Bugs in Food!

Good evening, everybody. We are here, uh, I am here with Dr. Brendan Clarke and Dr. Conor Brady, unfortunately. But, but there you go, we all have our crosses to bear, my friends. If you're on a dog walk, then greetings, and I hope the rain, the, the rain is keeping off and the sun is shining, and you're listening to us on our podcast where you can get us, uh, on any podcast you care to mention because Pete is Amazing. And I haven't put my doodads on.

Doodah, doodah.

Hold.

Start point.

Okay. Yeah. Listen, you guys go while I put my doodads on because this is going to fail rapidly.

Do you know Rupert Sheldrake? Have you heard of Rupert Sheldrake? He wrote the book Dogs Might Know When You're Coming Home or whatever. He's come out with a new study a few days ago and he's published an interesting thing. And I have to say, hit home. If anybody's listening, you go to YouTube, End of Life Experiences in Animals. And yeah, and he's collected hundreds and hundreds of testimonials from people and he's categorized them into like, what does your pet do in those few days beforehand? And everybody would nod their head at the top 6 categories they came with. And, you know, it's interesting. Check it out. Have a listen to him. He's got some other little papers that he brings out. He's an interesting guy to listen to. But I have to say, I was just watching it before we came on here and I thought, that reminds me exactly of my first dog. That's exactly what he did. I opened a talk with it a while ago where this dog, the night before he died, he came into the room, which he's never allowed down that end of the house. This was like in the 1980s. These dogs, you know, he kind of lived in the kitchen and the living area and that was it. He wasn't down into the rooms. And he came in, he walked all the way down to my room and just sat there looking at me. It's like, all right, pretty, what are you doing in here? And he was just sitting there staring at me. And then the next day he was gone, but he was never in my room before. And it was like, I just knew that he had done something like that. And the very first words out of Sheldrake's mouth was, that's the most common thing for dogs to do in the few days before they go. They do last goodbyes is what he calls them or last visits. So he goes to see somebody he hasn't seen in a while and then last rallies. So my question is, of those top 3 categories of what dogs do before they die, the last rally. Is that something you've seen in practice where in the few days beforehand, the 2 or 3 days beforehand, the dog makes a bit of a rally and he's like— I just heard that very recently from a person whose dog sadly passed away and the dog was in fine fettle. She was a very sick dog and then suddenly she was like, oh my God, I think the dog's made a recovery. She's in great form. And then like a day later, that was the end. Have you heard about that in dogs where they make a last rally?

Yeah, look, so many stories about the last rally, you know, and it's great that they get a last great weekend with— yeah, and, you know, and then they're sort of like, yeah, then they sort of like take that dive. I've also seen, um, you know, those that have a great partnership with another dog, so they've, you know, literally maybe grown up with them, they've got their own issues, but they seem to be just keeping that disease at bay whilst the other dog is, you know, getting older and it's still their companion and everything else. And then with the loss of the older dog that's, you know, in that decline, all of a sudden their disease just takes— you know, it's almost like they just go into grief and that is just too much for them to cope with. So that's interesting. Yeah, it's so sad to see that, but we do see it. And, um, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, you can always pick out those those individual stories, as you say. I think that's— nature can be so cruel. That's the other thing. People say, I want to just let them go naturally, but it can be so cruel.

Yeah, yeah. I like the last rally bit. I like that because it's kind of like, hey, I'm having a good time. Yeah, sure, I'll have a steak. And then it's like, yeah, but I just thought that was nice. But the fact he just came out, I was just watching it before I turned on here to you guys. But Listen, we are Raw Pet Medics. You'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics and anywhere you get your podcast and anywhere you hear us, guys, if you like what you're listening to, please do give us a vote. It really helps with the algorithms and that boosts us up a little bit and we do appreciate that. And so also everybody on Patreon, thanks very much. We appreciate that too. And so we see you and we appreciate if you can go in there and give us a price of a cup of tea, great. Deeply appreciated. If you can't, not to worry. Facebook has removed our videos on Facebook, and it's not just picking on us, it's picking on everyone. You can imagine how big the data was for Facebook to store everyone's videos for years and years and years. So they've dumped anything older than whatever, 30 days or 3 months. So we've tons and tons of videos that we still have on file. So don't worry, we'll think about a way of bringing them to you. Maybe on Patreon. Yeah, maybe on Patreon. That's a good idea. That's a good place to do it. They don't actually have any data on it. And so, yes, but so don't worry if you're looking for old videos because people do. The usage of our videos increases over the week. So, you know, we got whatever amount of a few hundred people watching, but then you get the thousands during the week as they accumulate. So if anyone's looking at the old videos, sorry about that, but we will think of something over the coming weeks and possibly months.

