I saw this on another forum & I say no thanks! I don't like the thought of something eating my food before I do.

and you probably would have had to have someone die of small pox before you would consent to having them vaccinated with cow pox, and you probably would deny Penicillin to someone dying of bacterial pneumonia because it's made from bread mold.
And as for pasteurized milk...of course not....who wants cooked milk! And pressure canned food? Why those things might explode....I'll just seal the green beans with paper and wax like Grandma did...God rest her soul.
Why not? Sounds like a breakthrough in food safety to me!
Linda C

I don't like the way this is headed. Given a choice between irradiation or adding viral material to meats I'd go with irradiation anytime. And I don't particularly want my food irradiated.

Also given the rush of litigation over FDA approved medicines and medical devices they've deemed safe......... I'm starting to get antsy over their track record.

The next thing down the line is to impose the use of those products in the name of food safety and there goes your choices to get unadulterated meat anywhere. If the industry is determined to do this I WANT THOSE PRODUCTS LABELED. So, we have a choice.

I am particularly surprised at using a virus because of their mutagenic abilities.

Calliope - exactly! And I shudder at the quote "As long as it used in accordance with the regulations, we have concluded it's safe," Zajac said. My official job involves seeing that over 500 people fill out some very simple forms "in accordance with regulations." These highly educated people present an error rate that ranges from 20% to 50%.

LindaC - applying a bacteriophage to commonly available food without the knowledge of the consumer is vastly different from smallpox vacinations [which do not even contain the smallpox virus], or using an antibiotic to counteract an existing infection, or using the sanitary method better known as pasteurization. Smallpox is/was extremely contagious, infecting something like 90% of all come into contact, and had a death rate of about 30% of all those who contracted the disease. I have no idea how many millions (billions?) of pounds of processed meats were consumed in the USA last year, but 2500 cases of listeriosis cannot possibly present a very high percentage of the potential victims. And, like Calliope, I think it wrong to apply an additive to food without any consumer advisement or warning. If you wish to consume that or similar bacteriophlages, I certainly can't dissuade you, but please *don't* try to imply that listeriosis bacteriophlage is of the same importance to humankind as disease preventing vaccines, antibiotics, or sanitary procedures.

Did your grandma *really* ever seal green beans with wax?? I truly doubt it; wax-sealing is a method used for jams and jellies which are dependent on the high sugar content to remain safe to eat, and occasionally used to protect brined and/or vinegared foods from dust and dirt.

This is so the packing plants can save money by not having to be as clean as they should be.

I am familiar with food irradiation. I think using bacteriophages and irradiating food attempt to achieve the same end. Yes, reducing or eliminating bacteria in foods are especially necessary in cultures where proper sanitation or food storage facilities are lacking. That could save countless lives. I would venture to say, however, that many if not most of the illness associated with meat consumption in this country could be prevented with proper food handling techniques by the end user and that includes clean counters and hands/proper cooking/ and proper storage. Meats purchased meant to be consumed without cooking are another story. I can see a safeguard in place on those, even though they should be safe leaving a processor and making the chain of distribution in a perfect world.

Here is what I also see. I know irradiation improves the shelf life of fresh produce from days to weeks in some cases. It should also retard spoilage in packed meats and other products. It's even used to prevent imported fruit flies from entering the U.S. Improved shelf life means less shrinkage. Less shrinkage means higher profit margins. Higher profits? rofl. Now, that's a motivation if I ever saw one. So if it's so safe then why would you be afraid to admit you're doing it? Slap a label on those dudes, man.

My grandfather always said

Be not the first by whom the new are tried
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside

My grand mother didn't seal anything but jams and jellies with wax and paper...but her mother did....and I have several stone jars of the type used.
Frankly I see little difference in using a bacteriophage and the addition of red dye #2 and all the other ghastly additives in "deli meats"..balogna, hot dogs, pimento loaf, summer sausage and who knows what else. And, as I understand, that's where the viruses are bring used. They are typically thin sliced, removed from refrigeration, handled, rewrapped, re refrigerated and the next day the cycle is repeated. The chance for bacterial contamination is huge. If there is a way to reduce the risk of lysteria, I say go for it.
There is research going on to find how effective viruses can be in fighting cancers. There are also studies being done on bacteriophages as the newest way to fight infection.

My mother's father wouldn't allow her to eat any foods with artificial coloring or flavoring. I was not allowed to drink bottled soft drinks....by the time I was about 12 I was allowed a 6 oz bottle of 7-up a couple of times a week, no boxed cookies but "Social Teas"...I am sure it didn't hurt me...but my mother was sure the strange stuff in those things was not good. But her thinking that those things were "poision" seems very silly today.

