Is Food Safety An Oxymoron?

Sometimes 'tis better not to know your enemy too well.

First (before we tackle food safety): Interesting item from our local paper, reporting on PAP smears. The test has been used for over 50 years to diagnose cancer of the uterine cervix in its earliest stages.

Annual PAP smears have been the impetus for millions of women to get "check-ups." Now comes evidence that for those with an abnormal smear, a blood test can be done to determine who is at risk for a problem. It's a test for the Human Papilloma virus, known for a decade or two as the main causative factor in cervical cancer. Women with a negative test need no more than annual regular PAP smears.

The good news is that we can save a lot of anxiety, trouble, and expense for low-risk (negative HPV) women. The bad news is the further confirmation that cancer of the uterine cervix is, basically, a contagious disease. Those who have devoted their lives to the church (you might call them "nuns"), with no exposure to HPV, do not get cancer of the cervix.

Second: Newer ways to infect us through food-borne agents are showing up all the time. E Coli contaminated meat and meat products continues to be the leading problem, but items thought to be relatively low-risk (ie, clean) are coming on strong. Perhaps the most egregious was the great strawberry caper, in which hepatitis virus was on the fruit as a result of using contaminated water in a washing process. Things we cook can be "sterilized" if cooked adequately, and consumption of rare meats should be a rare event. (If, say, you butchered the cow yourself.) But we don't customarily cook fruits and salad vegetables, do we?

If you look carefully through all of your USDA literature, you will surely find ways to clean up things you don't plan to cook. It probably involves using a rinse that contains a smidgen of chlorine bleach, which you then rinse off with your own (presumably) clean water. Unless you know the provenance of everything you buy at your green-grocer's shop, you may need to perform these unusual cleansing rituals on a regular basis.

Third: (Thanks to Col ((ret)) J. Creighton) Beware the partially cooked or raw mollusk, to wit:

Tonight I ate an oyster, an oyster in a stew.
A stew of milk and butter, which he was floating through.
I ate his heart, his liver, his gills and fluid sac.
His teeth and capillaries, the tube along his back.
Ate his brain and ganglia, his nervous system central.
His stomach and its contents, his muscles to the ventral.
Ate his pores and fleshy foot, intestines large and small,
His other glands and tissues, I quite devoured his all.
Dear Host, the meal was perfect, a real delight to sup.
Please show me to the bathroom, my oyster's coming up.