With all this bird flu around, how safe are eggs, chicken or milk?

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Enzo Palombo, Swinburne University of Technology

Recent outbreaks of bird flu – in US dairy herds, poultry farms in Australia and elsewhere, and isolated cases in humans – have raised the issue of food safety.

So can the virus transfer from infected farm animals to contaminate milk, meat or eggs? How likely is this?

And what do we need to think about to minimise our risk when shopping for or preparing food?

AS Foodstudio/Shutterstock

How safe is milk?

Bird flu (or avian influenza) is a bird disease caused by specific types of influenza virus. But the virus can also infect cows. In the US, for instance, to date more than 80 dairy herds in at least nine states have been infected with the H5N1 version of the virus.

Investigations are under way to confirm how this happened. But we do know infected birds can shed the virus in their saliva, nasal secretions and faeces. So bird flu can potentially contaminate animal-derived food products during processing and manufacturing.

Indeed, fragments of bird flu genetic material (RNA) were found in cow’s milk from the dairy herds associated with infected US farmers.

However, the spread of bird flu among cattle, and possibly to humans, is likely to have been caused through contact with contaminated milking equipment, not the milk itself.

The test used to detect the virus in milk – which uses similar PCR technology to lab-based COVID tests – is also highly sensitive. This means it can detect very low levels of the bird flu RNA. But the test does not distinguish between live or inactivated virus, just that the RNA is present. So from this test alone, we cannot tell if the virus found in milk is infectious (and capable of infecting humans).

Rows of milk bottles in supermarket fridge
It’s best to stick with pasteurised milk. Amnixia/Shutterstock

Does that mean milk is safe to drink and won’t transmit bird flu? Yes and no.

In Australia, where bird flu has not been reported in dairy cattle, the answer is yes. It is safe to drink milk and milk products made from Australian milk.

In the US, the answer depends on whether the milk is pasteurised. We know pasteurisation is a common and reliable method of destroying concerning microbes, including influenza virus. Like most viruses, influenza virus (including bird flu virus) is inactivated by heat.

Although there is little direct research on whether pasteurisation inactivates H5N1 in milk, we can extrapolate from what we know about heat inactivation of H5N1 in chicken and eggs.

So we can be confident there is no risk of bird flu transmission via pasteurised milk or milk products.

However, it’s another matter for unpasteurised or “raw” US milk or milk products. A recent study showed mice fed raw milk contaminated with bird flu developed signs of illness. So to be on the safe side, it would be advisable to avoid raw milk products.

How about chicken?

Bird flu has caused sporadic outbreaks in wild birds and domestic poultry worldwide, including in Australia. In recent weeks, there have been three reported outbreaks in Victorian poultry farms (two with H7N3 bird flu, one with H7N9). There has been one reported outbreak in Western Australia (H9N2).

The strains of bird flu identified in the Victorian and Western Australia outbreaks can cause human infection, although these are rare and typically result from close contact with infected live birds or contaminated environments.

Therefore, the chance of bird flu transmission in chicken meat is remote.

Nonetheless, it is timely to remind people to handle chicken meat with caution as many dangerous pathogens, such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, can be found on chicken carcasses.

Always handle chicken meat carefully when shopping, transporting it home and storing it in the kitchen. For instance, make sure no meat juices cross-contaminate other items, consider using a cool bag when transporting meat, and refrigerate or freeze the meat within two hours.

Avoid washing your chicken before cooking to prevent the spread of disease-causing microbes around the kitchen.

Finally, cook chicken thoroughly as viruses (including bird flu) cannot survive cooking temperatures.

Are eggs safe?

The recent Australian outbreaks have occurred in egg-laying or mixed poultry flocks, so concerns have been raised about bird flu transmission via contaminated chicken eggs.

Can flu viruses contaminate chicken eggs and potentially spread bird flu? It appears so. A report from 2007 said it was feasible for influenza viruses to enter through the eggshell. This is because influenza virus particles are smaller (100 nanometres) than the pores in eggshells (at least 200 nm).

So viruses could enter eggs and be protected from cleaning procedures designed to remove microbes from the egg surface.

Therefore, like the advice about milk and meat, cooking eggs is best.

The US Food and Drug Administration recommends cooking poultry, eggs and other animal products to the proper temperature and preventing cross-contamination between raw and cooked food.

In a nutshell

If you consume pasteurised milk products and thoroughly cook your chicken and eggs, there is nothing to worry about as bird flu is inactivated by heat.

The real fear is that the virus will evolve into highly pathogenic versions that can be transmitted from human to human.

That scenario is much more frightening than any potential spread though food.

