T: Why are we eating tomatoes?
Dad: You must have heard about Salmonella “thing-e-majigy.”
T: (Chuckles). You used “thing-e-majigy”!
Dad: I know.
T: Dad, You know about Salmonella?
Dad: These tomatoes are different. They don’t carry the Salmonella bacteria. I checked!
T: What is Salmonella?
Dad: Are you sure you want to talk about it now – while eating breakfast?
T: Sure.
Dad: It’s a form of bacteria.
T: Can it kill you?
Dad: It might. But, it definitely, makes infected people feel like they want to die!
T: What does it do?
Dad: It causes diarrhea.
T: Yuck! Double Yuck!
Dad: Do you, still, want to know more?
T: No thanks, dad!
Dad: Good answer!
Staring at her food…
T: Dad, How can they get in tomatoes?
Dad: They can get into anything and everything. Any live thing I mean.
T: How?
Dad: The bacteria live in reptiles, such as turtles, snakes, etc…
T: Turtle is an amphibian!
Dad: Right; what did I say?
T: You said reptile.
Dad: Isn’t it both!
T: I guess.
Dad: It lives in frogs too. That’s an amphibian. Is that right?
T: Right!
Dad: It does not make them sick; but once it gets into food items, it becomes life threatening to humans.
T: Can it kill you? Oh, wait; you said no.
Dad: Well, it can kill old people, very young people, sick people and also people who have very weak immune systems.
T: What is immune system?
Dad: Immunity is like resistance! People whose bodies can not resist bacteria or virus attacks have weak immune systems. But, if a healthy person eats a food item infected with Salmonella bacteria will not die but can get very sick. So sick that may wish or feel like he wants to die.
T: Dad, how does it get into food?
Dad: Do you really want to know?
T: Yes!
Dad: Through those animals’ feces!
T: What are feces?
Dad: Poop!
T: Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Are you serious?
Dad: That’s what happened with this recent outbreak. Some feces from these animals got into the water system that was irrigating the tomato fields and contaminated the tomatoes.
T: What is an outbreak?
Dad: An outbreak; It was not the right word – I used. An outbreak is when something like this happens at a larger scale. This particular one was an isolated case. Only few hundred people were affected. An outbreak, usually, affects thousands and thousands.
T: How about spaghetti sauce, dad? Is that infected too?
Dad: If you cook the salmonella bacteria you’d kill it. Specially my spaghetti sauces! You know I cook them for days! So, if you touch contaminated water - water that was infected with a frog or a turtle or a snake’s feces – and you wash your hands with warm water (and soup), chances are you’d kill the bacteria before it can try to cause any harms to you.
T: I can’t believe we talked about feces during breakfast.
Dad: I did warn you; didn’t I? Plus, it was a scientific talk. Did you learn anything?
T: I guess!
Dad: You should do some more research about this. Why don’t you look it up?
T: I don’t have any computer time left!
Dad: Too bad! Do you want to earn some computer time.
T: No!
Dad: Okay!
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