Does your bologna taste funny?
posted in Frankenfoods, General, Humor, The Bad Stuff |Just sneeze on it. That oughta do the trick. At least according to the FDA, which has approved spraying lunch meat with viruses to kill bacteria:
Even for snoopy journalists, there is such a thing as learning more than you want to know. We’ve just had one of those unwanted learning experiences; perhaps you did too. It came over the weekend in a news story reporting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved using viruses as food additives.
Specifically, the FDA approved a mixture of six viruses that food companies can spray on lunchmeat, hot dogs and sausages before packaging them.
The viruses are supposed to kill any Listeria monocytogenes bacteria that try to multiply on lunchmeats. Listeria causes an infection that seriously sickens 2,500 Americans annually, causing 500 deaths.
The spray-on viruses are called bacteriophages (Greek for ”bacteria-eater”). They don’t hurt humans or plants, and they normally live in our digestive tracts, the experts say. FDA approval also is to be sought for another kind of virus that would be used to keep E. coli bacteria from sickening people who eat ground beef.
It’s great to know that the spray-on viruses will save hundreds of lives and prevent untold suffering. We keep telling ourselves that this is a good thing.
But the mental picture of viruses chewing on bacteria that are growing on the lunchmeat we are chewing on is unappetizing, to tell the truth.
