[aelf]

Seems that we are all at risk of Ecoli from 'dirty' soil  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/ecoli-outbreak-uk-250-ill?newsfeed=true

Scaremongering?

 

[mumofstig]

link here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8797545/Soil-on-vegetables-linked-to-E.coli-outbreak.html

Bacteria good and bad, are always present in soil..............but the link says that this particular outbreak is over
Has the soil suddenly become 'clean' then?  more there than meets the eye I think

[digger1]

I went out with my mother in the fifties & sixties on Romney Marsh planting potatoes in the spring then picking potatoes in late summer/autumn. In the winter pulling mangles for cattle feed.
As far as I know nobody suffered with e-coli or any other illness.

[JayG]

Bacteria good and bad, are always present in soil..............but the link says that this particular outbreak is over
Has the soil suddenly become 'clean' then?  more there than meets the eye I think

Simple logic suggests that something exceptional must have happened here, otherwise it would surely be happening all the time. 

(I suspect "they" don't know currently know what the exceptional circumstances were, and probably never will.)

[arugula]

The TV news report on this earlier said that there were a number of unrelated outbreaks between last December and March and it has taken until now to identify them as having the same cause i.e. contaminated soil but not all from the same place.

[crh75]

E. coli is in the intestines of all living animal and the vast majority of strains are in fact benifical to digestion.  A few strains of this bacteria cause illness in humans and they get into the soil through manure or dead animals.  It wouldn't supprise me if they do find a reason that it was due to using manure that had not been composted long enough before use.

[aelf]

I wonder could it be that there was a period this year when the conditions were just right to cause a bloom of this bacteria, maybe bigger than normally occurs?

[JayG]

E. coli is in the intestines of all living animal and the vast majority of strains are in fact benifical to digestion.  A few strains of this bacteria cause illness in humans and they get into the soil through manure or dead animals.  It wouldn't supprise me if they do find a reason that it was due to using manure that had not been composted long enough before use.

I don't want to spread alarm and despondency because such outbreaks do seem rare, but this article does suggest a link with "unsafe" manure (different strain of E. coli but presumably similar principles apply):

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09369.html

[digwell123]

would it be worth burning strawry manure and using the ash, it would be sterile after all?

[sunshineband]

Surely everyone washes their hands when they have been digging or harvesting?

Or is it just me?

[mumofstig]

Yes, I wash hands....but the other bit of advice was to wash all fruit and veg before eating.

I don't think many of us do that  think of peas eaten at the plot, raspberries and strawberries etc etc....I'm always munching something 


It was a comparetively small outbreak, considering how many people eat potatoes they've grown :happy:

[sunshineband]

True 

[joyfull]

you have to wash shop bought fruit and veg because of all the pesticides they use.

[JayG]

would it be worth burning strawry manure and using the ash, it would be sterile after all?

Difficult to burn ( ), polluting, and you would lose most of the nutrients and all of the valuable organic matter in the manure.

Even in today's risk-averse world nothing is guaranteed 100% safe, although I think there is some good advice in the link I posted which it would be wise to take on board as far as possible.

[azubah]

Could the problem be due to imported food?
We are used to bacteria which we meet around us every day, but may not have been into contact with imported bacteria before and hence have not built up immunity to them.