Enzo Palombo, Professor of Microbiology, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Guinness Is Good For You*

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    Guinness Is Good For You*

    *This is our myth-buster edition, so maybe best not take that at face value!

    To this day, writing the words “Guinness is” into Google will autocomplete to “Guinness is good for you”. The ad campaign proclaiming such launched about a hundred years ago, and was based on Guinness as it was when it was launched another hundred years before that.

    Needless to say, none of this was based on modern science.

    Is there any grain of truth?

    Perhaps its strongest health claim, in terms of what stands up to modern scrutiny, is that it does contain some B vitamins. Famously (as it was once given to pregnant women in Ireland on the strength of such) it contains folate (also known as Vitamin B9). How much?

    A 15oz glass of Guinness contains 12.8µg of folate, which is 3.2% of the RDA. In other words, you could get all the folate your body needs by drinking just 32 glasses of Guinness per day.

    With that in mind, you might want to get the non-alcoholic version!

    “I heard you could live on just Guinness and oranges, because it contains everything but vitamin C?”

    The real question is: how long could you live? Otherwise, a facetious answer here could be akin to the “fun fact” that you can drink lava… once.

    Guinness is missing many essential amino acids and fatty acids, several vitamins, and many minerals. Exactly what it’s missing may vary slightly from region to region, as while the broad recipe is the same, some processes add or remove some extra micronutrients.

    As to what you’d die of first, for obvious reasons there have been no studies done on this, but our money would be on liver failure.

    It would also wreak absolute havoc with your kidneys, but kidneys are tricky beasts—you can be down to 10% functionality and unaware that anything’s wrong yet. So we think liver failure would get you first.

    (Need that 0.0% alcohol Guinness link again? Here it is)

    Fun fact: Top contender in the category of “whole food” is actually seaweed (make sure you don’t get too much iodine, though)!

    Or, should we say, top natural contender. Because foods that have been designed by humans to contain everything we need and more for optimized health, such as Huel, do exactly what they say on the tin.

    And in case you’re curious…

    Read: what bare minimum nutrients do you really need, to survive?

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  • Metabolic Health Roadmap – by Brenda Wollenberg

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The term “roadmap” is often used in informative books, but in this case, Wollenberg (a nutritionist with decades of experience) really does deliver what can very reasonably be described as a roadmap:

    She provides chapters in the form of legs of a journey [to better metabolic health], and those legs are broadly divided into an “information center” to deliver new information, a “rest stop” for reflection, “roadwork” to guide the reader through implementing the information we just learned, in a practical fashion, and finally “traveller assistance” to give additional support / resources, as well as any potential troubleshooting, etc.

    The information and guidance within are all based on very good science; a lot is what you will have read already about blood sugar management (generally the lynchpin of metabolic health in general), but there’s also a lot about leveraging epigenetics for our benefit, rather than being sabotaged by such.

    There’s a little guidance that falls outside of nutrition (sleep, exercise, etc), but for the most part, Wollenberg stays within her own field of expertise, nutrition.

    The style is idiosyncratic; it’s very clear that her goal is providing the promised roadmap, and not living up to any editor’s wish or publisher’s hope of living up to industry standard norms of book formatting. However, this pays off, because her delivery is clear and helpful while remaining personable and yet still bringing just as much actual science, and this makes for a very pleasant and informative read.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your metabolic health, as well as get held-by-the-hand through your health-improvement journey by a charming guide, this is very much the book for you!

    Click here to check out the Metabolic Health Roadmap, and start taking steps!

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  • Fruit, Fiber, & Leafy Greens… On A Low-FODMAP Diet!

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    Fiber For FODMAP-Avoiders

    First, let’s quickly cover: what are FODMAPs?

    FODMAPs are fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols.

    In plainer English: they’re carbohydrates that are resistant to digestion.

    This is, for most people most of the time, a good thing, for example:

    When Is A Fiber Not A Fiber? When It’s A Resistant Starch.

    Not for everyone…

    However, if you have inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS), including ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, or similar, then suddenly a lot of common dietary advice gets flipped on its head:

    Dietary Intolerances & More

    While digestion-resistant carbohydrates making it to the end parts of our digestive tract are good for our bacteria there, in the case of people with IBS or similar, it can be a bit too good for our bacteria there.

    Which can mean gas (a natural by-product of bacterial respiration) accumulation, discomfort, water retention (as the pseudo-fiber draws water in and keeps it), and other related symptoms, causing discomfort, and potentially disease such as diarrhea.

    Again: for most people this is not so (usually: quite the opposite; resistant starches improve things down there), but for those for whom it’s a thing, it’s a Big Bad Thing™.

    Hold the veg? Hold your horses.

    A common knee-jerk reaction is “I will avoid fruit and veg, then”.

