Thursday, August 20, 2015

Spinach food poisoning solution proposed


Dr. Nichola Kinsinger thinks she has a solution to the challenge of ridding spinach of food-poisoning bacteria, such as E. coli 0157:H7.

She says bleach isn’t totally effective because the leaves are bumpy, meaning there are places where 1,000 times less chlorine is delivered to kill bacteria.

Her solution is to add titanium dioxide to the wash water.

There have been a number of food poisoning outbreaks traced to spinach, including one case in California that sickened people across North America and prompted many restaurant chains to eliminate spinach from their salads.

It has been speculated that the California issue arose because wild animals got under field-protecting fences and pooped on spinach.

The poop might have gone into wash water and infected a large volume of spinach.