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Health News
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Why eating fermented sausage often results in sickness
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Posted online: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 3:15:50 PM
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Washington, August 29 : Antibiotics used as growth promoters or to treat disease in livestock can eventually end up in meat.
Now, a study has revealed that antibiotic residues in uncured pepperoni or salami meat are potent enough to weaken helpful bacteria that processors add to acidify the sausage to make it safe for consumption.
Sausage manufacturers commonly inoculate sausage meat with lactic-acid-producing bacteria in an effort to control the fermentation process so that the final product is acidic enough to kill pathogens that might have existed in the raw meat.
By killing the bacteria that produce lactic acid, antibiotic residues can allow pathogenic bacteria to proliferate.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and University College Cork, Ireland, found that antibiotic concentrations within limits set by US and European Union (EU) regulators are high enough to slow fermentation, the process that acidifies the sausages and helps destroy foodborne pathogens like Salmonella or E. coli.
"At low concentrations and at regulatory levels set by authorities, we could see that the lactic acid bacteria are more susceptible to the antibiotics than the pathogens are," said Hanne Ingmer, of the University of Copenhagen, a researcher on the study.
"So basically, we can have a situation where residual antibiotics in the meat can prevent or reduce fermentation by the lactic acid bacteria, but these concentrations do not effect survival or even multiplication of pathogens," Hanne Ingmer explained.
Ingmer and her colleagues set out to determine whether antibiotics falling within statutory limits might interfere with the process of fermentation in products like pepperoni, salami, or chorizo - sausages that are fermented using lactic- acid-producing bacteria in a curing process many cultures have employed for hundreds of years.
She says fermented sausages occasionally cause serious bacterial infections, but it's never been understood why that might be.
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