    Superficially, this can work, as many fruit & veg are high in FODMAPs (as are fermented dairy products, by the way).

    However, a diet free from fruit and veg is not going to be healthy in any sustainable fashion.

    There are, however, options for low-FODMAP fruit & veg, such as:

    Fruits: bananas (if not overripe), kiwi, grapefruit, lemons, limes, melons, oranges, passionfruit, strawberries

    Vegetables: alfalfa, bell peppers, bok choy, carrots, celery, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, kale, lettuce, olives, parsnips, potatoes (and sweet potatoes, yams etc), radishes, spinach, squash, tomatoes*, turnips, zucchini

    *our stance: botanically it’s a fruit, but culinarily it’s a vegetable.

    For more on the science of this, check out:

    Strategies for Producing Low FODMAPs Foodstuffs: Challenges and Perspectives ← table 2 is particularly informative when it comes to the above examples, and table 3 will advise about…

    Bonus

    Grains: oats, quinoa, rice, tapioca

    …and wheat if the conditions in table 3 (linked above) are satisfied

    (worth mentioning since grains also get a bad press when it comes to IBS, but that’s mostly because of wheat)

    See also: Gluten: What’s The Truth?

    Enjoy!

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  • Trout vs Haddock – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing trout to haddock, we picked the trout.

    Why?

    It wasn’t close.

    In terms of macros, trout has more protein and more fat, although the fat is mostly healthy (some saturated though, and trout does have more cholesterol). This category could be a win for either, depending on your priorities. But…

    When it comes to vitamins, trout has a lot more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D, and E, while haddock is not higher in any vitamins.

    In the category of minerals, trout has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc, while haddock has slightly more selenium. Given that a 10oz portion of trout already contains 153% of the RDA of selenium, however, the same size portion of haddock having 173% of the RDA isn’t really a plus for haddock (especially as selenium can cause problems if we get too much). Oh, and haddock is also higher in sodium, but in industrialized countries, most people most of the time need less of that, not more.

    On balance, the overwhelming nutritional density of trout wins the day.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Farmed Fish vs Wild Caught: It Makes Quite A Difference!

    Take care!

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  • What I Wish People Knew About Dementia – by Dr. Wendy Mitchell

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    We hear a lot from doctors who work with dementia patients; sometimes we hear from carers too. In this case, the author spent 20 years working for the NHS, before being diagnosed with young-onset dementia, at the age of 58. Like many health industry workers who got a life-changing diagnosis, she quickly found it wasn’t fun being on the other side of things, and vowed to spend her time researching, and raising awareness about, dementia.

    Many people assume that once a person has dementia, they’re basically “gone before they’re gone”, which can rapidly become a self-fulfilling prophecy as that person finds themself isolated and—though this word isn’t usually used—objectified. Talked over, viewed (and treated) more as a problem than a person. Cared for hopefully, but again, often more as a patient than a person. If doctors struggle to find the time for the human side of things with most patients most of the time, this is only accentuated when someone needs more time and patience than average.

    Instead, Dr. Mitchell—an honorary doctorate, by the way, awarded for her research—writes about what it’s actually like to be a human with dementia. Everything from her senses, how she eats, the experience of eating in care homes, the process of boiling an egg… To relationships, how care changes them, to the challenges of living alone. And communication, confusion, criticism, the language used by professionals, or how things are misrepresented in popular media. She also talks about the shifting sense of self, and brings it all together with gritty optimism.

    The style is deeply personal, yet lucid and clear. While dementia is most strongly associated with memory loss and communication problems, this hasn’t affected her ability to write well (7 years into her diagnosis, in case you were wondering).

    Bottom line: if you’d like to read a first-person view of dementia, then this is an excellent opportunity to understand it from the view of, as the subtitle goes, someone who knows.

    Click here to check out What I Wish People Knew About Dementia, and then know those things!

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  • The Well Plated Cookbook – by Erin Clarke

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    Clarke’s focus here is on what she calls “stealthy healthy”, with the idea of dishes that feel indulgent while being great for the health.

    The recipes, of which there are well over 100, are indeed delicious and easy to make without being oversimplified, and since she encourages the use of in-season ingredients, many recipes come with a “market swaps” substitution guide, to make each recipe seasonal.

    The book is largely not vegetarian, let alone vegan, but the required substitutions will be second-nature to any seasoned vegetarian or vegan. Indeed, “skip the meat sometimes” is one of the advices she offers near the beginning of the book, in the category of tips to make things even healthier.

    Bottom line: if you want to add dishes to your repertoire that are great for entertaining and still super-healthy, this book will be a fine addition to your collection.

    Click here to check out The Well Plated Cookbook, and get cooking!

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