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common types of food poisoning & How to prevent food poisoning
from: NishiCommon culprits: Poorly cooked meat, raw foods and unwashed vegetables. These harbour germs that cause food poisoning. More often Food poisoning occurs through contaminated meat, poultry, eggs, milk and seafood.
Common types of Food Posioning & pathogens (bacteria that cause disease): Salmonella, E coli, Campylobacter, Giardia and some viruses such as Norwalk. Sometimes, eating toxic mushrooms can also cause symptoms of food poisoning.
What are the symptoms?
Different causes of food poisoning result in different symptoms. There is no fixed set of symptoms that can define the illness. Symptoms usually occur within hours of consuming contaminated food, but sometimes can even take days to manifest.
This can lead to misdiagnosis, especially because you may not be able to identify the offending foodstuff.
The typical symptoms of food poisoning are:
- Nausea
- Stomach cramps
- Diarrhoea
- Fever
How do I prevent food poisoning?
In the case of food poisoning, prevention is certainly better than cure.
- Always wash your hands before touching food. Always wash your hands after using the restroom, changing diapers or handling pets as well as after handling raw meat, poultry, seafood or eggs.
- Prevent cross-contamination via cutting boards, knives, sponges and countertops by keeping these clean and dry. Also make sure you clean surfaces thoroughly before preparing food on them.
- Wash all produce well before cooking. Rinse fruits and vegetables in running water to remove dirt and grime. Never defrost food at room temperature. Use the refrigerator, running water or the microwave oven.
- Cook food to the right temperature to ensure that illness-causing bacteria are killed. Put cooked meat on a clean platter rather than back on one that held the raw meat.
- Cook eggs till the yolk is firm. You have another reason to do this: avidin, a component in raw eggs can also prevent the absorption of biotin, an important B Vitamin.
- Refrigerate leftovers promptly. Avoid letting prepared food stand at room temperature for more than two hours.
- Do not pack your refrigerator. Cool air must circulate within to keep the temperature right and your food safe.
- Avoid cooking for others if you have a diarrhoeal illness.
- Packaged foods often have expiration dates. Check them before you eat something.
- While eating out, make sure the food is hot. As far as possible, avoid eating foods that have not been freshly prepared.
- Look at what you are eating and smell it! Your sense of smell might not be the best in the animal kingdom but, most often, it is sharp enough to check if something has gone bad.
- Don't drink unpasteurised fluids or untreated surface water.
- It might be a good idea to follow the policy, 'When in doubt, discard'. You can visit the friendly neighborhood restaurent again (if your taste buds rule you), but make sure you look (and smell) before you eat.
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