Shadow, your grandfather said a mouthful!
And suzie and Andie....what are you going to do about it? It will make no difference in my way of life, I don't eat that stuff....with or without bacteriophage viruses.
But for the poeple who do, if it lessens their chance of getting sick I say go for it.

I remember my grandmother being afraid of food cooked in a pressure cooker.....Gawd only knows what she would have thought of microwaved food! LOL!
Linda C

Stone jars are used in brining, pickling, and in the fermentation processing of vegetables. I understand green beans are especially tasty when fermented. But the wax used is simply the equivalent of putting a cap on - a protection against dust and spills, not a preservative.

I've read that Intralytix, the company producing these bacteriophages, also plans to introduce one for meat, especially those that will be ground [turned into hamburger]; and will soon apply -or already has done so- to the FDA. I haven't seen precise info yet, but the implication is that these bacteriophages will be used by the packing plant and butchers, not by the local deli Linda describes - although it certainly sounds as though any meat handling place that doesn't practice good sanitation should qualify. Of course, I'm cynical enough to think that if the butchers won't/don't keep the meat clean and safe as a usual practice, then those butchers likely aren't going to bother adding the bacteriophage -- I'm sure Intralytix isn't giving the stuff away, which means an additional cost that would lower the butcher's profits. And I don't like BigBrother unilaterally deciding that because a few consumers don't use good sense in in maintaining cleanliness and proper temperatures, then *all* consumers should be "protected" from the potential results.

According to CDC, there are over 70 million cases of food poisoning every year with possibly 5,000 deaths resulting from the poisoning. (Compare those numbers to vehicular accidents - far fewer accidents with many more deaths!) Almost every food poisoning case could have been avoided with attention to cleanliness and common sense in maintaining appropriate temperatures. I suspect that adding bacteriophages to the average meat is as useful as swatting the tabletops in a screened room -- a waste of time unless the door was left open.

In retrospect your mother may have been ahead of the times banning soft drinks Linda. Afterall they have been attribituted to be the leading cause of childhood obesity here in the U.S.

Linda C, I go to a real butcher, so I watch that stuff being sliced. I don't buy pre-packaged luncheon meats or any pre-packaged meats at all for that matter.

Linda C....What am I going to do about it? I raise my own poultry and my barn has been home to pigs and goats. I butcher sometimes. My son owns a farm and has run many a herd of beef feeder calves through it. I have options. We also have several wonderful local abbetoirs and I'd be glad to throw them my business. I already do. I'll just throw more of it their way if they can continue to run their meat processing operations the way the always have without being obliged to yet another new regulation.

I am not slamming our meat industry. It's prolly the best in the world. I know however that the delivery of the finished product in your grocery case bears little resemblance to the way it was processed even two decades ago, and is going to change even more. Years ago markets needed butchers in house because the meat came in on the carcass. It's been a long time since that is the norm. It then went to primal cuts in cryovac. That's when less and less of the cutting took place in the meat departments of markets. That's when the cuts you were used to getting started to disappear.....things like long bone sirloin steaks and the offal. Now oxtails and kidney suet have to be ordred in seperately and are specialty items. One of theses days, the cutting of the roasts and chops are going to be done at the processing plants. That's the direction it's taking. It's cost effective for the markets, as real butchers don't come cheap. I know, I am married to one. It's also cost effective to the processing plants and I still think using irradiation and bacteriophages means better shelf life and higher profit margins. Anytimes profits improve it's going to happen. I am not against it, I just want to preserve the option of choices and the option of being informed.

I was reading an item recently about the use of Nitrogen in prepackaged meats. The air is pumped out of the thick plastic covering and nitrogen is pumped in. This is harmless and removes the oxygen that bacteria need to reproduce.

Sounds like a better idea. Of course, once the package is opened and exposed to the air, it's every germ for itself again.

As I read the article, there is no intention of treating steaks, chops and roasts with the bacteria eating virus. Cooking kills lysteria and salmonella. The intended use for the stuff is pre-sliced luncheon meats and sausages, things not usually heated nor cooked.
A little more than 30 years ago, the neighborhood grocery store here went out of business. The reasons were many, the age of the owner/butcher, new regulations and a strike by the factory workers and the union's demands for free food for the out of work strikers.
The new regulations stated that every so often ( seems like it was every 2 hours, but perhaps it was every 4 hours) the grinder had to be shut down and cleaned, the wooden chopping block had to be cleaned, scraped and doused with chlorine, all counters and knives and saws washed and disinfected, and then meat cutting could begin again.
There wasn't a lot of meat packaged in the case. You ordered it cut or ground on the spot. I remember the butcher holding up a loin of beef and his knife and asking "how thick"? ham was shaved to order, balogna came in a chunk and you ordered it sliced thick or thin and only what you bought was sliced. Meat probably cost a larger proportion of a days wages then, but I don't remember worries about food poisioning but for long picnics in the park on a hot day. No talk of "food bourn illnesses" nor irridating food and certainly not bacteriophage viruses!
Times have changed, our ways that food is distributed has changed and the time between the chunk of sausage and the slices in your refrigerator is a lot longer now. New ways to keep that pre sliced, pre processed, injected with "solution" meat need to be welcomed.
As I said earlier...it is really of no concern to me, personally as I don't eat that stuff!

