Professor Quippy: Bio-warfare sausages

A major breakthrough at the University of Salami* could lead to sausages that won’t kill you!

Oh, the fat content, the high salt levels, and pure tastiness will still be there, but now it is less likely there will be undesirable ingredients such as the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. (Which recently had a very successful run in Ontario, courtesy of Maple Leaf Foods.)

How will the crack deli scientists achieve this, you ask? Through bio-warfare! That’s right, just add anthrax and your sausage problems will go away. I mean your tubular meat problems will go away . . . er, there will be less infectious material in your lunch.

According to the New Scientist:

A computer model of the battles between bacterial colonies could lead to salamis that are safer to eat and have longer shelf lives. The model could also help food scientists devise new ways to tackle the growth of dangerous bacteria in food.

Apparently some sausages are fermented. That’s right. Fermented. That means that bacterial growth is encouraged and even needed to create the food. Alessandro Giuffrida (at the University of Messina** in Italy) and his team have developed the model which shows how good bacteria (tasty) fight the bad (crapulence). They hope that this will lead to better ways of producing the food and lead to longer shelf lives.

Oh, and fewer cases of l’asino selvaggio.***

*not the actual name.
**actual name.
*** literally, “the savage ass”.

New Scientist story: How Bacterial Warfare May Lead to Safer Salami. Too much Alltop or humor-blogs.com may also lead to l’asino selvaggio.