If you’ve ever suffered from food poisoning, chances are it was an experience you didn’t soon forget. In fact, even the thought of ever eating the food that made you sick may make you lose your appetite.
By Judy Morganthall
But you may not even realize that you felt sick because of something you ate. Perhaps you thought
you’d picked up a bug. With any number of foodborne illnesses, your symptoms may start with a
stomachache but can lead to far worse, life-threatening problems.
Contact your physician or go to the emergency room for diagnosis and treatment if you’re concerned
about your symptoms.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, 76 million people in the
United States suffer food-borne illnesses each year. Some 325,000 patients are hospitalized, and more than 5,000 people die.
Blame the bacteria
According to Christa D’Ostroph, R.D., a dietitian with FirstHealth’s Diabetes Self-Management
Program, food-borne illnesses are caused by foods or beverages that are contaminated by bacteria, a
virus or a parasite. If food is not handled, stored or cooked properly, it could lead to a food-borne illness.
“Bacteria are naturally found in healthy animals
that are raised for food,” D’Ostroph says, adding,
“Bacteria can be destroyed when the food is cooked
properly.”
Food service businesses, including restaurants,
schools and hospitals, have strict guidelines to follow.
County health departments inspect and grade
kitchens that serve the public, but sometimes those
rules aren’t followed. An employee who hasn’t been
properly trained or takes a shortcut in handling food
may cause someone to get sick.
Also remember to wash your hands carefully after
you visit a petting zoo.
At home, where most people don’t follow the
same guidelines, family members and guests may be
at risk.
“More than 80 percent of food-borne illnesses
occur in your own home,” says Calvin Spencer,
Food and Nutrition manager for FirstHealth Richmond
Memorial Hospital.
Whether you are eating at home or dining at a restaurant, you can sometimes rely on your senses
to determine what’s safe to eat. If your food doesn’t
smell or taste the way it should, there could be a
problem, says Vivian Ratliff, clinical nutrition manager
at FirstHealth Moore Regional and Richmond
Memorial hospitals.
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| Is your meat hot when it’s served? Even rare steak
or tuna should be hot on the outside. At a restaurant,
it’s your right as a consumer to send food back
if it’s questionable. “When in doubt,” says Ratliff,
“throw it out.”
Vivian Ratliff, R.D.
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The elderly, children and people who have weakened
immune systems because of illness are more
vulnerable for developing food-borne illnesses.
“Our hospitals use the program HACPC (Hazard
Analysis and Critical Point Control), which was
first developed by NASA to protect the astronauts,
to protect our customers,” says Ratliff. “It helps
us to monitor food from the time it arrives on
our dock until a customer in the cafeteria or a
patient gets his meal.”
Watch what you eat
There are some 250 food-borne illnesses.
Here are the most recognized
ones with their symptoms:
E. coli infections can be caused by
undercooked or raw hamburger, along
with alfalfa sprouts and unpasteurized milk,
fruit juices or cider. The infection typically
develops in one to eight days after the contaminated
food is eaten. Symptoms are abdominal pain,
vomiting, and severe diarrhea or bloody stools.
Calvin Spencer
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“Treat an E. coli infection by replacing lost fluids
and electrolytes,” D’Ostroph says. “It’s important to
rehydrate your body and clear out the toxins. Antidiarrheal
medicines are not recommended, because
they could slow down the process of clearing the
infection out of your body.”
Most patients recover in five to 10 days, but E. coli
can be fatal if the patient suffers from severe dehydration
or intestinal damage. If you can’t keep fluids
down, you may need intravenous fluids. Dry mouth
or throat, dizziness and decreased urine output are
signs of dehydration.
E. coli can be destroyed when food is cooked to
safe temperatures. If it’s not cooked completely
and a lot of bacteria are ingested, a severe infection
could damage the lining of the intestine and lead to
a blood disorder. Call the doctor if you have bloody
diarrhea.
Salmonella is commonly linked to bacteria in
contaminated eggs and poultry, but the bacteria also
can be found in meat, milk, seafood, and some fruits
and vegetables. Egg custards, improperly cooked
mayonnaise, ice cream, sauces and other protein
foods are specific items that could put you at risk for
the infection.
Also, as iguanas and lizards grow in popularity as
pets, a salmonella infection can be passed from these
reptiles to humans.
Diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever occur
within eight to 72 hours after the contaminated
food is eaten.
