SC - viking age porridge

[Par Leijonhufvud]

>
> 	Just to clarify, Odwalla sells only pasteurized juices now,
> as a result
> of that incident.  We have another supplier, Arden's Garden, that sells
> un-pasteurized juices, and I get customers asking me all the time why we
> don't sell more unpasteruized stuff.  (Not being treated by heat being
> desirable, because of the loss of nutrients when heated.)  I relate the
> Odwalla story to them, and explain it's because Arden's hasn't been
> unlucky enough to have a bad batch yet, and that sooner or later, they
> probably will.
> 	Christianna

I doubt that they will ever have a problem.  The orchards in the
Oregon/Washington area have _never_ had an instance of illness traced to
unpasteurized apple juice.  I don't believe that other areas of the country
have either, unless improperly treated windfall apples were used and the
crushing/juice extracting machinery was not sterilized.  Odwalla's people,
(to be fair, against company policy) did both these things.  Windfall apples
are likely to have "organic fertilizer on them, i.e. cow and deer sh*t,
which contain mammalian e-coli (lord knows I've picked apples enough to know
that other types of "organics" get on them.  After running this batch of
unsterilized windfalls through the machinery, the dorks failed to sterilize
it (maybe they thought "it's Organic, therefore safe!)  Well, it wasn't safe
and people became very ill, and a child died.

The upshot of this is that most of the apple growers in the
Oregon/Washington area no longer produce apple juice or apple cider.  They
_have_ to sell it to the big boys like Odwalla or shudder Tree Top (Ugh!).
Why?  Because they cannot afford to put in the "clean room" or
pasteurization facilities, and idiots like the food Editor for the Oregonian
continue to dictate that the consumer should never drink unpasteurized
juice.

Of course Tree Top, Odwalla and the other big juice producers are delighted.
It has driven the little competitors out of business.  I'm enough of a cynic
to think that Odwalla is delighted with this outcome.  They beat their
corporate breast in public, paid a few bucks to the people they made ill,
and continue to make money hand over fist from their overpriced "organic"
glops, while enlarging their customer base.

Me, I continue to take my gallon glass jugs to an orchard in the Willamette
Valley which has been squeezing apples for 150 years (first trees came round
the Horn in 1850).  The juice and cider is wonderful.  Drink it quick unless
you want Apple Jack though!

Regina Romsey
>