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NEWS Food contamination scares green eaters Hanna Lesky hlesky@unca.edu - Staff Writer There have recently been numerous outbreaks of food poisoning in some vegetarian foods, but according to Asheville residents, these foods are not to blame for making people sick. “The outbreak of E. coli and salmo nella that our crops are incurring come from livestock-based fertilizer and run off,” said Julie Loveless, nutrition counselor and systems sustainability specialist at Living Roots. “Both E. coli and salmonella are bac teria found only in the intestines of ani mals, including humans. Historically, the food-borne illnesses caused by these bacteria were attributable to only meat, particularly ground beef, unpasteurized milk, cheese and apple cider, for E. coli; and raw poultry, eggs and beef for sal monella,” Loveless said. “Animal feces are typically compost ed, often improperly, and turned into the soil as fertilizer, as well as diluted with water and sprayed on crop fields. The vast amounts of farm animals we pro duce results in overwhelming amounts of feces, so cropland tends to be over fertilized,” Loveless said. “Otherwise, slurry, or liquid animal waste, fecal matter, is stored in holding pens, storage ponds and lagoons. Often these storage units leak or overflow, resulting in seep age and/or runoff into ground water and waterways, and the polluted water con taminates the crops.” “Unfortunately, the concentration of animals characteristic of industrialized food production also concentrates pol lution, and makes cross-contamination, water contamination and over-fertiliza tion nearly impossible to avoid,” Love less said. Examples of foods that have been contaminated with E. coli and salmonel la are spinach, peanut butter and even tempeh, which had to be recalled from UNC Asheville’s campus last year. “Any of the food that is served here on campus is provided by approved, regis tered, inspected food service suppli ers,” said Emily Williams, senior food service director for Compass Group, Photo by Ricky Emmons - Photography Editor Nicole Barnes, junior sociology student, prepares a salad of leafy greens at her off-campus apartment. which owns and operates dining servic es at UNCA. Recalls happen once in a while, and the minute they are publically an nounced, and even when it is only a pos sibility that the food is contaminated, it is removed from the shelves, destroyed and discarded, Williams said. “Every single one of our staff and as sociates go through safe food handling. We all go through Serve Safe, which is a National Restaurant Association. It’s all about safe handling and instruction with food,” Williams said. “It’s obvi ously a continuing education, and we do it every semester, so whenever any of our associates return from winter break and from summer break, they have to go through all of it again, whether they worked here a month, or they’ve worked here 15 years. It’s always a continuing education process.” Compass Group is the largest food provider in the world, and according to Williams, the most successful because of their safe handling processes. In addition to relying on campus din ing services to keep a close watch on contaminated food, students can prevent "Any of the food that is served here on campus is provided by approved, registered, inspected food service suppliers." Emily Williams Senior food service director food poisoning on their own. “The things that we can do to pre vent food poisoning is controlling what foods you’re buying, controlling how you’re selling food, controlling how you’re preparing food and controlling how you’re sharing food. For the pur chasing choice, knowing the source of the food, which is often times difficult to do if you’re getting it from a corpo ration,” said Nick Ladd, Virginia Col lege of Osteopathic Medicine student and UNCA alumnus. “We’ve been seeing a number of cases of E. coli from contaminated cat tle. One infected cow will be mixed in with a lot of other cow meat and then the hamburger will be having problems there. Even with the heating up of the hamburger and the proper cooking of it, it won’t necessarily do away with a toxin. There’s a huge public health risk in the day and age of industrialized food because an average hamburger contains meat from up to a thousand different cows, so if you have any one of those cows, it can cause a lot of problems,” Ladd said. “Asheville here has an abundance of farmer’s markets and you can speak to the farmer directly and ask about han dling practices, and any kind of past history of illnesses from your food, and how they’re packaging and store the food before you actually purchase it. I think we live in a pretty connected world, and anytime there is an outbreak, it usually gets out there pretty well. But if people are interested in becoming a little more vigilant, you can go to the CDC web site, the Center for Disease Control, and keep a watch and maybe highlight some of the outbreaks that might potentially be in your area,” Ladd said.
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