Drink your orange juice, mothers remind their children, in hopes of staving off colds.
It turns out oranges are a good choice for cows, too, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Not only do citrus products added to cattle feed help kill potentially harmful-to-humans bacteria in the animals' intestines, but cows actually like the taste, USDA scientists have found.
Scientists have conducted several studies that explore non-antibiotic methods to reduce foodborne pathogens that are found in the gut of food animals such as cattle. Reducing the germs harbored by animals may help create safer food for people, research suggests, because fewer disease-causing bacteria would be present during slaughter and processing.
For one study, the team of scientists fed dried orange peel pellets to animals for eight days. They found a tenfold reduction in Salmonella populations in the animals' intestinal contents.
Early studies showed that citrus products provide cattle with good roughage and vitamins, and the essential oils in such products provide a natural antibiotic effect, according to the news release.
Scientists have identified specific essential oils contained in citrus products that kill the pathogenic bacteria.
Read more about this research in the November/December 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.