Even a humble salad can put you at risk of food poisoning One in 20 supermarket salads could contain E.coli strain O157 The strain of E.coli found can cause severe gastroenteritis If there is E.coli lurking in salad, will a simple rinse under the tap be enough to get rid of it? The Health Protection Agency advises that all salad should be washed thoroughly by immersing in cold water, and also must not be contaminated by raw meat. Storage of vegetables is key: if salad bags are in the fridge and the temperature is less than four degrees, bacteria will not multiply as rapidly. What about other foods you eat raw? Without scaremongering, there are plenty of different types of food poisoning from raw food, but hygienic practices and food standards protect us most of the time. Listeria is possible from meat and salmonella is usually picked up from eating contaminated raw meat, eggs or dairy produce. The reason that these outbreaks make headlines is that thankfully they are not common. There are only about 200 cases a year of listeria in the UK. I’ve had an E.coli urine infection before. Is that anything to do with food? No it’s not. E.coli is the most common cause of bacterial urine infections in women in the UK, accounting for more than 70 per cent of cases. This is from self-contamination, as in women everything is rather close together anatomically. To be completely blunt, this is why little girls should always be told ‘wipe from front to back’. Fortunately, this strain is not related to O157 and is simple to treat Are we becoming more prone to food poisoning as our lives become more sterile? There is no evidence to suggest that this is the case. With the mass processing of food, the supply chain is still susceptible to contamination, as supposedly happened with this watercress, and we can’t be blase about that. When you look at figures over the past few years for food poisoning, rates of certain illnesses such as salmonella have steadily reduced, while O157 has increased. This is more to do with farming processes and contamination than our own immunity to these diseases.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 17:58:14 +0000
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