Right now, the CDC is advertising people
throw away all their romaine lettuce
because it's got E.coli on it, E.coli, the evil coli.
And it can really hurt you.
So today on Uno Dos Tres, I've got some questions.
So we're worried about food waste.
Why is it always romaine?
Is all E.coli bad?
What exactly is going on?
Hoo!
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey there, nerd fam.
I just want to stop for a second.
We just hit 16,000 subscribers.
Can you believe it?
I am so excited!
And I'm so proud, and I'm really happy.
I'm getting emotional.
OK, back to the bloody poop bacteria
because that's what you all came here for, right?
Escherichia Coli, I think it's said, "esheeria--"
"esheerakia ka-why."
"Eskeria--" "eskeria--" "eskeria."
Escherichia Coli, or E.coli, is a rod-shaped bacteria
that looks exactly like you would expect.
And it is the star of the show right now
because there's an outbreak in the news causing
bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, and possible death.
It's really scary.
But the best way to get over fear is to understand it.
So let me be a voice of both caution and reason.
Firstly, E.coli isn't always evil.
E.coli is a very common bacteria-- very.
You have a bunch of it in you right now-- seriously.
Bacteria make up 1% to 3% of your mass.
And E.coli might be about 1% of that.
If you're average, that means about 19 grams or 2/3
of an ounce of E.coli could be in you right now.
That's the equivalent of about one mouse or four dice.
Can you imagine that, just bacteria, little mouse
bacteria?
Ew.
I love it.
Find out your kilos, do the math, post it in the comments.
Seriously, I want to know how much E.coli is in you.
Good E.coli strains in your gut help
us break down waste, absorb vitamin K, and digest food.
Gut bugs, take the wheel.
But E.coli also has helped us learn
about bacteria in the lab.
It's one of the most widely studied of all bacteria.
There are over 200 different types,
and they can reproduce in just 20 minutes.
So after 7 hours, one bacteria can become more than 2 million.
But again, don't worry.
Only a few strains of this bacteria can cause illness.
And the real goatee-wearing evil coli is 0157:H7.
In 2006, 0157:H7 got on spinach and made hundreds of people
sick.
In 2011, it was alfalfa.
In 2017 and 2018, it's been romaine.
And this all comes down to where these things come from and also
our poop tubes.
0157:H7 produces the shiga toxin,
one of the most potent toxins from any known bacteria.
And more seriously, the toxin affects your cells
at the genetic level, causing all sorts of symptoms,
including bloody diarrhea and sometimes kidney failure.
It does this by binding to proteins
that can adenine in your RNA, which makes
it very difficult to treat.
Treatment is, in fact, minimal because even
antibacterial medicines just make this strain stronger.
You just have to hope you'll be OK
and that you're not in the 5% to 10% that nothing can be done.
The bacteria gets into your body through poopy contamination.
See, 0157:H7 doesn't actually live in your body
but in the warm-blooded animals, like goats and sheep, deer,
elk, and cattle.
When their poop gets into surface water or groundwater,
the bacteria go with it, which is
how we get all this food outbreaks because poop
got on your salad.
So just throw away the lettuce.
Just throw it away.
It's not that romaine is extra susceptible to E.coli,
it's just that it's grown and consumed in such a way
that we never fully confirm the bacteria on them is dead.
For example, meat get 0157:H7 on it too.
And then it gets mixed in during the slaughtering and processing
process.
It happens all the time, actually.
Think about that because everything is poop, if not now,
later.
The thing is meat gets cooked, but salad usually doesn't.
Without that definite kill stage,
we can't be 100% confident that leafy greens are cleaned
after harvest, which is why the FDA tries to make sure
that they're clean before.
So when outbreaks do happen, they investigate,
and they try and pinpoint the specific field it came from,
which sometimes works out.
In 2006, they found out that the romaine had livestock
containing poopy 0157:H7 nearby, and contaminated water was used
to irrigate the greens, poop spray on your salad.
So if you have romaine in the fridge, again, toss it.
Throw it away.
Probably you've already done this,
knowing it's got poop on it.
Also, clean the drawer that it was
into or maybe the whole fridge.
You know what?
Actually just move.
Just get out of there.
Just burn the house down.
It's fine.
Ugh, your call.
Trust the CDC on this, though, period, the end.
E.coli does end up being the butt of a lot of jokes.
But it's not the end all be all.
If you're worried about spreading E.coli yourself,
just keep your pants on.
Yeah, an actual study was done on this,
where an enterprising scientist was
worried about contaminating a sterile environment with farts.
So they asked a colleague to fart
onto a Petri dish, like you do, normal Saturday, one with pants
on, once with trou dropped, normal Sunday.
And it turns out the gas sterilizes the area,
and the pants keep any, [COUGHS] spray in.
So as long as you're wearing pants, you're fine.
I love scientists.
Poop conversation is obviously the perfect thing
to chat about during Thanksgiving dinner.
It's way better than crappy politics, right?
I was in the nerd fam discord this week.
And it sounds like there's going to be some delicious
meals happening.
Heh, heh.
Poop.
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Subscribe, share.
Thank you for 16,000.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
"Escare-- escaria."