1. What is foodborne illness?
2. What can I do to protect myself from foodborne illness?
3. How can I protect myself if I eat in restaurants?
4. Are some people more likely to contract a foodborne illness? If so, are there special precautions they should take?

What is foodborne illness?
The food supply in this country is among the safest in the world, but organisms that you can’t see, smell, or taste—bacteria, viruses and parasites—are everywhere in the environment. These microorganisms—called pathogens—can invade food and cause illness, sometimes severe and even life-threatening illness, especially in young children, older adults, and persons with weakened immune systems. In pregnant women, foodborne illness can endanger their unborn babies.

Common symptoms of foodborne illness include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting, headaches, muscle pain, and fever. Symptoms usually appear 12 to 72 hours after eating contaminated food but may occur as soon as 30 minutes or as long as 4 weeks later. Most people recover from a foodborne illness within 4 to 7 days without needing antibiotic treatment. If symptoms are severe or the person is very young, very old, pregnant, or already ill, call your doctor immediately.

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What can I do to protect myself from foodborne illness?
A few simple precautions can reduce your risk of foodborne illness:

CLEAN—wash hands and surfaces often

Bacteria, viruses, and parasites can be spread throughout the kitchen and get onto cutting boards, utensils, and countertops.

• Wash your cutting boards, dishes, utensils, and countertops with hot, soapy water after preparing each food item and before you go on to the next food.
• Wash produce. Rinse fresh fruits and vegetables in running tap water to remove visible dirt and grime. Remove and discard the outermost leaves of a head of lettuce or cabbage. Because bacteria can grow well on the cut surface of fruit or vegetable, be careful not to contaminate these foods while slicing them up on the cutting board, and avoid leaving cut produce at room temperature for many hours.

Don’t be a source of foodborne illness yourself.

• Wash your hands with hot, soapy water before and after handling food and after using the bathroom and handling pets.
• Wash your hands with soap and water before preparing food.
• Avoid preparing food for others if you yourself have diarrhea or other symptoms of gastroenteritis. Changing a baby’s diaper while preparing food is a bad idea that can easily spread illness.

SEPARATE—don’t cross-contaminate

Cross-contamination is the word for how bacteria, viruses, and parasites can be spread from one food product to another. This is especially true when handling raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs, so keep these foods and their juices away from ready-to-eat foods.

• Avoid cross-contaminating foods by washing hands, utensils, and cutting boards after they have been in contact with raw meat or poultry and before they touch another food. Put cooked meat on a clean platter, rather back on one that held the raw meat.
• Separate raw meat, poultry, and seafood from other foods in your grocery-shopping cart and in your refrigerator.
• If possible, use a different cutting board for raw meat, poultry and seafood products.
• Use separate plates for cooked food and raw foods.

COOK—cook food to proper temperatures

Foods are properly cooked when they are heated for a long enough time and at a high enough temperature to kill the harmful pathogens that cause foodborne illness.

• Use a clean thermometer that measures the internal temperature of cooked food to make sure meat, poultry, and casseroles are cooked sufficiently to kill bacteria.
• Cook eggs until the yolk and white are firm. If you use recipes in which eggs remain raw or only partially cooked, use pasteurized eggs.
• Fish should be opaque and flake easily with a fork.
• When cooking in a microwave oven, make sure there are no cold spots where bacteria can survive. For best results, cover food, stir, and rotate for even cooking. If there is no turntable, rotate the dish by hand once or twice during cooking.
• Bring sauces, soups, and gravy to a boil when reheating. Heat other leftovers thoroughly to at least 165°F.

CHILL—refrigerate foods promptly

Refrigerate foods quickly because cold temperatures keep harmful pathogens from growing and multiplying. So, set your refrigerator no higher than 40°F and the freezer at 0°F. Check these temperatures occasionally with an appliance thermometer.

• Refrigerate or freeze perishables, prepared foods, and leftovers within two hours or sooner.
• Do not defrost food at room temperature—thaw in the refrigerator, under cold running water, or in the microwave.
• Marinate foods in the refrigerator.
• Divide large amounts of leftovers into shallow containers for quick cooling in the refrigerator.
• Don’t pack the refrigerator. Cool air must circulate to keep food safe.

REPORT—report suspected foodborne illness to your health department

Your local health department is an important part of the food safety system. Often calls from concerned citizens are how outbreaks are first detected. If a public health official contacts you to find our more about an illness you had, your cooperation is important. In public health investigations, it can be as important to talk to healthy people as to ill people. Your cooperation may be needed even if you are not ill.

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How can I protect myself if I eat in restaurants?

First, you can protect yourself by choosing which restaurant to patronize. Most restaurants are inspected by the local health department to make sure they are clean and have adequate kitchen facilities. Find out how restaurants did on their most recent inspections, and use that score to help guide your choice. In many communities, the latest inspection score is posted in the restaurant.

Some restaurants have specifically trained their staff in principles of food safety. This is also good to know in deciding which restaurant to patronize.

You can also protect yourself from foodborne disease when ordering specific foods, just as you would at home. When ordering a hamburger, ask for it to be cooked to a temperature of 160oF and send it back if it is still pink in the middle. Before you order something that is made with many eggs pooled together, such as scrambled eggs, omelets or French toast, ask the waiter whether it was made with pasteurized egg, and choose something else if it was not.

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Are some people more likely to contract a foodborne illness? If so, are there special precautions they should take?

Young children, pregnant women, older adults and persons with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk for foodborne illness. Your immune systems may be weakened by a medical treatment, such as steroids or chemotherapy, or by a disease, such as AIDS, cancer or diabetes. You may also be at increased risk if you have liver disease or alcoholism or if you have decreased stomach acidity (from gastric surgery or the chronic use of antacids).

If you have a higher risk of foodborne illness you may want to avoid eating:

• Raw fish or shellfish, including oysters, clams, mussels and scallops
• Milk or soft cheeses unless they are labeled “made with pasteurized milk”
• Refrigerated patés or meat spreads (canned or shelf stable patés and meat spreads may be eaten)
• Raw or lightly cooked eggs or foods containing raw or lightly cooked eggs, such as certain salad dressings, cookie and cake batters, sauces, and beverages such as unpasteurized eggnog. Foods made from commercially pasteurized eggs are safe to eat.
• Refrigerated smoked seafood unless in a cooked dish such as a casserole
• Raw or undercooked meat or poultry
• Raw sprouts, such as alfalfa, clover and radish
• Unpasteurized or untreated fruit juices or vegetable juices—these juices will carry a warning label
• Some foods that are bought pre-cooked should be reheated because they can become contaminated with pathogens after they have been processed and packaged. These foods include: hot dogs, luncheon meats (cold cuts), fermented and dry sausage and other deli-style meat and poultry products.

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This article is based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Partnership for Food Safety Information. To learn more contact:

www.fightbac.org
www.foodsafety.gov

US Department of Agriculture, Meat and Poultry Hotline – 800 535-4555, TTY: 800 256-7076
US Food and Drug Administration, Food Information Hotline – 888 SAFEFOOD