In Conor's case, years.

Oh, you're going to go on. On about that account again. That was an expensive one.

I went well.

Anything to talk about, guys?

Greetings to Tracker, who is following us on YouTube, and Tracker looks like they are in Canada. So greetings to all, everybody following in Canada. I know we have one or two YouTubers.

If you want to shout out where you are, there's a few of you following at the moment on there. —just say hi.

Yeah, most of our comments come into Facebook there, actually. Yeah. So this is always a hot topic, this microbiology bit, the bugs in food kind of thing. And had a couple of little questions about it recently. You always get a few now and again looking for clarification, would be what they're looking for. They were speaking to a vet, they were feeding fresh food and they want reassurances and that kind of stuff. And it's always hard to commit that thing to writing because you can't just guarantee somebody this, you know, are you sure eating raw bones is safe? You know, that they're always kind of questions. You say, well, look, here's the data, but It's a big long conversation as opposed to saying, yes, it's fine. You know, eating pasta is fine. But, you know, it's hard to do the bugs conversation in a very short little email and do it justice, you know, because it's easily undone. Here's a study showing some noxious raw dog food company in Portugal and you're like, yeah, don't feed that stuff. Or I can do the same, some terrible dry food. So who wants to start us off on the bugs conversation, guys?

I'm going to start the conversation because you say it's difficult to say, yes, it's fine. However, if you go to your butcher, they will give you, you know, prepared meats, hams and pork pies and goodness knows what. And there will not be a safe safety warning. And yet that's the greatest source of E. coli and salmonella, things like that. You go to your supermarket, they will give you lettuce, and that is a massive source of Enterobacter salmonellosis and what have you. You'll go to the cheese section where you can get Listeria. It's really interesting because when Ellie was pregnant with the two children, everybody said, oh my God, don't touch soft cheese because of listeria. And if you look at the stats, there hasn't been an incidence of listeriosis in a woman in absolutely years. And when you look, in fact, you're more likely to get listeria from a salad than from soft cheeses. And yet there's no warning for listeriosis from, you know, when was the last time you saw a health warning on a cucumber?

Oh, sorry, I shouldn't say something like that.

Easy. Yeah, that's interesting because Elaine's pregnant at the moment, you know, and the soft cheese thing comes up now. I'm probably a bit more blasé and I'm just like, it'll be fine. And the thing about listeria is listeria is a clever little beastie. First of all, it's a nasty one. Listeria has a higher fatality rate than E. coli, Salmonella. You would rather have E. coli, Salmonella than Listeria. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's far more likely to lay you out, particularly older people, immunocompromised. But the thing about Listeria is you have food in your fridge below 4 degrees. So most people have their fridge at 3, maybe 4 degrees. Very few get down to 2 because your stuff starts to crystallize over. But Listeria is happy enough at that temperature. And so that's a problem with Listeria. So while you keep Salmonella, E. coli in their frozen state, sort of, although they do get there if you leave meat long enough in the fridge and you take it out and that pong. But Listeria is just— he's not encumbered by a 4°C fridge. And that's the thing about soft cheese. So they say so it keeps harboring the body. And but that's very interesting because all the stats on this is actually coming from salad.

Nobody's warning us about that. Totally. And the way they prepare salad is they'll wash it. You know, nowadays for exorbitant amounts of money you can buy prepared salad that is all washed in the same bath. Yeah. So it's— so you only need 1 in 1,000, say, that has a little bit of Listeria, and then it's going to spread to the whole, the whole batch. Yeah. Oh, do you know what?

I'd still be worried more about, um, you look at some of the bacterial counts that come off carrots coming out the ground. Carrying bacteria.

Farmers pooing in these fields, indeed.

Actually, you'll find it's that in many countries, your human sewage companies will sell the solids to farmers. But actually, they used to sell it, but with the price, even with the price of fertiliser going through the roof, artificial fertiliser, Farmers are now reaching out and actually water companies are not only giving them, but sometimes paying them to take the solids and spray them onto their fields. And they think of this as, well, you're just adding organic material. Is this the UK? Yep, this is the UK. So this is where you've got to be really careful about what's coming in through. That's where there's forever chemicals in that. There's all sorts of bugs left that they would say, well, these are natural bugs. They're going to be found in the earth. So what's the problem?

Like pregnancy or the pill and that kind of stuff.

All that sort of hormones. All of that just gets sprayed onto fields.

I'm hoping that's just a British thing. It's not over here.

I'm going to check. I think it'll be worldwide, mate. Oh my God. What do you think they do with the solids out the sewage farm?

Yes, Irish farms do use treated human waste to bio-solids on agricultural land. What? Gross. Although it's not as widespread as pig slurry or chemical fertilizer. Bloody hell. We are the only species of animal that poison our foods to keep everybody from eating it and then eat the food after it. You know? Oh my God.

