Bob Terwilliger wrote:

> He was talking about the toxins thrown off by the bacteria, not about the
> bacteria themselves. From
> http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/science/dat...cus-aureus.pdf
>
> "Toxins are extremely resistant to heat. For example, the D time of
> enterotoxin B at 149°C is 100 min at an a(w) of .99 and 225 min at an a(w)
> of .90."

Thanks, that's a good URL. So the little poisons can be naughty.

And all this time I thought the toxins were not too important. I gather
from reading that PDF, it's the staph which is really deadly. Is that
article saying the toxins are as deadly as wild growth of S. aureus?

And S. aureus is a facultative anaerobic bacteria mostly? It's found in
the mouths of humans but generally does not do much harm although it's
gram negative and birds are gram positive so be careful when you kiss
your pet birds! You can kill them theoretically with the S. aureus. At
this point, someone will say cook your birds but I found it difficult
to enjoy chicken around a white cockatoo parrot. Just seemed too close
for comfort.

In any event, the toxin is extremely difficult to kill so it would be
nice if it were not that important in food poisoning. Can you give me
some more clues on this?