've had the McDonald's burgers with the
onions now I got the carrots and there was a
let us ee cola a while ago, Like, how does
all this happen?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's often a bit of a mystery. These are bacteria
that live in the gut of people and animals, and
so when you get fecal contamination of the soil or
even the seeds or the birds and vegetables them cells
(04:01):
when they get mixed together at the processing plant, you know,
what might have started as a small number of contaminated
vegetables or meat can become a larger number as you
mix that sort of contaminated product with the uncontaminated product.
And it can be very It can be slow to
recognize the source and difficult to eradicate once you do
(04:24):
recognize it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, and then I guess it's pretty important. We're getting
close to Thanksgiving now and all the big holidays with
all sorts of food, so I kind of want to
talk about food safety for a few minutes. Obviously, the
carrots is what we're focusing on for the E. Coli.
But you know, if you have food that's questionable, Does
cooking kill E coli? Does freezing kill it? What can
we do here?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, so freezing doesn't necessarily kill bacteria, it can stop
the further gross of bacteria. So we do recommend that
if you were going to save something for a longer
per of time than it would normally be safe in
the refrigerator, that you go ahead and pop it in
the freezer so that you don't get further growth of bacteria.
(05:07):
But it's not really going to stop it once it's
already there. Cooking is a good way to kill bacteria
if you cook something to a temperature of one hundred
and sixty five although there are some bacteria including E. Cola,
that can survive cooking, and there are some instances of
food poisoning that are due to the toxin that the
(05:29):
bacteria releases, which isn't going to be affected by cooking, unfortunately,
But there are some basic principles of food safety, right,
so you can't always avoid contaminated food, but you can
do things to lower your risk. We know that when
it comes to things like meat and fish and eggs
(05:49):
that they are much safer when they are cooked, especially
if they're cooked to a temperature of one hundred and
sixty five degrees. So we also know that poultry can
be very risky and turkey for Thanksgiving is something that
we have seen lots of food born illness related to.
You know, it used to be that we always ate
(06:11):
the stuffing right out of the inside of the turkey,
but then that was found to be associated with food
born illness, and now people put stuffing separately, right because
you can't necessarily get that temperature that you want to
get to all the way in the middle of the
turkey's cavity. So those are some things that have changed
over time to improve food safety. You may have a
(06:32):
lot of turkey left over, but that doesn't mean you
should be eating it for two weeks. So after either
after you fully cook the turkey or any kind of
again meat fish, you want to throw it out after
you know, five days or so unfortunately, or freeze it,
which can sort of preserve it in its current states.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, So you want to have those Thanksgiving sandwiches for
at least a couple months if you can do it,
because those are so so good.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And then your fruits and veged like, say you want
to get fruits and stuff in advance to make a pie.
Your vegetables, you want to make sure you wash those
two and make sure they're all taken care of.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, and again that's going to reduce some of the risk,
but it's not going to eliminate it. You can't sterilize
a carrot obviously, just by washing it. And that's why
we have such a robust surveillance system in this country
to detect food born outbreaks when they begin, so that
we can get those affected products off the shelf. Clearly,
(07:27):
a lot of people leave their carrots raw and that's
to be expected and we're not going to start recommending
that everybody cooked their carrots to eat them. The important
thing is to recognize when there's an outbreak and get
those things off the shelf. Yes, you should wash them,
but that is certainly if you have recalled carrots in
your refrigerator. You do not want to think that just
(07:49):
by washing them you've made them safety because that is
not the case.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, get them out of the fridge, get them out
of wherever you have them, throw them out and get
that refund and.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Wipe down that surface that you know area in your
fridge where they were sitting.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ news radio on iHeartRadio,