How to Protect Yourself From Food Poisoning

This article shows seventeen things you can do to protect yourself from food poisoning

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• general cleaning materials
• this how to article

1. Each year over seventy-five million people get sick from the food they eat. Five thousand of those end up dieing from their illness. The Center for Disease Control ( CDC ) estimates that over eighty percent of all food-borne illnesses are caused by unknown or undiscovered agents.(1) The time from exposure to illness varies greatly with food-borne infection. Onset can occur as soon as twenty minutes or stretch out as far as six weeks from the exposure window. Women who are pregnant as well as young children, the elderly, and those with a compromised immune system should take extra precautions to avoid food poisoning as they are in high risk categories for severe reaction to exposure. Protecting yourself from food poisoning is becoming more and more important as public health data findings show an five times increase in the amount of harmful bacteria in our food supply in the year 2000 when compared to data from the early 1940's.(2) A proactive approach is the best way to protect yourself from food-borne illness. Here are seventeen things you can do to protect yourself from food poisoning
2. The best way you can protect yourself from food poisoning is to wash your hands frequently when cooking and/or handling food. Wash with soap and hot water before and after handling uncooked food.
3. Always keep your refrigerator and freezer cold. Common bacteria grow rapidly if the temperature of their medium is over forty degrees Fahrenheit. Your freezer should be set a zero degrees Fahrenheit.
4. Wash your cooking utensils thoroughly and keep them in a clean dry place.
5. Cook all of your meats and eggs thoroughly before eating them. Internal temperature should be at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit to protect yourself from food poisoning.
6. Refrigerate your leftovers quickly after meals. As soon as your foods have begun to cool it is time to refrigerate them. This is especially important with seafoods and other meats.
7. Take care when choosing produce at the market. Bruises and cracks can allow bacteria to slip in and find a comfortable home to grow.
8. Wash your meats and vegetables thoroughly before cooking. Take special care with greens as their structure gives a good starting point for bacterial growth.
9. Use only pasteurized juice and milk products. Pasteurization does deplete the nutrients from these foods somewhat but its better than risking a serious case of food poisoning and a simple way to protect yourself from food poisoning.
10. Make sure your leftovers are cooked until they reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees as well. This will help kill off any bacteria that may have grown while the leftovers were sitting in the fridge.
11. Keep pests under control at worst and eliminated at best. Pests such as bugs and rats carry potentially deadly germs that can easily spread in the envionment they inhabit. Show them the door quickly to keep your cooking and living areas clean.
12. Use a air filtration system in your household. Many of the better air filtration systems now come equiped with ultra violet modules that have proven germ killing abilities. Using a air filtration system will cut the spread of air-borne germs in your household greatly.
13. Always use hot water to wash your dishes with, along with a good quality dish detergent.
14. Either drain dry your dishes or use a fresh dish towel for each load of dishes when they come out of the washer.
15. Cleaning equipment should always be clean and dry. The microwave is a easy way to dry your towels and such, just be careful in doing so or you will end up with a smoky kitchen, a ruined towel and microwave.
16. Avoid purchasing food items at the market that have no expiration date. Avoid eating food items that have already expired. Those dates are there because of research that has been done showing the life expectancy of the items. Foods are dated conservatively to insure the safest product possible.
17. Do not over fill your fridge or freezer. Cooling most easily occurs when air can flow freely around foods.
18. Take notice of what your eating. Does it smell different than usual? Look different? Taste different? When in doubt just throw it away. Its easier to cook a new meal than deal with a case of food poisoning.

Tips & Warnings

• You may never encounter another case of food poisoning again after following these tips