Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 50
1 your English -- on the previous page. Would you like me to
2 read it? It might be fair from "Eating habits" on page
3 112?
4 A. Right.
5
6 Q. "You do not change the basic biology of an evolutionary
7 process, the development of an egg, which has evolved over
8 millions of years, by a few decades of battery methods.
9 The big change which has occurred is not in our methods of
10 raising chickens and eggs but in the eating habits of the
11 population which have been revolutionised in the past two
12 decades. We have moved from home cooking and home prepared
13 food to sandwich bars, fast-food take-aways and an
14 explosion of small and large restaurants. An individual
15 case of gippy tummy in the home, caused by eating something
16 kept too long in the fridge or out of it, has been come
17 pounded by mass catering. One dodgy plate of cold pork can
18 become a large outbreak of food poisoning in a hospital".
19
20 Pause there. Does that mean several or many plates of
21 dodgy cold park in a hospital? "One dodgy plate of cold
22 pork can become a large outbreak of food poisoning in a
23 hospital". Or does it mean that one dodgy plate may
24 cross-contaminate all sorts of other food eaten by the
25 staff and patients?
26 A. I am not quite sure what Theresa means here.
27
28 Q. That is her, is it?
29 A. Yes.
30
31 Q. Do you adhere to whatever part of the sentiments expressed
32 in this book may emanate from her, rather than yourself?
33 A. Yes, I mean, the general thrust of what she is saying
34 -- I think I can help you there -- is that one meal, one
35 piece of food, in, say, a domestic environment is obviously
36 self-contained. The same food in a wider environment
37 through a variety of mechanisms can cause havoc in a large
38 operation.
39
40 Q. Exactly, yes. Take an obvious example: You can have a
41 piece of chicken which has been sitting in your kitchen for
42 longer than it ought to be before the spoilage bacteria
43 have had time to displace the pathogens, so that the
44 salmonelli have had a chance to multiply in their hundreds
45 of thousands -- millions, perhaps; it is then stuffed into
46 the fridge and drips on to the beef for Sunday, yes, or on
47 to something else, may be something else, a piece of bread
48 or a piece of cheese that somebody eats, that is an obvious
49 form of cross-contamination, is it not?
50 A. A raw chicken?
51
52 Q. Yes, a raw chicken?
53 A. Oh, yes, that is a mechanism.
54
55 Q. It happens, does it not?
56 A. Undoubtedly.
57
58 Q. It does not happen in McDonald's restaurants, does it?
59 A. Not to my knowledge, no.
60
