Welcome to 2012 and oh yes, to the heat, the humidity, the heat, the humidity…and more humidity of Far North Queensland. Not only is this the place of warm for migrating southerners, it is also the preferred place for bacteria to live and thrive. I am indeed referring to the horrible experience that many of us are familiar with – food poisoning. It’s an experience that none want to share in and very few people quickly forget the experience of pain in the stomach, constant nausea, vomiting and chronic diarrhoea. Food poisoning can happen minutes, hours or even days after the suspect meal. As such, hindsight is probably not as helpful as precaution in the first place.
Recon on the enemy
There are micro-critters in our food that normally exist in amounts small enough for our body’s immune system to deal with. However, where conditions allow the ‘bag bugs’ to multiply, they are able to produce dangerous chemicals in amounts that are enough to cause us to be unwell. Most of the time, these bugs and their chemicals attack the small intestine, which is why most of the symptoms are, both literally and figuratively speaking, a pain in the gut!
Symptoms of food poisoning can vary widely. Symptoms usually present as diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, dehydration, fever, stomach pain, bloating or dizziness. Although deaths are uncommon in Australia, food poisoning can be dangerous particularly for children, the elderly, the already ill and and pregnant women.
The battle plan
To put it simply, use your common sense and your common senses of sight, smell, touch and taste. If there is doubt in your mind about it, it’s best to leave it alone rather than risk a week of gastro…
Bugs infiltrating the lunch box
Whether you are packing lunches for school or work, we need to ensure that food isn’t in the ‘bug preferred’ environment for too long. Bugs like to breed between 12 to 60oC so cooling foods quickly below this range, and heating food above
Lunch boxes should always contain an ice brick, particularly if there is no fridge at work or school. Although all foods can be contaminated, the riskiest foods include:
- Moist protein foods such as eggs, meats, cheese, milk, yoghurt
- And meals that mix cooked and raw foods (e.g. salads, sushi)
Bugs hiding in the home
- At the very minimum, if you are making a meal, ensure that you clean knives and cutting boards between cutting different foods. Most supermarkets sell colour coded chopping boards; that make separating foods easier.
- When storing leftovers; ensure that they are covered so they don’t infect other foods in the cupboard or fridge.
- Don’t store cooked food with raw foods. Don’t store cooked foods above raw foods.
- When storing hot foods in the refrigerator, bugs multiply while the food is cooling. Storing foods in a shallow dish with the greatest possible surface area is the safest.
Bugs go out
- Although most food service workers are highly trained in food safety; always ask how long food has been sitting in hot boxes or out on display before ordering. Like us all in our jobs; time may get away and bugs may start to play.
- For most of us, we tend to multitask where a trip to the supermarket may be followed by a few quick stops afterward. It is a good idea to bring an esky with ice bricks to keep raw foods cool on the way home.
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