coliforms are indicators of fecal contamination and that most foodborne illness pathogens have fecal reservoir
Write a one to two page summary of the following learning objectives:
Understand:
- coliforms are indicators of fecal contamination and that most foodborne illness pathogens have fecal reservoirs
- the history of cholera and how it led to the need for sanitary water monitoring (why couldn’t we just look for V. cholera?)
- the risk of cholera today in US versus third world countries (not in materials – look it up)
- the differences in coliform, fecal coliform, and E. coli
- how galactosidase detects coliforms and glucuronidase detects most E. coli strains
- how Salmonella, Shigella, E. coli O157, and Enterobacter fit into the coliform, fecal coliform, E. coli indicator assay
- both the MPN and membrane filtration techniques for determining coliforms in samples
- how petrifilm products work to enumerate coliforms and E. coli
- coliform indicators are far from perfect and they have their deficiencies