Additional symptoms
may be chills,
headache, nausea and
vomiting. Symptoms
may last up to
seven days.
Health professionals recommend
cooking eggs until the yolk and white
are firm. Don’t use recipes in which eggs
remain raw or are only partially cooked. Don’t
eat cookie dough that contains eggs. It’s also important
to rinse produce.
 Trichinosis is caused by eating raw, undercooked
pork or meat from wild game. To avoid the illness,
cook the meat thoroughly and clean the meat
grinder if you prepare your own ground meat.
Symptoms, including nausea, fatigue and fever, can occur within a day or two of the infection; and the
illness can last for months.
“More than 80 percent of food-borne illnesses occur in your
own home.”
—Calvin Spencer, Food and Nutrition Manager at FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital
Botulism is often caused by improperly homecanned
foods, but commercially prepared food
causes a small percentage of outbreaks. All canned
and preserved foods should be properly processed
and prepared. Commercial cans with bulging
lids should be returned unopened to the place of
purchase. Home-canned vegetables
should be boiled, with stirring,
for at least
three minutes before
eating. Symptoms of food-borne botulism include blurred or double vision,
dry mouth and muscle paralysis that may affect
breathing.
Infant botulism has been associated with eating
honey that contains the bacterial spores.
Viral food-borne illnesses are caused by people
who prepare food. Hepatitis A, a highly contagious
liver infection caused by the Hepatitis
A virus, may be passed through the hands of
infected food handlers. Some people who are
infected never develop symptoms, but others may
feel like they have a severe flu. Shellfish and other
foods that may have been exposed to sewage can
also cause viral illnesses.
Making sure
your food is safe
Have you ever returned home
after eating at a party or a restaurant
and wondered why you suddenly felt
like you were coming down with the
flu? Those flu-like symptoms, which may
last 24 hours, could be caused by something
you ate.
So what can you do to avoid a foodborne
illness? According to Christina
Turbeville, manager of Food and Nutrition
Services at FirstHealth Montgomery
Memorial Hospital, the first thing to do
when you enter a restaurant is look at
the sanitation grade.
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Christina Turbeville manages the Food
and Nutrition department
at FirstHealth
Montgomery Memorial
Hospital. |
“If it’s less than 90, think hard about if
you really want to eat there,” she says.
A rating of 90 to 100 is an “A.” A
sanitation grade below 90 means that the
inspection could have turned up rodents or pests, sanitation problems, employees not wearing gloves or hairnets, or food
temperatures that weren’t in the appropriate range.
Don’t be overly influenced by positive
restaurant reviews. It’s still important to
check the sanitation grade, says Turbeville,
who once found a “C” rating in a four-star establishment.
The grade must be posted, so if you
don’t see it before being seated, ask. “And
when you pull up at a drive-thru, ask for
the sanitation grade,” Turbeville says.
Next, look around at the facility. Are
the tables and floors clean? Do the
food servers look clean? These can
be signs of the general cleanliness
of the area where your food is
being prepared and how it’s being handled.
And make sure food servers
wash their hands after handling
money. “You wouldn’t want to
know what’s on money,” Turbeville says.
At the three FirstHealth of the
Carolinas hospitals, any food that is
left on the serving line at the end of mealtime
is discarded. “Food has four hours
from preparation and being served until
bacteria starts to grow,” says Turbeville.
In the case of meals taken to patient
rooms, hot food stays hot and cold food
stays cold because of the insulated carts
and thermal plates used to deliver the
meals. If a patient can’t eat right away, the
meal can be kept in the kitchen or a new meal will be delivered.
From washing hands and wearing
hairnets and gloves to watching times and
temperatures, food safety procedures are
stressed in ongoing training programs. According
to Calvin Spencer, who manages Food and Nutrition Services at FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital, the hospital
follows many safeguards to ensure the
safety of the food. Because patients
already have weakened immune systems,
they’re even more susceptible to bacteria, he says.
Food temperatures are checked from
the time the food is delivered until the
time it’s served in the cafeteria. If the food is being served in patient rooms, nurses often are waiting to deliver the trays to
patients when the food arrives on the patient floors.
Spencer stresses the importance of monitoring
temperatures at home, too—starting
inside the refrigerator, which should
be below 40 degrees, and using a meat
thermometer to ensure that meats are
cooked to at least 140 degrees. Bacteria begin to rapidly produce at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. |
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