Can Technology Rescue the Sprouts Industry?

While scientists are scrambling to pinpoint the cause of the E. coli outbreak linked to bean and seed sprouts in northern Germany, a veteran sprouts system designer believes he has developed the technology that can produce "the perfect sprout."

As of June 20, the outbreak had killed 39 people and sickened more than 3,000.

"If this technology had been used in the EU, those people would still be alive. I have no doubt about it," Lincoln Neal, president of Tennessee-based Quicksilver Automated Systems (www.qasc.com/index.html), told Food Safety News.

According to the company's website, Quicksilver provides state-of the art purification, propagation and processing systems for the largest sprout companies in North America.

Neal thinks the pathogen that caused the E. coli outbreak in Germany likely came in on the seeds, a conjecture that echoes warnings to sprout growers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that seeds are most often the source of most sprout-associated outbreaks.

For that reason, the agency recommends that sprout growers soak the seeds in a strong disinfecting solution, such as 20,000 ppm calcium hypochlorite, before sprouting them.

But Neal, a mechanical systems designer with a focus on disinfection, who describes himself as "a bit of a germophobe," said soaking the seeds in a strong disinfecting solution at the onset just isn't enough because the pathogens can lodge themselves into cracks and crevasses in the seeds.

Those cracks and crevasses, which he said in the microscopic world can be as large as the Grand Canyon, can provide safe harbor for the wily pathogens.

To make things more challenging yet, the seeds have a "somewhat oily surface" that can repel water. As a result, the surface tension on the outside of the seed can prevent the disinfectant from going into the cracks and crevasses in the seeds.

Neal compares that situation to the water that pools into droplets on the surface of a freshly waxed car.

He warns that if a sprout grower only disinfects the seeds at the beginning of the sprouting process, pathogens could still be lurking in the seeds, especially since sprout growers typically soak their seeds in disinfectant for only about an hour.

Neal also said that contrary to what some people in the industry assert,  bacteria such as E. coli can not only hide in the microscopic cracks but can also get inside the sprouting seeds through those cracks.

Neal believes that the solution to that dilemma is easy enough: Use a method that sanitizes the seeds as they're sprouting.

 "We focus on the first 24 to 36 hours," he said of his method

According to the company's information about its Emerald Purifier/Sprouter, the equipment can get rid of embedded pathogens inside the seed shell by repeatedly flushing the inside of the seed hull with disinfectant solution at the moments it "changes, opens, 'morphs,'  and detaches to release the sprout.

"Bacteria-occupied air cups and pockets are flushed out and disinfected," says the company literature. "Full automatic wash cycles occur as the seed pops open and the microbes become exposed."

"We go in when the seed is changing and by doing that we can get into the seed," Neal said. "The machine persistently and automatically washes the product."

Neal said that if the pathogens aren't caught early on in the process, they can get into the sprouts themselves and that no amount of spray misting a disinfectant onto them can reach every square micron of the sprouts.

"Nipping it in the bud early on in the process is essential," he said, adding that persistent disinfection doesn't erode the nutritional value of the seeds and "is in full accord with the life process of the sprouts."

 "It doesn't compromise germination or weaken it," he said.

Looking at another FDA guideline for producing sprouts that involves testing the spent irrigation water that has flowed over the seeds, Neal sees drawbacks. FDA's thinking behind that approach is that if there were any pathogens on the seeds themselves, they would multiply under the warm, moist conditions the seeds are sprouted in. If the testing, which typically occurs 48 hours into the sprouting process, reveals the presence of pathogens, then that batch can be thrown away, thus keeping it out of the marketplace.

But Neal said that as valuable as testing is, sprouting is a "hurry-up" sort of industry when it comes to shipping the fresh sprouts out to customers. For that reason, sometimes the sprouts are sent out before the test results of the spent irrigation water come back.

And even if a test-and-hold approach were adopted, Neal said that if the pathogens are deep inside the seed, the water won't be able to reach them. They could actually be trapped and not be able to get out.

"It's rare, but it could happen," he said.

Then, too, Neal said that even with the safeguards many sprout growers are using, including FDA's  guidelines, a sobering fact keeps emerging: "Somehow these pathogens are getting by these sprouters."

"That's why I think upfront methods must be incorporated," he said. "You've got to come in again and again and again to get the pathogens out. You have to be persistent -- more persistent than the microbes. They've got brilliant programming in them to stay alive."

