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Abstract
The gastric stomach of humans is a barrier to food-borne pathogens, but Escherichia coli can survive at pH 2.0 if it is grown under mildly acidic conditions. Cattle are a natural reservoir for pathogenic E. coli, and cattle fed mostly grain had lower colonic pH and more acid-resistant E. coli than cattle fed only hay. On the basis of numbers and survival after acid shock, cattle that were fed grain had 106-fold more acid-resistantE. coli than cattle fed hay, but a brief period of hay feeding decreased the acid-resistant count substantially.
↵* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jbr8{at}cornell.edu.