I can't believe that.

That is gross. I wonder how much of our sewage is used to grow our vegetables that people poorly wash. What about organic farms? Are they, are they sewage-free and just use manure?

Well, what do you think? Manure, I mean, manure, it depends where the manure is coming from. They've got to obviously try and make sure it's not going to have certain drugs and things like that in it, but they do what they can. But generally it works its way through. There are some little tweaks, aren't they, within the organics. Some people have fallen out with organics because they don't feel that they truly fit the mold that they want. And there's not always regen within that. And there's, you know, how long do you need to be organic before it truly is organic? You know, they'll say 3 years, but should it be longer? You know, what are you using in those fertilizers?

Yeah, but the thing is, if you're spreading human waste on that, how many of us are truly organic? I.e., none. No human beings are really truly organic. Well, very few are truly organic. And therefore, if these people are using, you know, an organic farm with the best intention in the world is using humanure or, you know, human solid waste, whatever you want to call it. I think humanure is quite good. Humanure, that's great, I love that.

If you're using that, then you're having all over again.

Yeah, it is not organic soil, is it? You know, there's going to be—

listen to this. Ireland produces around 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of treated sludge annually. That actually doesn't sound like a lot considering there's 5 or 6 million of us. 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of treated sludge annually. And of that, 80% to 90% is recycled to farmland. What?

So there were big protests in Devon because they discovered that the water companies were paying farmers to spread this on, and they did a Forever Chemical check on the wash-off from this land. So not even just the land that takes those solids, but actually the contamination on neighboring farms was huge. And that's then all of the chemicals, the hormones, the forever chemicals that you'll hear of in the Forever Dog Life books and things like that that you think you're diligently avoiding and they're literally being washed over your fruit and veg from the neighboring fields.

Can you imagine? This is a shocking start. Bloody hell. Sorry. Yeah.

There's the bug in this program.

Yeah, lots of bugs. And so like, it's incredible to think that like if you were to ask, ChatGPT, and I did, what is the top cause of foodborne disease in the US? You won't be surprised to hear that it's agricultural food. It's crops and leafy greens and tomatoes and carrots. They take up about 46% of foodborne illnesses in the US, and they have quite a lot of foodborne. 1 in 6 Americans get food poisoning each year compared to how many in the UK? How many people do you think? Give me a ratio. Give me a number. 1 in what? How many UK folk come down with food poisoning each year?

I don't know ratio, but I would say it's— well, in the States, I've got some stats here. Uh, uh, so we have got, while raw dog food possesses targeted zoonotic risks, it pales against the endemic burden of human foods. 48 million illnesses per year. 48 million illnesses per year, and there's only 360 million in the, in the US. Holy shit.

Yeah, that's a lot. I'll give you the figure for the UK because I looked at the UK one, 2.4 million foodborne cases per year in the UK. That works out being around 1 in 30. So the figures are slightly better in the UK.

Is that why they chlorinate their chickens in America? Yeah.

Well, the key difference, which most people will know, we're going out on Judy Morgan's page as well. So the difference between like the US and the UK, Ireland, is that there is an allowance for salmonella in the US. And don't quote me on these exact figures, but off the shelf, off the shelf at the supermarket, I think it's 16%. So you can fail 16 out of 100 tests for salmonella. So there is a permit of salmonella in the chicken chain in the US, whereas over in the UK and Ireland and probably the EU, there is at least a pretense that it's supposed to be zero, zero tolerance of salmonella. What is the tolerance of bugs in meat and whatnot, Ben?

So for the ABPs, so animal byproducts that are— that really are raw foods are made for, for our pets, there is a zero tolerance for salmonella. So if they get a positive test, that's a fail. So even if it's 1 CFU, colony forming unit, 1 gram, okay, then they will fail that whole batch. Yeah, that is the batch failure, supposedly. Obviously there is then the Enterobacteriaceae, which are, you know, the ones normally found in gut. So there's a risk that when you effectively gut an animal, that if there's any spillage at all, any punctures, etc., then there is a risk to contamination within that.

You can't avoid that sort of contamination, especially if you're mechanically eviscerating and sticking a vacuum up a bird's butt so it snaps at the throat and at the anus. And so you cannot help but get a tiny bit of splashback. So with the Enterobacteriaceae, that's not a zero reading though, is it?

No, no. So that's 1 in 10,000 is, sorry, 10,000 colony forming units per gram are allowed. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? They would say if that's E. coli beyond the sort of 100 per gram, they start to get a little bit itchy about that. But if it's just Enterobacteriaceae, they will generally allow that. Generally, they don't accept that as clean. They would prefer you down below 1,000 colony-forming units within a sample. And if that's repeat, so if you've got a number of samples, so if that's a one-off, they're not too worried. If that's repeated and you've got repeats of 500s on several samples of that batch, they will say no, that's a fail.