Back to old methods of canning foods. Before the time of the Civil War, when glass canning jars with screw on lids were invented, people preserved food in quart stone ware jars. The early ones had a groove and a tin lid that fit into the groove, and I have heard it told that melted tallow was used to pour into the groove to seal the jar, and others have said wax was used. Some recommended paper between the food and the tin lid, others said oiled cloth.
Also there were crockery jars with crockery lids that fastened with wire bales. I don't know if they sealed with a rubber ring, or with a wax seal. Somewhere, packed in a box, I have examples of these types of jars. These were not the "crock" things that were used to preserve kraut, pickles, salted meat and corned beef, these were canning jars made of stoneware.
Well I remember a few years ago all the hype about irridiated foods! "you mean radiation? Like in the atom bomb? Not me!!"
Don't be too quick to knock something that will make our food supply safer.
Linda C

It angers me that the FDA has approved bacteriophages for animals but not humans. My son, his girlfriend, my brother, a friend from work, and her daughter. This is just a short list of people I know that have contracted ca-mrsa (Superbug) this past year alone. Few/no antibiotics work. Last antibiotic on the market is Zyvox. Last hope. Yet insurance companies don't like that one as is very expensive. This did work on my brother, but there are already strains of bacteria that are resistant to Zyvox. Feels very hopeless and very scary. Until I read Viruses Vs. Superbugss - A Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? by Thomas Hausler. Bacteriophages were discovered in 1917 and used on many patients. Not in the U.S. of course. I'm working on getting my son to the Rep. of Georgia for treatment. If our food is treated with phages, there is no side effect for them or us, the consumers. After the bacteria is gone, the phages disappear. Then, we are not eating meat that has been treated with antibiotics - as this has been part of the cause of the increase in antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. I hope the public opinion changes. It sounds strange, but it makes sense.

You make a very good point in bringing up the issue of using antibiotics in food production. At the feed mill, when I buy starter feed for my newborn chicks, they routinely throw on the bags with antibiotics included. I routinely make them take it off, prefering my chicks to obtain natural resistance. Since I raise them cage-free and don't overpopulate my facility I don't have problems with sick fowl. If they need treated, I use antibiotics, but it's not something I use prophylactically. I seldom lose birds to disease, and I've only had to resort to antibiotics twice in ten years.

I am in an agricultural profession. The same thing holds for pesticides. We find a good one and it's used to death until it doesn't work anymore because of resistance.

I also find it ironic that approval of phages on a major scale comes so easily when goes in food, but not when it's considered medicine. That's why I questioned if it's profit driven.

I sincerely hope you find a resolution to your situation.

Your track record with your birds is impressive. I wish all were as vigilante and concerned about the anitibiotics and pesticides as you are.

You're right about the it being about profits. Phages are made specifically for a certain bacteria. So, a lot of man hours are needed. Yet that is why they are so safe. Once the target bacteria is gone, the phages have nothing left to attack. So they are absorbed and excreted. Drug companies cannot mass produce these phages - so no profits. So no FDA approval.

Thanks for responding. I was afraid I'd cause some outrage as my view was so contrary to the others.

Tracy, your view was not contrary to mine....but your reasoning different and your arguments better thought out. I hope you can find some help for your son.
Perhaps if we treat our livestock with Phages, there will be less need for routine antibiotic treatment.
Cheese makers really know about antibiotics. The milk from one cow with antibiotic residue in her milk, when mixed with the milk of hundreds of other cows, will keep the curds and whey from setting.
Perhaps if the "good virus were presented as a "phage" rather than as a "bacteria eating virus", there wouldn't be the knee jerk reaction of "not in my food" that seems prevalent.
Linda C

I recently saw a program on Shrimp farms in Thailand. They dumped antibiotics in by the bucket. The polluted drainage from these ponds has polluted the surrounding waters of the Pacific. I decided then and there that if I couldn't get locally caught shrimp, I would do without. The conditions on these "farms" were horrible. They were little more than nasty mud pits!