Harm Reduction Choline Bitartrate and Acceptable E Coli count

[FlawedByDesign]

This probably a stupid question but is <10CFU per gram an acceptable E. coli count? I assume it is or the vendor would most likely not include this info on the certificate of analysis. I read that 1-10CFUs of E. coli per 100ml of drinking water is considered low risk but I?m having a hard time putting that in perspective compared to say 5000mgs of choline bitartrate. With something like E. coli I?d rather ask a stupid question than take any chances.

 

[g0to]

I think the way its measured is theres a cutoff point i.e: The testing machinery is built to detect that theres less than 10CFU but not how much. Perhaps that is some type of health code standard.

 

[Scrofula]

Ten "colony forming units". That's essentially ten single bacterium per 100mL of water, or one in ever 10mL. Essentially nothing.

It has to do with how you measure microbes: the actual "True" number in bulk is knowable only to God; instead you would have to squirt a series of dilutions onto a plate (petri dish) with food that allows a colony to grow, that you can see with the naked eye. Then work backward through your dilutions to estimate an actual concentration.

The specific assay will be different when starting with a dilute sample and probably on a microwell plate (96 tiny petri dishes in one). For a 100mL sample, you'd need ten microwell plates, for 1000 x 100uL "wells", and 0 - 10 wells that grow bacteria. Plus controls. At that level, you don't know if it spilled off someone's face or not.

Or just spin down 100mL of sample, miniprep, and quantitative PCR. I don't know what's cheaper.

Then again a guy could take a swipe of every 100,000 nutrient bars or whatever, and grow on selective media, and compare to some old standard.

Bottom line is 10cfu is probably the "limit of detection" or "limit of relevance" for whatever assay they use.

Context is important: if it's in your tap water it means someone's shitting in it, or there's a leak from a septic system. It could be used as a measure of how well a municipal water supply is treating the water.

Keep in mind that E. coli is necessary in your guts and usually harmless outside your guts. A very few strains are pathogenic.

E. coli exists by the trillions and trillions and trillions in your guts right now, and you probably launch more than the population of humans on Earth into the air every time you flush your toilet.

 

[Slow_Mobius]

You would normally just perform serial dilutions and extrapolate numbers if you already know what you're working with, but the big labs that do that kind of work might have a more high-throughput protocol worked out using something like flow cytometry. qPCR is relatively expensive, laborious, and inaccurate.

Anyways, it's fine OP. It's just a quality control standard. It means you should have less than 10 bacteria per gram of your choline. Its not something to worry about

 

[Scrofula]

For home consumer products, things like raisins, grunts take a sample every thousand pounds or whatever, do a quick pulse in food processor, filter, and literally count the insect parts.

For choline, I'm sure it's the same, only every thousand pounds you add a little LB broth and wait for growth.

Like SM said, it's about making sure everyone's washing their hands, the presence of E. coli (at low levels) isn't dangerous to you.

(I had an intense and heated discussion with a colleague about the "knowability" of a microbe count. This was for virions so it's even more unknowable. (He was right, btw.))