2023-10-05 11:25:00
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Every year, around 2.4 million people Food poisoning occurs in the United Kingdom, mostly due to viral or bacterial contamination. Most people recover within a few days without treatment, but not everyone is that lucky.
As a microbiologist, I am probably more aware than most of the risk of food infections. These are some of the things I pay attention to.
when it comes to eating, better indoors
I rarely eat at picnics or barbecues, as the risk of food poisoning increases when food is consumed outdoors.
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Keeping your hands clean when handling food is key to not getting sick, but how often do we find hot running water and soap in a park or on a beach? We can use alcohol hand gel (it is better than nothing), but it does not eliminate all germs.
Furthermore, food tends to appeal to a whole range of flying and crawling bugs, such as flies, wasps and ants. All of them can transfer germs like E. coli, Salmonella y Listeria to what we put in our mouths.
Keeping perishable foods cold and covered is essential, as germs can double in number if food is allowed to are heated at 30ºC for more than a few hours. For barbecues, the meat must be well cooked, and a meat thermometer It is a good investment to avoid food poisoning. It is not advisable to eat meat if its internal temperature is below 70ºC.
buffets: a source of contamination
Knowing under what conditions food-related bacteria prefer to grow, I am keenly aware of the limited microbiological safety of hot and cold buffet displays.
Inside, food can be exposed to contamination from insects, dust and, above all, people. Visitors to the buffet transmit germs when they touch the food, or when they sneeze and cough near the exhibitors. On the other hand, it must be taken into account insect contamination –like flies or wasps– that land on uncovered food. Germs can also be deposited from the air, which is rich in bacteria, fungi and viruses.
Food poisoning is, therefore, an inevitable risk when we have lunch or dinner at a buffet.
I always look at the clock when I’m in them, since there is a two-hour catering rule: perishable foods They are no longer safe for consumption within two hours if not kept covered and refrigerated. The problem is that buffets are usually prepared before the diners arrive, so It’s hard to know how long they’ve been there. the appetizingly arranged platters of meat, seafood, salads, desserts and fruits and vegetables.
At hot buffets, such as those served at hotel breakfasts, I always avoid warm food, since the bacteria that cause food poisoning can grow rapidly when food is kept below 60ºC. Hot foods should be served just like that, hot. That is, at a temperature of at least 60ºC.
If I have any questions about the food safety On offer, grudging breakfast includes freshly toasted bread and individually packaged jam.
oysters? no, thanks
There are some foods I never eat. Raw seafood, such as oysters, is one of them. This is because Oysters are filter feeders and can concentrate germsAs the Vibrio and norovirus, in their tissues.
An oyster contaminated with Vibrio It doesn’t look, smell or taste any different, but can make us very sick. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 80,000 people get infections from Vibrio from raw oysters. AND one hundred people die from vibriosis every year only in USA
It is also possible to get food poisoning from eating any raw seafood (clams, mussels, whelks, cockles). I only eat seafood that is well cooked, because heat effectively kills harmful germs.
Bag salads: faster, but more contaminated
I never eat bagged salads, largely because one of my areas of research is the safety of fresh salads. It has been discovered that bagged lettuce may contain food poisoning germs as E. coli, Salmonella y Listeria.
My research group has discovered what These pathogens grow more than a thousand times better when given the juice of salad leaves, even if the salad bag is refrigerated. The really worrying thing is that the germs mentioned use salad juices to become most virulent and, therefore, more effective in causing an infection.
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Bagged lettuce should be kept refrigerated and consumed quickly.
For salad lovers alarmed by this information, most bagged salads They are safe if kept refrigeratedthey are washed well before use – yes, even ready-to-eat salad should be washed – and they are consumed as soon as possible after purchasing them.
reheating cooked rice and other culinary mistakes
As far as cooking practices go, I have an exhaustive list of dos and don’ts.
For perishable foods, I regularly check the Expiry dates. But even if it has not yet expired and the food packaging seems swollen, or when the food is opened it has a different look or smell than expectedI throw it in the trash without thinking twice, since it could be contaminated.
A germy sneeze can travel more than 2 meters
I never use the same ones chopping boards for raw and cooked foods. And washing my hands before and after handling any food is already instinctive.
One of my “never do” rules is reheat cooked rice. It is because raw rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, a germ that poisons food. Although the cells of the Bacillus They die when cooked, the spores survive. If the rice is allowed to cool and stand at room temperature, the spores turn into bacteria, the number of which will increase rapidly, as rice is a good growing medium Bacillus at this temperature.
He Bacillus grown in rice can produce toxins that, within a few hours of ingestion, can cause vomiting and diarrhea that last up to 24 hours.
I think having a high level of food safety awareness It makes me be the first in line at buffets, eat breakfast with extreme caution in hotels and insistently look at the clock to see how often perishable foods are replenished.
The advantage of being a microbiologist is that you know very well how to avoid food poisoning. And, of course, people blindly trust that what we cook at home is absolutely sure for consume.
Primrose FreestoneSenior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology, University of Leicester
This article was originally published in The Conversation. read the original.
#microbiologist #eat