By Stephanie Schupska
University of
Georgia

Ground beef and spinach aren’t the only foods recently linked to
foodborne illness.
Four Americans and two Canadians were recently struck ill after
drinking carrot
juice.

In September, three Georgians suffered respiratory failure after
drinking carrot juice.
A Florida woman was hospitalized in mid-September, and on Oct.
11, Toronto,
Ontario, newspapers reported that two people there were hospitalized
and have suffered
paralysis.

These recent cases of botulism – a foodborne disease that can
cause nausea,
fatigue, blurred vision, difficulty swallowing and speaking,
paralysis, respiratory
failure and even death – have put carrot juice in headlines
across North
America.

Symptoms of botulism usually appear 12 to 36 hours after
ingestion, but may take
several days. Botulism cannot be spread from person to person.

“Botulism is a food intoxication,” said University of Georgia
food safety specialist
Elizabeth Andress. “If the bacteria are in the right product,
they actually produce a
toxin.”

Andress says the chances of botulism growing in food products
increases if foods
are improperly stored.

“That’s what is suspected in the carrot juice cases,” she said.
“And it’s the toxin that
makes us sick.”

In the past month, both the Georgia Department of Agriculture and
Florida
Department of Health have discovered four cases of botulism. Each
of these cases has been linked to commercially bottled carrot juice
produced by
Bolthouse Farms, Inc., in Bakersfield, California.

“They are suspecting that it’s the result of the consumers’ not
keeping the product
properly refrigerated once they purchase it,” Andress said. “But
they are still
investigating to find out if there have been other reasons for
this.”

According to the Georgia Department of Agriculture, this
particular carrot juice is
flash pasteurized (subjected briefly to a relatively high
temperature).

“Any time a beverage label says ‘keep refrigerated,’ that’s there
for safety purposes,
and it’s essential that you do that,” Andress said. “Most juices
are pasteurized,
which is not enough heat to destroy the spores of C. botulinum if
they’re there. And
those are going to be a problem in your vegetable juices in
particular.”

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning
consumers not to drink
Bolthouse Farms carrot juice if it has a “best if used by” date
of Nov. 11 or earlier.

In the four U.S. cases, the FDA is emphasizing “the consumer
recommendations,”
Andress said. “But why I still think they’re investigating it is
that they need to make
sure there are not problems in the whole distribution channel. If
somebody else
hasn’t kept it cold enough, it’s not going to do you any good to
keep it cold.”

Andress says the key to preventing cases of foodborne illnesses
like these lies in the
hands of both the consumer and the producer. She says consumers
and producers
must follow refrigeration guidelines to keep food products safe.

“If the juice bottle says ‘keep refrigerated,’ do what it says,”
she said. “It’s also
important to purchase your foods from stores you feel certain are
keeping
temperature control on their end also.”

For safety sake, Andress says home refrigerator temperatures
should be no higher
than 40 degrees Fahrenheit.