And then what happens? What happens to the company? So when I assume that the companies are internally testing this. I mean, when I was making pet food, nobody was testing my products.

So there's some interesting changes, and this is where it's really important that the APHA inspectors are consistent across all of the sites that they are inspecting. And there's some of the stuff that we do with RawSafe, which is sponsoring tonight, basically.

Well, just like that. Check it out, guys.

Check out growsafe.com, they're doing some good work.

Yeah, so there's lots of information on there, but they— so the independents that go in and check them more frequently than APHA and are, you know, basically doing surprise visits. So there's none of this clean up the factory before you're going. They've got to keep it clean, full stop. But there's some changes that have been made. It used to be a bit of confusion that they would test ingredients coming in and be able to then quarantine those. And if there was a contaminated thing coming in, they would basically say, right, that's it. But they'd only have to test the meat. Now there is a much more prevalence on testing the output, and it should be the output. If you look at the legislation, it's the output that should be tested. The downside is that we are seeing a number of companies that pick and choose, and there is a little bit of gray area in that after they've done some initial testing, they can then go to effectively self-regulation of how frequently they will test. So some of the companies out there will push that out to, well, I think we're quite safe, so I'm going to do it every 3 to 4 months. And others are far more vigilant on every batch gets tested before it goes out. Yeah, it will be, and it's a cost, so therefore there's that balance, isn't there? Yeah, so the test and release generally are the companies that are going into— it's a requirement of some of the larger supermarkets and larger organizations that are asking for that. But some of the others that are selling direct or selling on, you know, into smaller stores where that's not required, or they they're not asking for RawSafe marks or anything like that, generally they will push it out. And I have seen some sort of very concerning sort of statements coming out from some companies that would suggest that they are struggling because otherwise they wouldn't get a weekly visit from Trading Standards and APHA. You know, you don't need that weekly visit if you're performing well on your bacterial counts.

That's interesting what you said that. So supermarkets, yeah, that makes sense that Sainsbury's and Tesco's would have a policy where, listen, we'll buy 20 tons of this off you every week, but you need to prove to us that it's zero Salmonella, E. coli. So it will be in that larger raw dog food company's interest to be testing that product before they send it out and sending some reputable results. I mean, listen, I think people need to understand that that shit happens. Pay and you're dealing with meat and it's not a clean industry. It's a difficult industry, particularly when we are moving to intensively rearing animals. And the UK has 1,000 mega farms as of about 5 years ago. So God knows how many they have now. And Ireland too. We're all at it. And as you intensively rear these animals and you feed them grain, which totally changes the acidity of their guts, which begs more E. coli and all that kind of stuff. And then they mass slaughter them and they slaughter them quickly. The quicker you can put the birds through so that they're using the same baths and mechanically eviscerating quick, quick, quick. So accidents are going to happen. The point is, the public is very unforgiving of recalls. And they see recalls as, oh, you know, that was just what a manky company to do that. But you have to understand that if the public reacts like that to recalls, what's going to happen is, particularly with the smaller businesses, is that they're not going to do them because they're going to be extremely detrimental for your bottom line. Like, for a small company to recall 2 or 3 tons of food, it's not just the cost of the food, which costs them, you know, 10 grand, 15 grand. They've got to pull it back. They have to incinerate it, apparently. And, you know, there's not just that cost, but there's the damage that's done to your reputation because the public think that you're— so there has to be an allowance for recalls, particularly if you're dealing with fresh meat and then particularly if you're over in the US because they are permitting some of these microbes in the food chain. And these guys are trying to put out zero salmonella, E. coli. They are going through some awful processes to find the cleanest production meat and to give it to you at a price that you want to pay. So I always make that point as an ex-manufacturer. Recalls were always terrifying. I mean, to have to do a recall was just like, oh, shit. And so, excuse me. So hopefully you would catch these things before they go out and it's in your freezer, and then you just look at it in your freezer and you weep. Far more complicated for people when they're putting out far more stuff. That this stuff hits the shelves and then you have to recall that. Like, that is hard and unforgiving from the public. So it's a tricky little balance. I mean, you don't want to see a company recalling every week, you know, obviously, but one now and again kind of tells me that they've got the guts to do it and they weren't told to do it. They weren't dragged through the courts, but there wasn't some sort of FDA policy. We went after them 3 times before they recalled. It's like, hands up, guys, there's an issue with the duck.