These pathogens can be virulent. According to the FDA, a single surviving bacterium in a kilogram of seed can be enough to contaminate a whole batch of seeds.

Neal, who says he was called upon by the industry in 1985 to develop a sprout manufacturing package, has focused on modernizing an industry that had previously been more of a "flower-child kind of business."

Fast forward to the present, and Neal says he's probably designed more sprouting equipment "than anyone on the planet."

Back then, immediate questions before him were "How can this problem be solved?" "And where are these pathogens coming from and what's allowing them to proliferate."

When evaluating the potential of his equipment to produce the perfect sprout, Neal said there are no "absolutes in microbiology."

 "But if the sprout growers follow our methods and don't cheat, they can virtually eliminate the pathogens," he said.

Stageloft's 'Hamlet' plays up wit, humor

To paraphrase one of the many memorable quotes in Shakespeare's most famous play, “Ferocity, thy name is Sean Gardell!” !"

Does director Ed Cornely's latest production of “Hamlet” measure up to Stageloft's 2002 brilliant staging with Glenn MacDonald in the title role? The apples-and-oranges answer to that depends on what you're looking for. The beauty of Shakespeare is the opportunity for boundless interpretation in all his work, and is there a more complicated character in theater than the melancholy Dane? Or a more challenging role to take on?

Gardell took it on in fearless full measure and then some, giving a magnificently mercurial performance Saturday night, full of quicksilver intelligence and passion.

His Hamlet is by turns tortured, vengeful, funny, angry, playful, wickedly disingenuous, sorrowful and grieving.

Wouldn't you be slightly “mad” if your father's ghost told you that your mother plotted with your uncle to murder him? Since he didn't have the luxury of a psychiatrist to guide him through all those seething, conflicting emotions, Hamlet is forced to be his own best counsel. Lucky for us, that affords us the pleasure of listening to many glorious soliloquies— all of which Gardell delivers with astounding comprehension and slashing eloquence.

It's exhilarating to watch an actor who understands the role so completely and confidently that the invisible gears in his mind and heart manifest themselves in every vocal inflection, facial expression and physical gesture. Dare it be said that one almost feels as if he's making up his performance from moment to moment?

That's how thrivingly real Gardell's Hamlet is. He's a roller coaster of emotion, a bipolar wonder. When he isn't confiding in his best friend, Horatio (solidly enacted by Kyle Maxwell), with comradely intimacy, he's rejecting Ophelia (an admirably wayward and forlorn Briana Gardell) with the searingly delivered admonition, “Get thee to a nunnery!”

In stark contrast to a sentimental recalling of happier childhood days, holding court jester Yorick's skull in his hands, he lashes out at his mother, Queen Gertrude (Melissa Earls), with furious recrimination for her betrayal. Because Earls brings an exquisitely simmering sensuality to the role, she and Gardell intriguingly play up the Oedipal undertones. There's a subtle mix of guilt and complicity in Earls' elegantly rendered performance.

Fred D'Angelo's portrayal of Claudius is fascinatingly opaque, villainy masking itself with more than the usual stealth. D'Angelo plays the part close to the vest, rarely allowing Claudius' feelings to get the best of him, as in the play-within-a-play scene that Hamlet stages to “catch the conscience of the king.” D'Angelo's Claudius is a quiet viper of a man.

Dave O'Neil and Scott Bezoenik make a cute couple as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Cornely is to be commended for recruiting George Trevlakis, another Stageloft newcomer, for the pivotal role of Laertes. Trevlakis not only has considerable stage presence, but like Gardell, he gives one the sense that he's acting in the moment — a talent put to good use in the “to thine own self be true” father-to-son speech he gets from Ron Jolicoeur, who plays Laertes' father, Polonius. Trevlakis and Jolicoeur exploit the scene for all its potential humor — the dutiful son impatiently listening to his father's advice, thinking him finished and turning to walk away, only to be pulled back for more words of wisdom as he rolls his eyes. Some things are universal, no matter the time or place.

One of the major accomplishments of this production is how Cornely and his cast emphasize the surprising level of wit and humor that runs through “Hamlet.”

Considering the steadily rising body count and prevailing tragedy, it's nice to have a healthy, commercially motivated supply of comic relief.

As an added bonus to Gardell's indelible acting, he shows off his skills in a spectacular, harrowing demonstration of swordplay with Trevlakis in the Hamlet-Laertes showdown. It's a duel choreographed with unnerving intensity. Gardell wouldn't have it any other way.