A salmonella outbreak linked to eggs has sickened hundreds of people in several states, and health officials have expanded the recall to nearly 400 million eggs.
However, one family in Escondido has remained suspiciously healthy throughout the crisis, and officials want to know why.
“Yeah, we're fine,” says Loretta Carton, a single mother of two who lives in a modest two-bedroom apartment with her children, 12year-old Sally and 7-year-old Paul.
“Everybody in the neighborhood and the kids' school is sick. I don't know why we're not. I mean, we don't have any particular routine, other than eating healthier,” Carton says, while cracking two organic, pastureraised chicken eggs into a pan for Paul and Sally's breakfast.
Doctor Bill Grant of the Center for Researching American Pathology (CRAP) in Houston, Texas, has been leading a team of scientist-like researchers in an intensive study of the Carton family to determine how they have miraculously avoided illness while, all around them, unfortunate neighbors are planted firmly on their toilets, clutching their abdomens as their eyes well up with tears of pain.
“We've looked into everything,” Dr. Grant explains, “and these are fairly normal people. Their DNA is just as chimp-like as yours and mine.”
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the Carton family's apparent immunity to salmonella is that they eat eggs.
“Whether we're visiting a friend's small farm and receiving a gift of fresh eggs, or picking up some certified organic eggs at the local farmers market, or spending a few bucks extra for a dozen Vital Farms pasture-raised eggs from Whole Foods,” Carton says, “we eat 'em pretty regularly, and, like I said, we haven't gotten sick.”
Grant says that after the initial series of tests on the Cartons— DNA analysis, blood work, CT scan and basic algebra—revealed overwhelming normality, the CRAP team next studied the family's diet, as well as Ms. Carton's sexual history, habits, turn-ons and turn-offs.
“We really thought we'd find something there—perhaps a specific combination of nutrients or an abnormal accumulation of orgone energy—to account for the immunity.”
Unable to solve the mystery of the Cartons' wellness, Grant devised a last-ditch plan:
He purchased six Banana Pudding Cup desserts from a local fast-food restaurant, fed three of them to a control group of unpaid CRAP interns, who were told that their future in science depended on their participation, and gave the other three to Carton.
The interns all got violent cases of the shakes and the runs and had to be replaced with new interns. But Carton, whose daughter Sally had gone online to look up the pudding ingredients, refused to participate.
“I don't feed artificial crap to my family,” she said. “And besides, how do I know where the eggs in the pudding come from? I'm beginning to regret agreeing to this study. We need the money, but I draw the line at poisoning my kids.”
Grant is also fed up. “Carton is clearly a liberal. We suspected it since she's a single mom, but refusing to consume the pudding and allowing her daughter to become a little miss smarty-pants proves it. It makes her impossible to work with. I think this CRAP study is over.”
But what of Carton's concern regarding the origin of the eggs?
Grant cites an article by Kyle Gillis on the website of the Business and Media Institute, an organization bravely devoted to “advancing the culture of free enterprise in America.” Gillis points out how the “liberal media” likes to “promote organic lifestyles and bash mass-produced foods,” but, he adds, Time magazine, that bastion of liberalism, made the “surprising admission” a few weeks ago that “organic eggs are no healthier than factory eggs.”
Time argued that a recent USDA study proves organic eggs are indistinguishable from factory eggs.
“Oh yeah, my daughter knows about that,” Carton says. “Sally, tell the nice reporter what you learned.”
“According to health website Rodale News,” Sally told Presently Tense, “Time misread the USDA study, which analyzed visual egg quality, not nutritional value. Recent findings from Penn State University showed that organic chicken eggs had three times more omega-3 fatty acids, 40 percent more vitamin A and twice as much vitamin E.
“Rodale also encourages seeking out pasture-raised chicken eggs since healthier chickens tend to produce healthier eggs. This requires research since free-range egg claims are not government regulated.
“Look,” Sally continued, “those salmonella-tainted eggs are branded with evocative names like ‘Farm Fresh,' ‘Sunshine' and ‘Mountain Dairy,' but they all come from the same Iowa factory, owned by a guy named Jack DeCoster, who, according to The New York Times, has been fined in the past by regulators. The Times reports that in DeCoster's factory workers were forced to handle manure and dead chickens with their bare hands and to live in trailers infested with rats. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich called Mr. DeCoster's operation ‘an agricultural sweatshop.' “Anyway, the point is moot for me,” Sally said. “I'm going vegan.”
Write to dak@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.