And, you know, but there are the flip side is, you know, people testing. So some companies are testing ingredients in and product out. And actually, you know, some of the interesting counts that we get, you know, I get to look at— I'm a nosy devil. Yeah. For looking at some of these is actually seeing, you know, people that are using some of the fruits that they're adding or some of the veg that, as Nick was saying, you know, the carrot, the you know, pumpkin, the sweet potato, the, you know, whatever they're choosing to stick in and seeing the contamination that's in those. And, you know, it's a discussion that we have because many of the manufacturers are just concentrating on the meat.

Yeah, you would.

And then just thinking, this is great, you know, fresh stuff coming in on the veg and fruit and things like that. And that's that. It's only a small amount added. Yeah. Oh my God, some of the counts you get off some of those. So yeah, there's lots of work being done behind the scenes. I mean, Answers came up with a solution. Now we've got Billy, who's now working with Green Juju, and they've, you know, they came up with a solution to that, which was, well, ferment the veg. It will kill off the bugs that you don't want. Obviously, some companies, some government agencies, some states don't like the number of bacteria that are in those ferments unless they're specifically legislated for that. They're allowed. But, you know, would they be looking for those, Brad?

They're looking for Salmonella coli and Enterobacter. But if this is a fermented product, they're not the three that you're worried about.

Well, that's— it depends what they're going to log into. You know, some of those ferments, I think as long as you've got to have them sort of isolated as are they in the safe group or not. What's a pathogen, as you love to say? Okay, you know, a pathogen's really just a bug in the wrong place. And so, you know, who knows? It's really hard to tell. But you're right, at the moment, what's on the legislative, it's E. coli, Salmonella, enterobacteriaceae. There is discussion about Listeria. There is discussion about some of the other bugs. Certainly Clostridium is the other one that is on the legislature. So if you're having problems, they will ask you to start double checking. So if you go through an HPP or you go through another innovative process to reduce bacterial numbers, they will ask you to test for Clostridium perfringens.

Where's that coming from?

Well, the thing about Clostridium is it loves to sporulate, so it is particularly resistant to certain types of sterilization. It is. So they love you to test for that because if it's still there, then there's a risk of sporulating bacteria getting through. That's okay. And the downside to Listeria, sorry, to Clostridia is it's related to things like botulism, tetanus, those sort of things. So that's why they want to test, you know, are you going to find those sort of toxins left over in the food after you've killed bugs?

Yeah, it's interesting. I was looking at something here, the UK, another UK data point. How many— I'm just going to tell you, 44% of UK food poisoning—

You're a great quiz master.

44% of UK food poisoning outbreaks originate from food prepared outside the home. Home. So nearly 1 in 2 are coming from food outside the home. And a big one from that is rice from takeaways. And people forget that this Bacillus cereus— I can't remember the second one, I can't find it— right, yeah, Bacillus cereus. Yeah, that guy is— he, he is hard to kill. And it's not so much the bacteria, because most bacteria will die above 75 degrees, and most of them are killed by that. It's the spores of this bacteria. So you harvest the grain, particularly rice. They love that. And the spores get on the rice. And even if you cook and boil the rice, the spores don't die. And then the rice cools. And when the rice cools, the spores hatch and then the bacteria gets to breeding. Okay, so now you've got your, you've got your rice on the counter, worst option, or in the fridge, which doesn't slow it down as much as you'd hope. And it starts to produce toxins. So it's really, really common. It's in most of our rice that we take out of the fridge. And you look at after 4 days going, can I eat that rice? I mean, about When did we get that? So, but the rice, here's the thing then. And then people go, well, I'm just going to boil the rice again or cook it in the microwave or whatever, and that'll kill the bacteria. But the problem is it has already pooed out all its horrible toxins into the rice and they are heat resistant. And so vomiting is a top killer from this bacillus, whatever the second word is. Serious. And it's about 7% of food poisoning incidents in the UK just from rice from the takeaway that you would think would just be the most benign food source, but it's very, very resistant. And it's, yeah, it's interesting.

The thing is, is it the rice from the takeaway when it's fresh? It's probably because it's been left out overnight because you've had a big night and then you try your rice again the next day. Hangover cure. Which is— Cold curry and rice. Yeah. So therefore, is it from the takeaway who had good intention and delivered you you know, rice that was edible. It's your foolish behaviour, leaving it out on the side overnight. Yeah. Has that done it? Because in Indonesia, they will cook up rice and they will keep it for days. And so what I was just going to look at, so what they do though is they steam it, they don't boil it. So with steam, you get to what? What temperature will you get to steam at? 105? No, but steam has a latent heat of vaporization, and so it has a greater— if you do it under pressure, it'll go higher, and then it'll go to 120 or so. Yeah, it would under pressure, but they don't do that there. So I wonder whether that is just a foolish, uh, storage effect, and that the takeaways— just going back to our previous, um, Conor, you were saying that, uh, in the USA, that certain amount of salmonella is allowed, and you were shocked at saying 16% of birds are salmonella positive in the, in the supermarket. 16% of products in the supermarket. Okay, so in this country, we are absolutely shit-hot on salmonella ever since Edwina Currie, God bless her. Um, do you know what the same figure is in the UK, where we are very, very, very uptight about salmonella? I'm going to caveat this answer.

