Foodborne illness

“ From farm to table, we've made great strides to ensure the safety of our food supply. But outbreaks of food-related illnesses are still far too prevalent. In fact, millions of Americans get sick from eating contaminated food each year. ”

“ When the child is convalescent, mild nourishment will be required, such as arrow-root, tapioca, chicken or mutton broth, beef tea, jellies, and roasted apples; and by and by a mutton chop. Wine is seldom necessary, except under circumstances of unusual debility after a protracted illness, when its moderate use tends much to assist the convalescence; but, if given unadvisedly, there will be great hazard of exciting internal inflammatory disease. ”

“ The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened are the worst, of course ”

“ The chief diseases known to be carried by food, water, or milk are typhoid fever, paratyphoid, dysentery and other diarrhœal diseases, scarlet fever, diphtheria, septic sore throat, and tuberculosis. The sole problem here is to keep human and animal excretions out of food, water, and milk. Since thorough cooking kills disease germs, danger arises chiefly from raw foods. All fruits and vegetables eaten raw should first be thoroughly washed. ”

“ Changes in nutrition and food handling would also have altered disease risk. The shift to agriculture resulted in a reduction of the dietary niche, which would have predisposed many individuals to dietary deficiencies uncommon in the Pleistocene. ”

“ One threat we must address immediately comes from a foodborne pathogen called Listeria, which has been the cause of recent recalls of hot dogs and luncheon meats and several deadly outbreaks of disease. ”

“ Popcorn Soda water Ice cream cones Peanuts Baked beans Rusks Grocery cookies Cucumbers Cabbage Whole nuts Cherries Berries
(Some physicians also exclude all cake, candy, ice cream, jam.)
Illnesses Produced by Wrong Feeding. Illness may be due to one of several causes. Wrong feeding is one fundamental cause of ill health and a direct cause of many forms of illness. An excess or deficiency of any one of the food elements, wrong combinations of foods, wrong habits of feeding, lack of cleanliness or purity, improper cooking, may all produce illness. ”

“ In the matter of food which becomes fly-infected after having been cooked, or of food like milk, butter, and fruit, which are consumed raw, it should be known that a single pathogenic germ of ultra-microscopic dimensions, having obtained lodgment in the body, may there multiply and originate a fatal disease. On the other hand, raw meat which has been infected may, after the bacteria have been all killed by cooking, contain excreted poison in deleterious quantity. ”

“ With but few exceptions, foods are so altered by heat that their proper mastication becomes much easier, and cooking, therefore, materially aids in reducing them to a state in which they are much more readily acted upon by the digestive juices. It should never be forgotten, also, that cooking is of the utmost importance from the standpoint of killing bacteria and animal parasites that may be present in food. If we were to adopt universally the habit of eating everything raw, the general mortality would certainly be considerably increased. ”

“ There is not a disease germ known to medical science strong enough to establish itself in the system of an uninjured, healthy child and do damage. The child's health must first be impaired, through poor care, and then the so-called disease germs will find a hospitable dwelling place. If children are given natural food in normal quantities they are disease-proof. Feeding them on refined sugar and white flour products, pasteurized or sterilized milk, potatoes fried in grease pickled meats, and various other ruined foods breaks down their resistance and then they fall an easy prey to disease. ”

“ When abused it tends to cause discomfort, disease and death, and so does every other food known to man. Milk is given in fevers and in other diseases, when the digestive and assimilative processes are suspended. This is a serious mistake and has caused untold numbers of deaths. When the digestion has gone on a strike all feeding is destructive. Milk and meat broths, which are generally given, are about the worst foods that could be selected under the circumstances, for they decay very easily, and are excellent food for the numerous bacteria that thrive in the digestive tract during disease. ”

“ If the exclusive use of vegetable food will prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony had induced,—by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely from the world? ”

“ First we may notice food as a distributor. Food may become contaminated by infectious material in many ways; for example, by contact with sewage, or with polluted water, or even with eating utensils which have been used by patients. Water is also likely to be contaminated with infectious material, and is a fertile source for distributing typhoid and cholera. Milk may become contaminated in a variety of ways, and be a source of distributing the bacteria which produce typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and a few other less common diseases. ”

“ Just in what ways these are beneficial to the farmer and the physician is beyond the scope of the subject of cookery, but in the household their influence is felt in three ways: They are the cause of the decay and spoiling of foods; they are of value in the preparation of certain foods; and they are the cause of contagious diseases. It will thus be seen that while some microbes are undesirable, others exert a beneficial action. ”

“ Uses of animal and of vegetable food. Danger of all ill-cooked and half-cooked food. Nourishing value of vegetables and whole-meal bread. Danger of too little food and too much at the wrong times. Dangers of uncooked meat, specially pork, diseased meat, decaying fish, unripe and over-ripe fruit, and stewed tea. ”

“ The onset of disease is, in fact, often due to long-continued abuse of the whole digestive system through the use of unsuitable food. By unsuitable food, we mean not so much food that is bad in itself, but rather that which is not suited to the temperament or work of the eater, or to the climate and circumstances in which he finds himself. A ploughman or fisherman, for example, may thrive on diet which will inevitably produce disease in the system of one whose work confines him to the house for the most of his time. ”

