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A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 


Bacterial Cross-Contamination – 9 December 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

In the supermarket where we occasionally shop, I picked up a free brochure containing advice about avoiding bacterial cross-contamination. It is full of absolutely necessary advice for those who use animal-derived foods.

Looking through this brochure made me glad that we stopped consuming any animal products twenty years ago. Even so, I am aware of the cross-contamination that takes place when vegetables come in contact with animal-derived bacteria in such places as farms, food-processing and packaging facilities, supermarkets, restaurants, etc.

In this supermarket brochure there is an interesting point concerning shopping carts that I had not heard before: “Separate raw meat, poultry and seafood from other foods in your grocery shopping cart and in your refrigerator.” However, they make no mention of how you can prevent contamination from the used shopping carts. What good will it do for people to separate their raw animal products from other foods in their carts when others will use the same un-disinfected carts?

I have often thought of the possibility of cross-contamination occurring at the check-out counters where all sorts of animal products are placed along with other food products. Years ago when the supermarket chain had a person asking customers for input on how to improve their service, I mentioned the possibility of cross-contamination on check-out counters and suggested they look into methods of disinfecting them. As far as I can tell, nothing was ever done about this potential problem.

If I ever thought that I was being overly fussy about the possibility of cross-contamination, this brochure proves to me that I’ve been on the right track.

The only way to really avoid this sort of cross-contamination is for the world to go vegan.

Go on to: "Humane" Farming Revisited - 10 December 2006
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