EXTENSION REPORT

Peanut Butter:  Safe to Eat?

Following last year’s E. coli outbreak in spinach, both Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s nutrition and food safety experts urged Alabamians not to give up on the green, leafy vegetable. Its nutritional value simply was too good to pass up.  Following the nationwide recall of tainted peanut butter, we offer the same advice — don’t give up on peanut butter.

Food safety experts were initially shocked when they learned about the outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter.  Peanut butter just doesn’t strike most people as an ideal environment for the bug.  Why?  Because bacteria just doesn’t do well in the high-fat, low-moisture foods.

Further investigation, though, revealed some bigger — and unsettling — surprises.

For starters, the recent salmonella outbreak is not the first one associated with peanut butter.  Yes, it is believed to be the first outbreak recorded in the United States, but a similar incident involving peanut butter occurred in Australia in 1996, affecting roughly 50 people.

If that wasn’t surprising enough, Extension also learned that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Bad Bug Book, considered by many food safety specialists as the definitive source of information about foodborne pathogens, lists peanut butter as an “associated” source of salmonella contamination — not a principal source, such as raw meats, poultry and eggs, but one in which bacteria conceivably could turn up.

In fact, there have been several recent — and large — outbreaks of salmonella associated with high-fat, reduced water foods such as peanut butter.  Based on the findings of one study, published in the Journal of Food Protection in November 2006, researchers speculated that the unique makeup of peanut butter — fat mixed with minimal amounts of water — can provide adequate conditions for three different salmonella to survive, even despite the intense blasts of heat associated with pasteurization.

What this means is that peanut butter and similar types of food conceivably can provide microclimates that enable tiny amounts of bacteria to survive.

This raises an intriguing question — how did the salmonella get into the peanut butter in the first place? For now, that remains an open question. What is certain is that salmonella can turn up in a variety of places — water, soil, insects and factory surfaces among many other sources — which means that contamination could have occurred at any point along the food processing chain from the farm to the processing plant.

Hundreds of people have been hospitalized as a result of this outbreak, according to an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The affected peanut butter jars were made by ConAgra in a single facility in Sylvester, Ga., according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Like other mass outbreaks of foodborne illness, the incident undoubtedly will spark strengthened safeguards.  That’s good news because in the end, it means that peanut butter — a healthy staple of the American diet and a favorite of children — will be even safer.

Being a former employee of ConAgra Foods, I can assure you that they are on this like white on rice.  They’re going back to the drawing board to see that an outbreak like this never happens again.”

For more information or food safety concerns, please call Amelia McGrew at (251) 574-8445.

Horticulture Activity Benefiting People

We all know the sense of relaxation and tranquility we get by taking a walk in the park or in forested areas.  These activities may have more of a positive impact on you than you would think.  Although plants benefits such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or the prevention of soil erosion are very important, there are many more benefits that can be attained from plants. One such personal benefit is the relationship that people establish with plants and the value they gain by just nurturing plants. It is truly a mutual relationship! Studies have shown significant aesthetic rewards people gain when planting seeds, cultivating the plants, cutting flowers or just looking at flowers. One research proved that people with a natural view from their hospital window healed faster as opposed to those having a view of a physical feature.

            Horticultural Therapy is a new profession which uses plants and gardening activities as a tool to achieve therapeutic and rehabilitative goals and objectives. Horticultural Therapy is one of the most liked therapeutic activities.  It is non-threatening and safe.  In most cases it is conducted in conjunction with physical and occupational therapy to achieve the specific treatment goals of the client.  Horticultural therapy is inexpensive and easy to conduct as a means of therapy and can be done both indoors and outdoors at different types of institutions; including rehabilitation centers, extended adult programs, detention centers, nursing homes, or wherever plants can be used as a treatment tool.

            The clients or participants that can benefit from Horticulture Therapy programs are varied. Senior citizens suffering from sensory impairment are one such group.  Horticultural Therapy can help with their sense of hearing (bees and birds) and smell (flowers). Youth at risk-youth who display violent behaviors, are academically depressed, or are involved in drugs and alcohol.  Horticultural activities act as a diversion from such behaviors. This group may be comprised of youth and children who are maladapted to the social norms and customs of society and need special attention through gardening activities. Mentally disabled-people with developmental disability, mental retardation and other forms of nervous injury for such group horticultural therapy provides an environment suitable for healing.  Physically disabled-those suffering from stroke and paralyzing injuries gardening activities provides an opportunity to exercise.        

There are numerous urban institutions in Mobile and Baldwin Counties that can also benefit from a Horticultural Therapy program. If you need additional information about establishing a Horticultural Therapy program in your institution or community, call the Mobile County Office of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at 251-574-8445 and ask for Michael McIntyre, Regional Extension Agent Urban Horticulture and Forestry Programs.

Email address: mcgreaj@aces.edu
Phone number: (251) 574-8445

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work in agriculture and home economics, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, and other related acts, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (Alabama A&M University and Auburn University) offers educational programs, materials, and equal opportunity employment to all people without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, veteran status, or disability