Vegan and E-coli

[feline01]

Warning: if poo talk disturbs you, don't read

I was reading an article in a newspaper today about how the most E-coli contaminated areas are laundry hampers, washing machines, dryers and laundry folding areas. The article was saying how E-coli survives washing and drying since it never gets hot enough. Dirty underwear is the culprit.

I was wondering since vegans don't consume as much E-coli as one who eats dead animal, would our E-coli levels (found in our feces) be significantly lower than an omnivore? Anyone know the statistics?

Just curious. :o

[Seaside]

I don't think it has to do with what anyone eats, but that there is already E. coli living in the bowels of every animal as part of the gut flora. It is that bad strain, (it has a number and letter code after it that I can't remember) that makes you sick if what you eat is contaminated with it. I would guess that since flesh is such a poor quality food for any organism (even carnivores have to get vitamins and minerals from sources other than meat) vegans might have more gut flora than "corpse-eaters" (thanks Tails! ;) ), which is actually a good thing. But no one is necessarily supposed to get E. coli from what they are eating, unless they eat contaminated food. Flesh is more likely to be contaminated nowadays than in the past because of the horrible conditions that exist at the time of slaughter, and the disgusting (of course, it is all disgusting :mad: ) practice of soaking the bodies in feces contaminated water to make the resulting "product" weigh more (so they can charge more money for it :mad: ), but people eating this would get sick, rather than just increase the population of E. coli in their own guts. Everybody has their own population of E. coli . It belongs in the bowel, for what purpose I do not know, and that is where it is supposed to stay, except for what is lost through the feces. I am sure that laundry areas, etc. are also "contaminated" with other gut flora like lactobacillus, but nobody worries about lactobacillus, do they? :rolleyes: