Food Safety For YOU! 2007 Edition

Eat Right and Join the Fight Against Foodborne Bacteria

The Safe Food Chart

FRUITS, VEGETABLES, and JUICES

FOOD SAFETY IMPLICATIONS

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Raw fruits and vegetables can become contaminated along the farm-to-table continuum. Produce used for salads - lettuce and spinach, for example - grow low to the ground, where they are likely to come in contact with contaminated fertilizers. Sometimes they’re irrigated with contaminated waters or picked by farm workers with poor hygiene practices.

The complex, multi-layered surfaces of salad produce are more difficult to clean after picking than produce with a smooth surface, such as apples or potatoes. Because fresh fruits and vegetables are usually eaten raw, they can pose a health risk if they’re not properly handled. Therefore, all produce needs to be thoroughly washed and safely prepared and handled before it is eaten.

Fruit and Vegetable Juices

Ninety-eight percent of the juice sold in the United States is pasteurized (heat-processed to kill pathogenic bacteria). The remaining 2% is unpasteurized and may contain harmful bacteria. For example, when fruits and vegetables are fresh-squeezed, harmful bacteria from the outside of the produce can become a part of the finished product. If it’s ingested, children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems risk serious illness or even death.

• Cryptosporidium, parasite
  (juice/cider and produce)

• Cyclospora, parasite
  (produce)

• Escherichia coli O157:H7
  (juice/cider and produce)

• Norwalk Virus
  (produce)

• Salmonella
  (juice and produce)

• Shigella
  (produce)

FOOD SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
(ALL FRUITS, VEGETABLES, AND JUICES)

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

• Thoroughly rinse raw fruits and vegetables under running water before eating them. Don’t use soap, detergents, or bleach solutions.

• If necessary - and appropriate - use a small vegetable brush to remove surface dirt.

• Try to cut away damaged or bruised areas - bacteria can thrive in these places.

Fruit and Vegetable Juices

• Children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems should only drink juices that have been pasteurized or otherwise treated to kill pathogenic bacteria.

• If you or someone in your family is in one of the at-risk groups and you cannot determine if a juice has been processed to destroy harmful bacteria, either don’t use the product or bring it to a boil to kill any harmful bacteria that may be present.

• Pasteurized or Treated Juice. Pasteurized juice can be found in the refrigerated sections of stores. Like milk, pasteurized juice must be refrigerated.

  Treated juice consists of shelf-stable juice normally found in non-refrigerated, shelf-stable containers, such as juice boxes, bottles, or cans. It is treated at a much higher temperature than pasteurized juice and is packaged in special airtight containers.

• Unpasteurized or Untreated Juice is normally found in the refrigerated sections of grocery, health-food stores, cider mills, or farm markets. Unpasteurized or untreated juice must have the following warning on the label:

  WARNING: This product has not been pasteurized and therefore, may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.

FOOD SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
(SPECIFIC FOODS)

Cantaloupe and Other Melons

Any bacteria on the outside of fruits can be transferred to the inside when the fruit is peeled or cut. To prevent this:

• Thoroughly rinse fruits that require peeling or cutting - such as cantaloupe and other melons - under running water before eating them.

• As an added precaution, use a small vegetable brush to remove surface dirt.

Raw Sprouts
(including alfalfa, clover, and radish)

Sprouts that are often served raw as an addition to salads, wraps, and sandwiches are a potentially hazardous food. Often, bacteria get into the seeds themselves through cracks in the shell before the sprouts are grown. These bacteria are nearly impossible to wash out once this occurs.

Thoroughly washing sprouts is no guarantee that you've gotten rid of pathogenic E. coli and Salmonella. Even cooking sprouts is not a solution to potential bacterial contamination.

• All consumers should avoid eating sprouts of any sort.

On the average, each person in the United States consumes more than 126 pounds of potatoes, 95 pounds of other vegetables, and 92 pounds of fresh fruit each year. E. coli O157:H7 is very resistant to acid, so it can survive in an acidic medium like orange or apple juice for a long time.

Food Safety A to Z Reference Guide

Hypertext updated by dms 2008-JUL-06