I got salmonellosis soon after I started eating yolks

[JeffC]

I'm 24, male. I almost never get sick. Before I got salmonellosis, I weighed 123.5 lb on about 3000 kcal/day. I'm not on the 100% raw diet, but I've eaten only fruits, OO, Macadamia nuts, and a little animal food for over a year. I haven't been on any antibiotics recently. In January, I started draining yolks into my orange juice (my goal had been to get to 6 per day).

Egg yolk 'diary' (done from memory...):

12 Jan 2008: Consumed just a drop of yolk. Started with organic 250mg omega-3 eggs.
13 Jan 2008: Consumed less than ½ yolk.
14 Jan 2008: Consumed less than ½ yolk.
15 Jan 2008: Consumed ½ yolk.
16 Jan 2008: Consumed ½ yolk.
17 Jan 2008: Consumed 1 yolk.
18 Jan 2008: Consumed 1 yolk.
19 Jan 2008: Consumed 1 yolk.
20 Jan 2008: Consumed 2 yolks.
21 Jan 2008: Consumed 2 yolks. Switched to Eggland's Best organic 100mg omega-3 eggs (because they were the store's freshest ones).
22 Jan 2008: Consumed 2 yolks.
23 Jan 2008: Consumed 3 yolks.
24 Jan 2008: Consumed 3 yolks. Switched to Eggland's Best non-organic, cage-free 100mg omega-3 eggs (because they were the store's freshest ones).
25 Jan 2008: Consumed 3 yolks. Somewhere around this time (don't remember exact date), my nose had bloody mucus in it. Otherwise, I was feeling great.
26 Jan 2008: Consumed 4 yolks.
27 Jan 2008: Consumed 4 yolks.
28 Jan 2008: Consumed 4 yolks.
29 Jan 2008: Consumed 5 yolks.
30 Jan 2008: Consumed 5 yolks.
31 Jan 2008: Abdominal area first acted weird this night. Consumed 5 yolks afterward. I struggled to finish them. About 10 minutes later, I vomited.
1 Feb 2008: Abdominal cramps, almost no appetite.
2 Feb 2008: Abdominal cramps, still little appetite.
3 Feb 2008: Abdominal cramps, slightly more appetite.
4 Feb 2008: Still got abdominal cramps from high sugar foods. Appetite improved.
5 Feb 2008: No more cramps, but I had to vacate bowels 3 times. Liquid but non-bloody stool each time. Weight down to 120 lb. Appetite was up to about 80–85% normal level.
6 Feb 2008: Feeling ok except for a little abdominal discomfort. Up to 121 lb.

I'm not sure what happened. None of the eggshells were porous, and the yolks were intact and looked ok before I drained them. Now I'm hoping I don't get reactive arthritis. I'm going to stay off eggs.

[Oscar]

Welcome on the forum.

My guess would be that you went too fast with the egg yolks.
Also, did you eat other animal protein those days?

[MJ]

How do you know you got salmanella and that you just didn't eat an egg(s) that had spoiled?

[JeffC]

My guess would be that you went too fast with the egg yolks.

I agree.

Also, did you eat other animal protein those days?

Indeed, the only major difficulty of the diet for me is switching from heated to raw animal food. I've been trying to switch from simmered chicken-breasts to either sashimi or yolks. I tried sashimi first, but I haven't found any that I like yet. So I went ahead with yolks. I decreased my intake of chicken as I increased the yolk intake. When I got sick, I was eating just a thumb-sized piece of chicken each day. I was going to stop eating the chicken when I got to 6 yolks.

How do you know you got salmanella and that you just didn't eat an egg(s) that had spoiled?

The symptoms and recovery time match up with salmonellosis.

It has been a week, and so today I'm feeling pretty much back to normal.

[dionysus]

I don't like eggs

[JeffC]

Yeah, I didn't really like them too much either.

I think tilapia might work for me.

[RRM]

Now I'm hoping I don't get reactive arthritis. I'm going to stay off eggs.

Thats a little dramatic if you ask me.
Salmonella is just bacteria.
You need to build a resistance against them; need to build up your defense. Staying off eggs is an overeaction, in my opnion.
I love egg yolks as a sauce over raw fish.

[fictor]

I started at 1 egg yolk, then upped to 5 the day after.
Continued to do 5 a day, then reduced to 3 a day.

As you guys probably guessed, I missed out on the
part that says to start easy on the yolks

Anyways, I have not gotten sick yet, but I live in Norway, where
salmonella is almost non-existent. Luckily!

[Sunkist]

I've been eating raw egg yolks as part of my daily diet for about 6 years now...only once did I ever have an adverse reaction that I at least believed to be related to raw rgg yolks that I consumed that day.

But I wouldn't panic and stop eating egg yolks. The thing with diet and with life...it's best to get to a nice steady pace of things...not start and then stop something after one incident.....

just be very sure of your egg sources...I use a local farm and also a local agriculture academy where the chickens are running all around in the fresh air and barnyard grasses.

Good luck and don't give up!!

[sugarbarbie]

I thought eggs had to be fresh organic...seems to me OP had a problem when they changed to nonorganic....I'm going back to read the book because if it doesn't HAVE tobe organic I sure can save a whole bunch of money on eggs.

[RRM]

It doesnt have to be organic, like the salmon doesnt have to be organic, or the tomatoes etc etc.
Of course, organic is better, but you can only afford to be as 'organic' as your wallet affords you to be.
You can still be on the 100% strict diet without eating any organic food though...

[JeffC]

I am trying egg yolks again. This time I'm going very, very slowly—consuming every other day instead of every day, and increasing the amount after 6 days instead of 3 days. And, for now at least, I don't plan to do more than a maximum of 2 yolks per day.

I wish I had more information about how exactly the body's defense system adapts to bacteria.

[Havas]

If you were diagnosed with actual salmonellosis -- then you almost certainly didn't get it from eggs. 0.003% (1 in 30,000) of eggs contain traces of salmonella. On the other hand, if you look at chicken meat it can be over 60% infection rate (region specific).

So what most likely happened, is you only boiled the meat for a small amount of time (considering you're on a raw diet and all) and contracted it from that.

@RPM according to the same source, turkey has a 6% infection rate of salmonella, which is about a tenth that of chicken. But it sounds like you've built a tolerance.

JeffC, do a bit of google searching and try find somewhere that gives you statistics on the "unsafeness" of raw eggs. And then base your action on that. I've yet to come across one that is the slightest concerning. If you come to the same conclusions I do, just wash your egg shell before cracking it. And eat as many as you like, you're not going to get sick from them.

[RRM]

I wish I had more information about how exactly the body's defense system adapts to bacteria.

What i always find very helpful, is this notion:
When you go on vacantion to a third world country and eat the local food, there is quite a risk that you get sick from eating it, whereas the locals dont. Once you have been living there for a couple of weeks or months, the food doesnt make you sick anymore.

People that are most vulnerable to 'dangerous' bacteria, are those who never come across these bacteria, like elderly in elderly homes (eating sterile foods all the time) or tourists going to a far-away country.

[johndela1]

If a person goes out and drinks from a natural stream or river they can get sick. A domestic dog won't get sick even though they have only been drinking sterile water. Are humans simply weaker in this area than other animals? It seems like my dog is simply more tolerant to this than me with no conditioning. I have read their stomach pH has something to do with this.

I've heard of people getting really sick from drinking out of streams or worse drinking stagnant water. Is this something that we would get used to? Can we become immune to things like ghirardia?

I've read that dogs simply don't get salmonella.