You're going to tell me, but I'm going to say whatever the figure I hear, I bet you it's higher. I don't trust— oh, good.

Okay, so in USA, it's— you're allowed a certain amount of salmonella, and it's 4 to 5% of UK chicken. It is exactly 4% from the latest, from the latest figures that I've just seen. Yeah, so it's— so we don't allow it And we're only a quarter of the US who does allow it. Yeah, yeah.

And the figures vary. It depends on how many chickens you slaughter have it and then how many chickens when you move it in storage. And they have all these figures. I'm probably confusing them a bit, but the figure 16 sticks in my head.

So I would ask everybody watching, has anybody had an incidence of a dog getting infected from, as a direct result of the raw food that they have fed? Of course. In their knowledge. Yeah, and they can make it anonymous or they can say, oh, a friend of mine, if you don't want to admit. Yourself. Okay, so I'm just, I'm just looking. Don't mention the brands there, lads.

Do us a favor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, I'm just trying to see how I can keep up with the—

they'll come in, give them a second. Yeah, give them a second. I'll give you another couple little stats. They're late. Over, over 80% of US E. coli 0157 cases, 80% of them are due to leafy greens and vegetable crops. Yeah. It results in 63,000 cases of food poisoning a year, 2,100 hospitalizations, and 20 deaths.

And they're not, they're not trying to ban salads anytime soon, or veggies anytime soon. And yet they are having a go at raw food. And this is my big bugbear. Yeah. The incidence of, of, of, of, of humans or dogs getting, uh, uh, significant or any infection whatsoever that is known to be from the food is vanishingly small. And yet you've got 45 million people in the USA getting problems from prepared food. 2 to 5% of US E.

coli cases— you have 2 to 5% of US salmonella cases are from grains and other produce. Grains. Imagine all that dry food. I thought it was so safe. Grains aren't making you sick. Yeah, this just gets better and better. Campylobacter, there's another one that you don't really talk about a whole lot.

Campylobacter. Yeah. So that's another one that they're proposing might come into the legislation, but they're not currently testing.

It's increasing rapidly in the UK. Recently, the UK has reported a decade high in Campylobacter cases rising from 60,055 in '23 to 70,324, an increase of 17% per year. Your salmonella cases, similar increases. Why? Also showing increases in 2024. There was 10,300 cases up from 8,800 the year before.

Why is that? Why is that? Is that change in agricultural practice, change in food standards? I wonder.

Anybody? Maybe I should just finish reading the article and not just take the headline. I'll have a look.

Oh, what have you been doing? Well, whilst you're doing that, should we show this one? I mean, you love this one, don't you? This is your favorite. Oh yeah, cool.

