Fouad Bazzi wrote in Al-Akhbar:
After washing your hands was essential to protect yourself from Covid-19, today we are at risk of contracting cholera for using this water for personal hygiene, or for washing vegetables, as they may have been exposed during their growth in the soil to irrigation by water contaminated with cholera and other harmful bacteria. This confuses the citizen in finding answers on how to ensure the cleanliness of his service water tank, and for that brought to his home with containers for drinking and preparing food, and perhaps the most difficult thing is to deal with microorganisms: bacteria like cholera, and chemicals like chlorine, don’t The average citizen knows about its negative and positive effects on their health, or how to use it properly, and what makes matters worse are the hundreds of contradictory advice and information circulating in the media and on social media.
Bacteria do not enter plants
The main thing we should know is that bacteria cannot enter plant bodies. For example, a lettuce plant irrigated with water contaminated by bacteria stays clean from the inside, but is never edible before being washed and sterilized well. In a study conducted by the Lebanese University Faculty of Science Microbiology Laboratory, certain types of plants were intentionally irrigated with water contaminated with harmful bacteria to learn about their possibility of entering the plant’s body. Dr. Muhammad Ezz El- Din, who confirms that “the presence of cholera inside the plant body is unlikely because the plant cells, instead of an external covering, have two covers” and explains that “infection by harmful bacteria remains in most cases al outside the cells of our body, but what harms us are the toxins they secrete. ”It enters the blood and cells.
The same thing is confirmed by Dr. Muhammad Qawbar, head of the Food and Drug Laboratory at the College of Health, with an additional warning about weeds irrigated with contaminated water, asking to wash them properly with sterile water, paying attention to cracks and zigzags in the leaves, lest bacteria hide in them. Quber concludes with a recommendation to “avoid cold foods in affected areas, especially the authorities, until the outbreak of the disease ends, but anything cooked at high temperatures is safe.”
The legend of vinegar
Lebanese tend to sterilize fruits and vegetables with vinegar of all kinds, but Izz al-Din explains: “Harmful bacteria prefer to live in places with low acidity, including cholera, because strong acids (acid) do not kill them, but rather they slow down their growth and reproduction, but vinegar is not one of them, it is acidic because it is diluted and used in small quantities and, when used in concentrated form, changes the taste of foods. Ezz El-Din explains that the use of vinegar contributes to the killing of parasites, while the bacteria are not killed by the vinegar, so he recommends “the use of chlorine in measured quantities.“.
Chlorine safety?
Therefore, the only solution remains today, in the absence of any serious state effort to secure electricity, operate refining and pumping stations, and use chlorine to sterilize and kill bacteria. This substance is safe when used in the necessary quantities “without jurisprudence”.“.
