I\'m forwarding this on, good to know how bacteria develops rapidly in potatoes & onions, very interesting……
I had the wonderful privilege of touring Mullins Food Products, makers of mayonnaise. Mullins is huge, and is owned by 11 brothers and sisters in the Mullins family. My friend, Jeanne, is the CEO.
Questions about food poisoning came up, and I wanted to share what I learned from a chemist. The guy who gave us our tour is named Ed. He\'s one of the brothers. Ed is a chemistry expert and is involved in developing most of the sauce formula. He\'s even developed sauce formula for McDonald\'s.
Keep in mind that Ed is a food chemistry whiz. During the tour, someone asked if we really needed to worry about mayonnaise. People are always worried that mayonnaise will spoil. Ed\'s answer will surprise you. Ed said that all commercially-made Mayo is completely safe.
"It doesn\'t even have to be refrigerated. No harm in refrigerating it, but it\'s not really necessary." He explained that the pH in mayonnaise is set at a point that bacteria could not survive in that environment. He then talked about the quint-essential picnic, with the bowl of potato salad sitting on the table and how everyone blames the mayonnaise when someone gets sick.
Ed says that when food poisoning is reported, the first thing the officials look for is when the \'victim\' last ate ONIONS and where those onions came from (in the potato salad?).
Ed says it\'s not the mayonnaise that spoils in the outdoors (as long as it\'s not homemade Mayo). It\'s probably the onions, and if not the onions, it\'s the POTATOES. He explained, onions are a huge magnet for bacteria, especially uncooked onions.
You should never plan to keep a portion of a sliced onion. He says it\'s not even safe if you put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in your refrigerator. It\'s already contaminated enough just by being cut open and out for a bit, that it can be a danger to you (and doubly watch out for those onions you put in your hotdogs at the baseball park!)
Ed says if you take the leftover onion and cook it like crazy you\'ll probably be okay, but if you slice that leftover onion and put on your sandwich, you\'re asking for trouble. Both the onions and the moist potato in a potato salad, will attract and grow bacteria faster than any commercial mayonnaise will even begin to break down.
So, how\'s that for news? Take it for what you will. I (the author) am going to be very careful about my onions from now on. For some reason, I see a lot of credibility coming from a chemist and a company, that produces millions of pounds of mayonnaise every year.\'
Also, dogs should never eat onions. Their stomachs cannot metabolIize them!!!
Wow thank you Lorie! I knew about some of this but I will certaily pass this on to my partner who manages a popular restaurent here in Atlanta. When he made it known to the kichen management that a huge number of this restaurents clients are hiv positive they immediatly changed some things on the menu for extra precaution. For example, they make all of their salad dressing from scratch… They stopped using raw eggs in their Ceasar Salad dressing and now use Mayonnaise instead….Few people can clock the difference!..Boy I’m glad to hear that Mayo is safe! They also clean the filters, fittings and spouts on their tea brewing machines EVERY day after I complained that the tea tasted rancid….Also, if a restaurant gives you a slice of lemon with your water, you may want to rethink about using it…An unproperly washed lemon can transmit salmonilla just as fast as anything! I try not to live in fear and I’m a LOT less neurotic about germs now that I’m on meds and my immune system has done an incredible rebound….still, lik e the old saying goes, " an ounce of prevention…."…Thanks again : 🙂