New alliance aims to offer pathogen-free food

How we long for this piece of news: Grocery stores stocked with meat products virtually free of harmful pathogens such as E.coli or salmonella, eliminating the need for massive recalls like the recent Topps Food recall of nearly 22 million pounds of ground beef. Such a scenario may become reality if a growing alliance of livestock and poultry producers, along with packing companies and retail and food service vendors, has its way. The alliance, called VeriPrime, claims it can market meat that is 99.9999998% free of deadly pathogens through the use of patented probiotics along with current cleanliness and meat inspection procedures. Probiotics are dietary supplements and carcass washes which contain potentially beneficial bacteria, the most often used of which is lactobacillus acidophilus, a lactic acid bacteria. In addition, the alliance says it is close to having enough members to offer such meat products in the near future. Once they reach a critical mass of members, packers and feeders can see fit to install the necessary equipment to get the system rolling.

This low level of bacteria achieved with probiotic use is akin to pasteurization, said Scott Crain, a western Kansas veterinarian, who is heading up the VeriPrime alliance. Once the program is running, consumers will be able to pick out their products by looking for the VeriPrime symbol on the packaging or on restaurant menus. Research into the use of lactic acid bacteria to crowd out and kill other bacteria in the intestinal tracts of food animals and poultry and on their carcasses has recently been peer reviewed. Other scientists studied the experiments and the way they were done and concluded further studies would reach the same conclusions. University studies and calculations estimate it is possible to eliminate nearly all E.coli, salmonella and listeria pathogens by combining certain strains of lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria as a feed additive and then as a carcass wash when combined with current pathogen-reduction practices.

Here are two different reactions to the probiotic studies’ results showing drastic pathogen reductions: Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist for the Consumers Union, referring to the long string of nines in the percent of pathogen reduction claimed by university researchers and VeriPrime proponents: “They’re talking (something like) eight orders of magnitude reduction? Please.” Mindy Brashears, assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at Texas Tech University, said that number — 99.9999998% reduction in pathogens — is a reasonable calculation based on the additive effects of lactic acid bacteria in various studies.