Melons and Food Safety
When you are thinking about foods that could be risky as far as food safety goes, not many people think of melons first. The general reason for this is that the hard rind gives the feeling of security. While often that rind protects the melon from contamination but then you have to cut into it to get at it’s juicy goodness.
The knife passing through the melon transfers the bacteria from the melons rind, across the surface you cut. The moisture and natural sugar make this healthy fruit snack a wonderful breeding ground for E Coli and Salmonella. It might not seem like these bacteria would be common on fruit.
The problem is that melons are grown on the ground. That allows easy access to bacteria by itself. To complicate things, animals like melons too. Everything from mammals to birds stop by to snack on melons and leave droppings nearby. Also, many farmers use manure as a fertilizer. Even If it is not used on the melon crop, it may be nearby or have been used on that ground previously.
Luckily the fix for this concern is easy- with a few considerations you can be enjoying safe fruit snacks. Wash your melons. It might seem silly to wash a part of the fruit you won’t be eating, but you want to get those bacteria off the surface of the rind. Pick your own fruits whenever you can. Take care as to where you get already sliced melon from. You want to know that they would use the same safe practice.
