Food Poisoning - What You Eat CAN Make You Sick

Forget all the silly hype about “chemicals” in your food. Food poisoning can, in fact, kill you! According to the CDC, roughly 48 million Americans get sick from food-borne illness each year; 128,000 people go to the hospital and 3,000 die annually from food-borne illness outbreaks. In 2013 the CDC evaluated nearly 4,600 food-borne disease outbreaks from 1998 to 2008 with information on both the specific food causing the outbreak and the specific type of illness. They found that food-borne illness is accounted for in 17 food categories:

• Nearly half of illnesses were linked to produce. Produce includes fruits, nuts, leafy greens, and other vegetables.
• Of these produce foods, leafy greens were most often involved in food-borne illness. Norovirus was often the germ involved.
• Dairy was the second most frequent food source for infections.
• Contaminated poultry was to blame for the most deaths, involved in 19% of fatal cases. Many were linked to listeria and salmonella infections. Together, meat and poultry were to blame for 22% of illnesses and 29% of deaths.
• Dairy and eggs accounted for 20% of illnesses and 15% of deaths.
• Fish and shellfish accounted for 6.1% of illnesses and 6.4% of deaths.
• All 17 food categories were involved in some outbreaks, but the frequency for each category varied.

Half of the outbreaks with a known food involved foods with ingredients from several food categories, i.e. complex foods.

Food handlers who don’t wash their hands properly are often to blame for norovirus and other outbreaks. Other culprits are people in their own kitchens.

Most people are blissfully unaware of the dangers of bacterial contaminants in food. Linda Larson of FoodPoisoningBulletin.com lists the following mistakes commonly made in the kitchen:

1. Tasting or sniffing food to see if it’s still good. Food can become unsafe lo-o-ong before it “goes bad.” You can’t see, taste, or smell pathogenic bacteria in food, and the texture is not affected by any toxins. It takes just 10 E. coli bacteria to make you sick; that number is invisible in the tiniest bit of food.
2. Putting cooked or ready-to-eat foods on a plate that held raw meat. This cross-contamination can make you very ill. Always use separate plates, cutting boards, and utensils when you are handling raw meats, eggs, poultry, and seafood. Wash cutting boards right after you use them.
3. Thawing food on the counter. The “danger zone” of bacterial growth occurs in temperatures between 40°F and 140°F. Thawing foods can easily reach that temperature. Always thaw perishable foods in the fridge, or under cool running water or in the microwave with methods suggested by experts.
4. Washing meat or poultry. Washing and rinsing will not remove any bacteria from these products, but, in fact, will spread bacteria around the kitchen. Bacteria can aerosolize under running water and move up to three feet away.
5. Washing produce right after you get it home from the store. Only wash raw fruits and vegetables just before eating them, and wash them every time.
6. Letting food cool down before you put it in the refrigerator. The fridge is designed to cool food down rapidly to reduce bacterial growth. Transfer food to a shallow containers, using several if you are cooling a large amount, and put in the fridge within a few minutes.
7. Eating raw cookie dough, cake batter, and other foods containing cooked eggs (and flour). Raw eggs can harbor pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella. In 2016, an E. coli O121 and O26 outbreak was linked to General Mills flour.
8. Marinating meat or seafood on the counter. Pathogenic bacteria grow rapidly in the danger zone of 40°F to 140°F. And if a consumer uses the same marinade on raw and cooked meats or raw vegetables, it can cross-contaminate the raw foods. If you are going to use marinade again, or use it as a sauce, bring it to a full rolling boil just before serving.
9. Not washing your hands before you eat or prepare food. Wash your hands with water and soap for 20 seconds before and after handling food. Be sure to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom and after handling raw meats, seafood, poultry, and eggs.
10. Not replacing sponges and dish cloths often. Those items can hold literally millions of pathogenic bacteria for days and they can be a serious health risk. Forget “sanitizing” your sponges in the microwave. That does nothing but cause those pathogens to multiply. Replace them every week.
11. Ignoring mold on bread and other foods. According to Marianne Gravely, senior USDA technical information specialist, “... bread is like many other soft foods and ...it's very easy for the roots [of mold], or the tentacles, or whatever creepy word you want to use, to penetrate deeper into soft food." Mold spore roots go much farther into bread than our eyes can see then spreads very easily from one slice to the next. Throw the whole loaf away including the plastic bag it came in. Jam, fruits, soft cheeses and lunch meat also should be thrown away once mold is spotted on any part of it. [3] And don’t feed the moldy parts to your pets - it’s as toxic to you dog as it is to you and could actually kill your cat.
12. Undercooking meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs. These foods should be cooked to safe internal temperatures, and that temperature should be tested with a reliable food thermometer. Post this USDA chart on your kitchen cabinets for reference.

REFERENCES
Kathleen Doheny, "Most Common Foods for Foodborne Illness: CDC Report," Medscape, January 30, 2013, accessed September 21, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/Medscape-FoodPoison.

J. A. Painter et al., "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," CDC: Emerging Infectious Diseases, March 2013, accessed September 21, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/CDC-FoodPoison2013.

Giorgia Guglielmi, "Your Kitchen Sponge Harbors Zillions of Microbes. Cleaning It Could Make Things Worse," Science | AAAS, July 28, 2017, accessed July 31, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/SciMag-GermyKitchenSponges.

Linda Larson, "Ten Common Food Safety Mistakes," Food Poisoning Bulletin, April 06, 2017, accessed April 06, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/FdPoisBull-10Mistakes.

Lyndsey Matthews, "Science Explains Why Picking the Mold Off Your Bread Doesn't Work," Popular Mechanics, April 21, 2017, accessed July 26, 2017, http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a26184/moldy-bread-safety/.

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