Day 106 - 23 Mar 95 - Page 11
1 Obviously -- if you take from the standpoint of a live
2 animal, it is generally recognised that the loading is
3 relatively low, i.e. individual animals may be infected,
4 but they form a small proportion of the whole. What the
5 proportion is, of course, we are not entirely sure always.
6
7 Q. What are we talking about specifically now?
8 A. Well, you go right across the range of species. It
9 will vary. As we have indicated, the loading in cattle,
10 the individual infection rate in cattle, is probably very
11 low. Broiler birds, i.e. meat birds, may be very much
12 higher.
13
14 Whatever it is, the general rule of thumb is that you want
15 to keep it down as low as possible. The way it will
16 increase through the chain, through the food chain, the
17 processing chain, is by contact either between the
18 individual items which the animals turned into meat, into
19 carcasses, is to keep contact away, to avoid contact, and
20 also to avoid contact with surfaces of a variety of
21 descriptions.
22
23 Q. During the process?
24 A. During the processing. The whole mechanism is known
25 generically as cross-contamination. So, taking it from the
26 end point, obviously, the lower the contamination of burden
27 in the finished raw food, the lower the propensity towards
28 transferring contamination to cooked food, and the better
29 chance you have of killing it through the cooking process.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So that is what you would add to what I have
32 said about temperature control, either keeping it down
33 before cooking ---
34 A. Yes.
35
36 Q. -- or keeping it up at cooking?
37 A. Yes. Although, my Lord, there is a fascinating
38 variation, is that under certain circumstances, and
39 especially meat technology, you can actually use bacteria
40 to kill bacteria.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Bennett touched on that.
43 A. Yes. There are two actually quite violently opposed
44 schools of thought in meat technology. There is the
45 traditional school and there is the modern school. The
46 modern school says: "Keep it refrigerated to keep the
47 burden down". The traditional school with hundreds of
48 years of experience says: "Keep it at room temperature and
49 let the" -----
50
51 Q. The spoilage bacteria?
52 A. Yes, "take over and inhibit".
53
54 Q. Take care of the pathogenic ones?
55 A. Yes, quite so.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Morris, you went on to
58 cross-contamination, and I did not want to interrupt you
59 then, but I would like to know at some stage, Mr. North
60 said, after I put my propositions to him: "Temperature is