“ Sanitary Condition of Vegetables.—The conditions under which vegetables are grown have much to do with their value, particularly from a sanitary point of view. Uncooked vegetables often cause the spread of diseases, particularly those, as cholera and typhoid, affecting the digestive tract. Particles of dirt containing the disease-producing organisms adhere to the uncooked vegetable and find their way into the digestive tract, where the bacteria undergo incubation. ”

“ Every year thousands of children and invalids of New York receive improper nourishment, or are made positively sick, on milk that is either foul, stale, or ready to sour; and every summer thousands of children die from complaints traceable to this source. Swill milk is one of the great generators of disease-producing germs to which all sorts of “complaints” are due. Does the Board of Health care a fig for the generator? No; the Board is absorbed in watching the antics of the germs! Mighty intellects are searching for malignant, multitudinous mites. ”

“ It is affirmed that 50 per cent. of the bovine and other animals that are slaughtered for human food are affected with Tuberculosis, or some of the following diseases: Cancer, Anthrax, Pleuro-Pneumonia, Swine-Fever, Sheep Scab, Foot and Mouth Disease, etc., etc., and that to exclude all suspected or actually diseased carcasses would be practically to leave the market without a supply. One has only to read the literature dealing with this subject to be convinced that the meat-eating public must consume a large amount of highly poisonous substances. ”

“ Now that it has been proven beyond doubt that the germs of consumption, typhoid fever, and cholera can be and are distributed through the consumption of contaminated milk or water, not to mention other diseases such as diphtheria and scarlet fever, an ever-increasing demand is being made that these all-important articles of diet shall be protected from pollution, and that public authorities shall be made responsible for their distribution in a pure and wholesome condition. ”

“ It must be confessed that, in temperate climates, at least, an animal diet is, in one respect, more wasting than a vegetable, because it excites, by its stimulating qualities, a temporary fever after every meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant, preternatural, and weakening exertions. Again; persons who live chiefly on animal food are subject to various acute and [Pg 139] fatal disorders, as the scurvy, malignant ulcers, inflammatory fevers, etc., and are likewise liable to corpulency, more especially when united to inordinate quantities of liquid aliment. ”

“ Unfortunately, thorough cooking affects the digestibility of meat unfavorably; but it is doubtless a wise procedure in some cases because, as is definitely known, some of the parasites that attack man find their way into the system through the meat that is eaten. These are carried to meat from external sources, such as dust, flies, and the soiled hands of persons handling it, and they multiply and thrive. It is known, too, that some of the germs that cause disease in the animal remain in its flesh and are thus transmitted to human beings that eat such meat. ”

“ Disease among cattle, poultry, and fish has increased so alarmingly in the last few years that we should no longer depend on the animal kingdom for food. We should look to the grains, nuts, vegetables, and fruits for a better dietary than can be prepared [4] from the flesh of animals likely to be contaminated with tuberculosis, cancer, and other diseases.
In writing this book, the author has treated the subject from the commonly accepted definition of the term vegetarianism, which means to abstain from flesh food, but allows the use of eggs, milk, and its products. ”

“ Not only water and milk and shellfish, but meats and vegetables and bread and forks and spoons and tumblers may be infected by a cook or a waitress who is a carrier, and many obscure cases of disease are traceable to this cause. ”

“ On account of their somewhat pungent taste, watercresses are used in many parts of the world as ingredients of salads, but they are, of all vegetables, the ones that are most liable to transmit disease to man, for in addition to the possibility of contracting in this way typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, and the ordinary intestinal worms, the human being is apt to receive with them the eggs of the flukes, and the spores of the amœbæ that produce chronic tropical dysentery. ”

“ This is sufficiently exemplified by the disastrous spread of such diseases as Wheat-rust, Larch-disease, Potato-disease, Phylloxera, Hop-disease, Sugar-cane disease, Coffee-leaf disease, and numerous other maladies which have now become historic in agricultural, planting, and forest annals. Providing the favourite food-supply in large quantities is not the only factor of an epidemic, but it is a most important one in that it not only facilitates the growth and reproduction of a pest, but affords it every opportunity of spreading rapidly and widely. ”

“ The ration fed and the method of feeding are not only important in considering the causes of diseases of the digestive tract, but diseases of other organs as well. The feeding of an excessive, or insufficient quantity of feed, or a ration that is too concentrated, bulky and innutritious, poor in quality, or spoiled may produce disease.
An impure water supply is a common cause of disease. A deep well that is closed in properly and does not permit of contamination from filth, does not insure a clean water supply if the trough or tank is not kept clean. ”

“ Food under the circumstances is a detriment and a burden to the body. In fevers, the temperature goes up after feeding. This shows that more poison has entered the blood. In fevers little or none of the digestive fluids is secreted, but the alimentary tract is so warm that the food decomposes quickly. Feeding during acute attacks of disease is one of the most serious and fatal of errors. There is an aversion to food, which is nature's request that none be taken.
When an animal becomes seriously ill, it wants to fast, and does so unless man interferes. ”

“ How the chemically denatured foods, the tainted cold-storage fowls, the drugged, soggy bread, the tasteless, frozen butchers' meats, would be swept away, together with frozen, unpalatable fish, wilted vegetables, unclean milk, unripe and decayed fruits, all of them the daily source of discomforts and disease (often including ptomaine poisoning) to thousands.
We must become a nation of epicures. To be sure, were we all as fastidious as gourmets are, only the best foods would be tolerated in the markets, and these cost more than the inferior grades. ”