I have something ready for that actually. Wait till you hear this. So this paper, this paper is always trotted out as this is evidence that raw dog food is making people sick. For those listening on podcast, it's called A Cluster of Shiga Toxin Producing E. coli O157, which is the one that has a lot of hits, highlights that raw pet food as an emerging Potential source of infection in humans. So potential source. And they go through 4 cases of humans that got salmonella from raw dog food. And the word is, the words are that explicit. They really did point the finger at raw dog food. And this study is held now 4 years old and it is trotted out by the highest in the RCVS, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Mike Davies loves to bring the study out no matter how many times it's pointed out. That there is major, major issues with this study. And I just want to read you just a few paragraphs that I wrote about a while ago. And it turns out all 4 infected people had contact with dogs, sarcasm inverted commas coming there with my fingers, although one case was ruled out as having nothing to do with raw dog food. I mean, that was at the start of the study. Of the 4, one had nothing to do with raw dog food, and yet it explicitly says there was 4 cases from the raw dog food. Still, the article states "It could also have come from an animal fed a raw meat-based diet without the case being aware of or being able to recall it." So raw-fed dogs can and always will be blamed. You know what I mean? It's like, well, they still could have bumped into a dog that was raw-fed. I mean, for a study to write that in, it's just unbelievable. So 3 cases had contact with dogs fed raw dog food. 2 got tripe from the same supplier. It must be the tripe. So they tested the raw tripe in the fridge of these infected people. And while they found a couple of baddies here and there, they didn't find the strain that was causing the illness in humans. So they actually ruled out the raw dog food by testing it. It wasn't the raw dog food in the fridge. So, so far of the 4 cases, 3 are definitely not raw dog food related. So 0 so far coming from raw dog food. And this study was published, by the way, it's still up there. And you'd think that would be enough to rule it out, to rule out the pet food, but they conclude regardless while the outbreak strain was not recovered from Troibes. It could be because the samples tested were not necessarily the batches that caused the issue. It's still a plausible route. So they're hanging in there. And of the last 4 cases, the owner had a contact with a kibble-fed dog. Did they test the kibble? Absolutely not. But clearly kibble is now a potential source. And the last thing they had, all 4 people that got sick had in common, because it certainly wasn't raw dog food, they were eating, they were all eating raw carrots. And so like, we know raw carrots is a top cause of this type of E. coli. We absolutely know that is what— I mean, you're spraying raw sewage on carrots in the UK and they all have this in common that wasn't mentioned in the abstract is that raw dog food is a potential source, but they ruled it out themselves. And yet this study is held up saying 4 people were poisoned, one of them hospitalized or whatever the figures were like. It's just absolute nonsense when the figures don't bode well for dry food. Dozens and dozens of toddlers over the last 2 decades laid out with dry dog food, zero from raw dog dog food. Let's not be complacent about the stuff in our fridge. This might be a source of contamination, so be careful. Keep it on the lowest shelf of your fridge, raw dog food. The move to compostable boxes is a bit of an issue because compostable boxes, they're PLA or CLA lined. It's potato starch or cornstarch. It does not hold the moisture as well as you had hoped. We all want to save the environment and go compostable, but the fact remains nobody wants blood leaking around their fridge either. So I often find the compostable boxes a bit lacking myself. And you would hope that they would hold the material in, but it might take them 2, 2 and a half days to go through a kilo, you know. So it's a bit of a problem. And so I do like an old lunchbox. And if you are using some of the paper or cardboard compostable source people, get a lunchbox on the go. It's great. You can throw all your table scraps into it, and it's lovely. It keeps the lid on, particularly if there's tripe in it, and it stops that stuff leaking around your fridge, which is where any potential contamination is going to come from that leakage because everyone's safe with how they feed raw. They're not just going to use the same spoon and wipe it on their jumper and then start feeding the kids. You know, it's just that stuff just doesn't happen that often. I'm sure it's going to happen with some.

But you say that, Conor, but within that, within that study you've just quoted, one of the people who was— who's unfortunately— I can't remember if they were hospitalized or that they had been killed. By the Shiga toxin E. coli, but he was sharing his toothbrush with his dog.

That's right, sharing his toothbrush. Like, I mean, it's just Darwinian. It's just funny. Like, you know, do not drink the bleach written on the front of the bottle. You know, it's just— wow. Okay, so to go from the—

so earlier I said, please can you say— and I cannot for the life of me see all the comments here. If somebody can tell me how to do that, I'd be really grateful because I've been looking. Apologies for looking away. But Patricia Laura, I've been feeding raw dog food for approximately 30 years and never had an issue. And KK rightly says meat is so unforgiving, it's hard not to notice it's bad.

Yeah, that's a good point.

If you take meat out of the fridge and it smells terrible, don't give it to the dog, you know. Yeah, it really is as simple as that. And don't leave it in for more than 3 days, you know. Just, I don't know, put a sticky note on it for when it went in. Went in on a Monday, got to be done by Thursday night. Especially if you've got, you know, a kilo of meat and you've got a small dog, you know. Partially unfreeze it, chop it in half, put half in freezer back again. All right. Something like that in a safe manner.

If you thaw the meat, if you thaw the meat in the fridge, you can do that. So what the problem people do is, oh, I didn't take any food out. And so you leave it on the counter when you go to bed. I mean, you really shouldn't, but lots of people do. But so you put the stuff in the sink and you leave it there. And the problem is your room is whatever, 15, 18, coming up to 20 degrees. In the morning maybe, and that the outside of the meat then heats up. So when you leave it outside at room temperature, you are heating the outside of the block up beyond past 6 degrees. It's warmer than that. And so bacteria can breed. And so you're creating in 4 hours, it can multiply, it's 1,000-fold the bacteria. So you can have a serious bacterial issue on the outside of that meat. And it's a minced product. So any issue is already minced through the product. So if you thaw the stuff in your fridge, this is, the Food Safety Authority can't tell you this, But if you thaw meat in your fridge and your fridge is set at 2 degrees, you're not going to have a mega bacterial issue in that. So yes, you can half thaw in your fridge, you can chop it up, whack it with a big knife and throw it back in the freezer. RPM tells you to do that, but the FSA, Food Safety Authority, don't tell you to do that because people inevitably go, oh, I can just half thaw it on the counter and do it. That's not what you do because then you freeze it and when they reanimate, there's lots more of them to get going. So that's why you can't kind your melted ice cream and that kind of stuff, you're asking for it when you refreeze it, you know, just eat it all like everybody else does, you know what I mean? Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, this is something you can find if you want to share it with people who are new to raw and you think that you need to give it a go, you can do this. Let me just go on to the site. So this is the Raw Safe site. You'll find that literally you've got a whole flyer that you can print out for your neighbor that's doing it. It's got everything on just how to keep things clean, where to store it. This is not a salad drawer at the bottom. You know, it should be for your meat, as Conor was saying, just in case it leaks.

