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As of February 2000, the milk you drink may be zapped by "Star Wars" technology before it reaches your table.
A new form of pasteurization, called "cold pasteurization," utilizes some of the same technology former President Ronald Reagan used in his "Star Wars" defense program to kill the potentially deadly E. coli bacteria sometimes found in milk and ground beef, among other foods.
The futuristic practice utilizes cathode ray tubes, similar to those found in a television, to form a high-powered accelerator that propels a beam of high-speed electrons down a tube. When this beam, called an "E-beam," hits the E. coli bacteria, it destroys the microorganisms' DNA.
"The whole process takes only a few seconds," said Nan Unklesbay, MU food science professor. It's expected that this new pasteurization method will increase the price of milk by only a few cents per gallon.
A team of researchers, made up of food scientists and electrical engineers from the University of Missouri-Columbia, Iowa State University and the Natick Army Laboratory, and funded by a $250,000 grant from Electrical Power Research Institute, introduced the "zapped" milk in February of 2000.
"At first, cold pasteurized products at the grocery store will be labeled as 'irradiated,' but the term should not worry consumers. It is simply the term that the USDA requires," Unklesbay said. "The process is non-nuclear, and we're working to have cold pasteurized products labeled as such to avoid confusion."
E.coli—a potentially deadly microbe
E. coli are normally present in the human digestive tract, but certain strains can cause severe illness. E. coli O157:H7 produces a toxin that attacks the gastrointestinal tract and can cause severe cramping, abdominal pain, watery or bloody diarrhea, vomiting or fever. This strain has been associated with kidney failure in as many as 30 percent of cases.
Dr. James Russell, an Agriculture Department microbiologist, said as few as 10 E. coli O157:H7 cells can make a person deathly ill. The organism's toxic nature is intensified by its capacity to survive the journey through the acids in the human stomach.
Russell said only about 1 to 2 percent of cattle harbor the deadly E. coli bacteria, but "no one knows which ones they are."
Unklesbay said E. coli 0157:H7 is considered to be an indicator organism by which the effectiveness of anything used to kill bacteria is measured. "It's the nastiest bacteria we know about," Unklesbay said. "We know if we can kill E. coli 0157:H7, we can kill everything else too."
Sources—University of Missouri-Columbia
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Wellesley College, Chemistry Department