# E. Coli-tainted Vegetables

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 7, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628 "2011-06-07T15:59:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628/1 "2011-06-07T15:59:34Z")

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Just an idle thought. This is too speculative I think for GQ.

I saw footage of German workers dumping tons of individually-wrapped cucumbers into a dumpster. I presume that they will be composted at some sort of facility. **But how could we ideally use several thousand tons of tainted vegetables?**

Assume the rules say the vegetables cannot be allowed in any human food product.

I would presume they could (probably should) be used as animal feed. Would they have any value as a bio-fuel?

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**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628/2 "2011-06-07T16:01:54Z")

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You can use old cooking/fryer oil as biodiesel, so something like corn could be processed into cooking oil.

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**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628/3 "2011-06-07T16:25:32Z")

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It just seems the stuff must have some value for something.

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**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628/4 "2011-06-07T16:32:32Z")

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How high a heat does it take to kill that strain? Really, the only thing I can think to do is compost it all; the heat in composting is high enough to kill many infectious bacteria. Then the compost can be used as, y’know, compost.

Is this strain infectious to livestock? If so, I wouldn’t want to kill any piggies by making them sick with the stuff.

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**Author:** ![horsetech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dec6dc/32.png) [@horsetech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/horsetech)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-coli-tainted-vegetables/584628/5 "2011-06-07T17:28:53Z")

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Besides the issue of killing piggies ☹ , you don’t want to infect even more mammals who will then become pathogenic _E. coli_ producing machines. Pathogens in domestic animals have a way of finding their way back to the human population, sometimes after having gone through a selective sweep for antibiotic resistance, depending on the farming practices. I’m not sure about this strain of _E. coli_ and which species it affects (other strains cause problems in cattle and swine and increase mortality among young stock), but with other pathogens, sometimes even a species (or an individual) which is not terribly susceptible to the pathogen can become an asymptomatic carrier/reservoir for the infection and shed it for months, even years.