That's not a salad drawer.

No, why? Why would it be a salad drawer at the bottom?

I just put my beers in there.

This is not your fridge, is it? There's no food in your fridge. It's purely beer. Yeah, interesting. Okay, that's a meat drawer. So, so literally you can find all of this information. There's a little bit about RawSafe, you know, where you'll find, you know, stuff for vet professionals, stuff for the manufacturers, you know, people that are accredited, etc. All of those will be on there. But yeah, particularly for people, they often will come to find that flyer just so they can get access to those. So there's a little bit of a promo for the Raw Feeding Veterinarians Society. Don't forget, you are going to see us at the conference, me and Nick, um, and, uh, 17th, 18th of October.

There are still places, and Billy Herkman, who is the ferment king, is going to be speaking. I can't believe he's flying all the way from the States. I know, and, and Rita and Peter is— he's coming— where is he coming? Coming from Prague or something? Prague, yep. He's, he's a bit like Dracula, he never goes out during the day. And yet he is coming to see us during the day in New York. It's wonderful. Don't tell him I said that he was like Dracula. Yeah, he's just resting.

Is he not over in Canada at the moment? Oh, he might be.

Because he does, doesn't he? He goes over to Canada.

Yeah, is his missus from Canada? Is that why he's over there? Was that him? Was that somebody else?

Anyway, so So this is good stuff, but basically keep your meat as clean as possible, use it as quickly as possible. If you're going to defrost and you haven't forgotten it, defrost in the fridge. And if you smell it before you give it— and that's difficult for vegetarians, I realize— but promise me, even if you're a veggie, if you take it out of the fridge and there is the slightest whiff of something not right, then feed something else. Even feed a tin of something or whatever. Just don't use the mucky meat. I think it's a really good idea. Um, the thing is— oh, we can take this over to Patreon. Patreon. Okay, I'm going to talk about washing hands after all pet food handling whatsoever. So I'm going to talk about that.

I've got a little story and a little bit about veg. Because Conor's going to talk a lot about veg over the next few weeks and fiber and stuff like that. I am. So, so I think on the other side, we're going to talk a bit about how to keep your veg optimal for your dog's food. Nothing to do with the fiber because Conor's going to be talking about that.

Elaine soaks her apples in bicarbonate soda.

Oh, that's very Habib and Beca. That is a very good idea. Gets all the badness off.

She's plowing through apples at the moment and she just says there's always apples I hope just the peelings. I have no idea. I'm just—

No, no, the whole lot. You do the outside.

Yeah, no, that's really, really good.

I'm going to finish today with a quote from KKOK, who is— I'm not sure where KK is. KK, do tell us. And she says, and I'm just going to leave this one hanging, okay? I have a pee pad in the bottom drawer in case a package leaks.

I've got an interesting factoid for Patreon. I've got an interesting fact about— okay, let's do that. The first colonizer of the baby's gut might surprise you.

Oh, let's talk about baby's guts as well.

That's a really interesting territory. Yeah, cool. That's cool.

In the Bay Area in California, lucky old— that sounds nice.

Yeah, I love Hope you're coming down to San Diego, KK. See you there on the weekend.

Yeah, or Mallorca, middle of the month. We want to see you there, or there'll be trouble.

All right, dudes, great stuff. Wonderful. We will catch you over on Patreon later. Um, everyone else, next week— oh, we've got a guest next week. Are you back from San Diego by Tuesday?

Oh, look at you. Next week we're going to be talking about grief with the with the remarkable Donna Wills. She's a vet nurse, she's a physiotherapist and an ex-gymnast, and she teaches handstand. She's going to teach me how to perfect my handstand, so I'm very excited about that. But she has written a book because she had a journey with her dog. She lost her dog and she has written a whole book about grief, the grief process. So that's Donna Wills next Tuesday, that's Tuesday the 14th. Really looking forward to that. Check her out online, Donna Wills. She's a physiotherapist.

I might have a surprise guest in the studio.

Oh, okay. So next week is going to be a big show. Fabulous. Awesome. We'll see you soon. Great stuff.

Take care. Thanks, guys.