Cases related to listeria, the bacterium present in sausages, show no sign of decreasing, reaching over 70 confirmed cases and 6 deaths. to date, over 4 million packages have been withdrawn from the shelves of all Italian supermarkets.
The cause of these infections is always due to the failure to cook the chicken frankfurters, which are too often eaten raw, a procedure not recommended even by the indications written on the packages.
Because the cases of Listeriosis continue to rise
The cases of listeriosis, which began in some regions of northern Italy in September, have increased dramatically reaching and exceeding 70 confirmed cases and leading to the death of 6 people.
The cause always remains the bad habit that 30% of Italians continue to maintain, namely the consumption of uncooked frankfurters according to the guidelines on the package. In fact, it is no coincidence that the infections began in September, the time of the year in which frankfurters are mistakenly used as ready-to-use food, inserted above all in rice salads along with other ingredients such as peas, cooked ham and pickles.
The wording “to be consumed after cooking” is not an advice to improve the flavor but an obligation to which the consumer must comply in order to ingest a healthy product for the body.
Cooking in a pan, or in a pot by boiling, manages to complete the pasteurization process which may not be carried out correctly within the factories. The production line works at maximum capacity and the products are kept moving, so it is not possible to guarantee the correct pasteurization temperature for each processed package.
What many consumers do not know is that all food products that contain the term “mechanically separated meat” must by law be used only in the products to be cooked.
The meat in question is not sold in supermarkets and is not used in cooking as it is obtained from the high pressure squeezing of chicken and turkey carcasses.
The professor of food microbiology at the University of Teramo, Antonello Paparella, warns everyone about the presence of this bacterium and invites Italians to cook the food very well before consuming it, completely eliminating the presence of pathogenic bacteria such as listeria monocytogenes, which is causing all this harm to people.
The teacher also lashes out against the producers of frankfurters packages as the words “to be consumed after careful cooking” is often hidden in small letters between the ingredients and other data on the label, thus resulting not always easily readable, in fact Paparella recommends highlight this information so that it can be known to all consumers.