Sandy wrote: >Vet calls lab back, we got E Coli from poultry. WHAT THE HELL DID >YOU SAY? >I buy the 10# leg quarters from Wal Marts on a weekly basis. Often I >add ground turkey as well. This time I didn't. I open bag of chicken & >dump entire contents into an 8 qt crockpot with a liner n it. It at >NO time does it ever touch a surface. I cook chicken on high for >24-36 or more hours.The temp in the crockpot is 220. This info on cross contamination includes the shiga toxin producing strains of E. coli bacteria. The toxin itself is not alive but can "survive" much cooking, and if it does so in large enough amounts... Cross contamination spread it past the usual host, cattle lower GI tract. Now, this was prepped in a home where it never touched a cutting board, nor a dirty platter. Cross contamination from ground beef can happen elsewhere, though, including at the store's or chain's butcher department or packaging department. So, while some illnesses not normally found in poultry can be in the chicken from producers feeding the chickens beef slaughter debris to artificially get a fast and cheap fattening up of the chickens (a risky cheat that is also done with some cattle, using fish often but sometimes other animals -- including sheep in the past though that is outlawed pretty much everywhere now due to the possible prion jump which might be the origin of "mad cow"), it is also possible that the E. coli got on the chicken from cross contamination before you bought it, Sandy. (Just as E. coli gets on veggies when there is run-off contaminated with raw fecal waste, usually from cattle too nearby but sometimes from other animals such as humans. Cross contamination can happen at many stages of food handling.) Sometimes cheaper is not safer, too. Chicken and cattle raised on what they naturally eat, rather than fattened up near the end with animal slaughter waste, have a lot less chance of harboring problems, and growing and preparation facilities which have not cut too many corners are less likely to have cross contamination risks. Many, many thanks for giving the people at the FML a lesson that can help save lives, Sandy. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6785]