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

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