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Comment by blaze33 | Hacker News Reader

> where I grew up eating under-cooked meat was a serious health hazard.

This is a not-so-obvious fact I only learned about in my 20s : that everyday food can be dangerous. I grew up in a very rural area and never thought our food couldn't be safe (except the milk, we had to boil it once back back from the farmer next door). I liked to eat bits of raw meat while my mother cooked and always thought we rinsed the vegetables only because they taste and look better without the dirt and small bugs.

Maybe I was lucky to live in a "safe food zone" (Europe, France). Is there any data on the prevalence of food pathogens? Also, is there any correlation between gut problems and being raised in rural vs. urban areas?

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Modern farming practices really help. The cows/pigs are kept far away, and downhill, of the fields growing vegetables. Irrigation water isn't contaminated. Humans are in minimal contact with the crop. Like it or not, epic agribusiness dramatically reduces the risk of cross-contamination between crops/livestocks/peoples.

> I liked to eat bits of raw meat while my mother cooked and always thought we rinsed the vegetables only because they taste and look better without the dirt and small bugs.

With healthy livestock the chances of getting anything from eating raw meat are very low. With healthy livestock is a pretty big caveat though. Most people throughout history have had parasites, never mind animals. Industrial agriculture has the benefit of antibiotics and other medicines so most livestock is healthy. My biology lecturer in college said he wouldn’t eat fish, poultry or pig raw, everything else was basically ok. Fish because wild fish are crawling with parasites, poultry because salmonella is everywhere and pigs because of ringworm.

Vegetables are safe if they haven’t had unfermented on them recently but taking the time to let manure rot doesn’t always happen in places where that’s the only fertiliser you’ve got. If you can buy nitrogenous fertiliser by the bag you’re overwhelmingly going to be fine but generally safe food is not natural, it’s the product of work.

In France, toxoplasmosis is very commonly acquired from food.

In 1965, 83% of pregnant women in France were found to have it. This dropped to 37% by 2010.

Infection normally causes subtle behavior changes. There may be more risk-taking behavior, leading to more car crashes and more promiscuity. Schizophrenia becomes more common.

So maybe you are affected, but you haven't noticed. Maybe you would have made different life choices without an infection. Maybe you would have avoided some injuries.

I've never heard of home paseurizing farm milk, is that common?

Yes. And easy. Though I would imagine not as common a practice as it was in the past.

In India, we always boil milk irrespective of source. That's way hotter than pasteurization.

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