Honduran president defends melons by eating one: "I eat this fruit without any fear"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

(CNN) -- He's no Julia Child, but Honduran President Manuel Zelaya showed Tuesday he can attack a cantaloupe and U.S. government claims in a single motion. "It's not in our fruit," he said about last week's report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some Honduran cantaloupes may be contaminated with salmonella. "It's not true what they are saying. Logically, we believe it is an error."

Then, the 55-year-old father of four asked his viewers to indulge him as he engaged in a show-and-tell demonstration. "Permit me a second," he said as he stretched his left arm across the tabletop and outside the view of the camera, then pulled into view a box of fruit.

"Here I have the box of melons that we are exporting to the United States; here are the protective bags," he said.

Zelaya lifted a cantaloupe from the box, placed it in front of him, then grabbed a knife and a fork. "Permit me to make a demonstration," he said, then cut open the fruit, sliced off a chunk, put it in his mouth and chewed vigorously. "I eat this fruit without any fear," he said with his mouth full. "It's a delicious fruit. Nothing happens to me!"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/03/25/honduran.melon/index.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Ok, where have I seen this stunt before?

Oh yes, Mad Cow Disease

Not that I can blame him for it btw

[Forkboy]

2. I defend spaghetti in much the same way.

[IntravenousDemilo]

3. Cantaloupes, with their rough skin, carry all sorts of pathogens.

Some of them get there while being processed, and some come from shoppers who feel them as they're going through the bin. In any case, they are exposed to a lot of hands, and the texture of the rind makes it easy for a cantaloupe to pick up germs. Smooth-skinned melons aren't as problematic.

Which is why I always wash a cantaloupe thoroughly before I cut into it, no matter where it came from, because when you cut through the salmonella on the skin, it gets on your knife and is passed on to the part you eat. Come to think of it, I wash all fruit before I eat it, because of pesticides.

Basically it's like this: the interior of the melon, the part you consume, doesn't have salmonella or E. coli or any other surface-born microbes unless it comes into contact with the surface somehow.

[Lasher]

4. That makes sense. n/t

[soothsayer]

5. cantaloupe is one of the fruits you are allowed to fertilize with human poop

which is why I think we've seen a rise in E. coli problems. Yeah, yeah, the sewage is treated; give me a break