Tips for Avoiding Food Poisoning [الأرشيف]

Houssam

10-07-05, 01:41 AM

<H2 style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Tips for Avoiding Food Poisoning</H2>
<H2 style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The unwelcome meal guest </H2>
How to protect yourself from food poisoning
<H4 style="MARGIN: auto 0in"> By Anne Harding</H4>
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The advent of summer means it's time to take the grill out of storage, stock your picnic basket and brush up on your food-safety knowledge. 
"There are a lot more cases of food-borne illness in the summer," Diane Van, manager of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's meat and poultry hot line (http://g.msn.com/us23/1?http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Food_Safety_Education/usda_meat_&_poultry_hotline/&&DI=2314&PI=7327&PS=74221&CM=Article&CE=Article+L ink&HL=USDepartmentOfAgricultureMeatAndPoultryHotL ine). Warmer weather speeds up the rate at which harmful bacteria multiply in food, and relaxed food storage and preparation methods are also factors, she explained. 
Several bugs can cause food-borne illness, among them Salmonella, Listeria and Staphylococcus aureus (commonly known as staph). According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of infections from one of the most dangerous food-borne bacterium, E. coli O157, fell 42 percent from 1996 to 2004, while infection with Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium and Yersinia also dropped substantially. The CDC credited the drop to new meat- and "ready-to-eat" food-inspection recommendations introduced in 2002, along with better consumer awareness of safe food-handling practices. But rates of Salmonella infection only fell by 8 percent, and Vibrio infections — primarily tied to eating raw shellfish — rose 47 percent. 

Eating safely
Food poisoning is rarely fatal. Each year an estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick from pathogens in food, according to the CDC. Of these, about 350,000 are hospitalized and about 5,000 die. Those most at risk of serious complications are people with weak immune systems (such as transplant patients or people with HIV); children under 10, pregnant women and seniors also face a greater risk. 
Here are some tips to help you eat safely all year round, with some special advice for barbecue season. 

Keep it clean. Wash your hands in warm, soapy water before and after preparing food. If you're going to be picnicking in a soap- and water-free zone, bring an alcohol-based hand sanitizer or disposable towelettes. 
Wash cutting boards and utensils in warm, soapy water before and after you use them. To avoid potential cross-contamination, use a separate cutting board for meat, poultry and fish. Both wood and plastic cutting boards are safe, but once a well-used cutting board develops tough-to-clean cuts and grooves, it should be discarded. 

Keep it cool. Proper refrigeration is essential for food safety. Refrigerators should be kept at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below, according to Van, who says it's worthwhile to invest in a thermometer for the fridge. This is especially true in summer, which is prime power-outage season, she notes. A refrigerator thermometer can tell you whether your food's safe after your fridge has been out of commission, or whether the food should be tossed. 
And when you're taking it on the road, a thermometer can help you keep track of whether your cooler is maintaining your food at a low enough temperature — again, 40 degrees or below. Pack your cooler as full as possible, and be sure to include cold and ice packs. Keep your cooler in your car's air-conditioned interior, rather than stowing it in the trunk. 
Outdoors, store your cooler in a shady spot and throw a blanket over it to keep out the heat. Another cool tip from Van: Store drinks and food in separate coolers. People will keep opening up the cooler to get drinks, which can heat things up fast. 

Follow the two-hour — or one-hour — rule. When temperatures are below 90 degrees, Van says, the USDA recommends letting food sit out for no longer than two hours. When temperatures rise to 90 or above, food should only be out for an hour or, preferably, less. Keep in mind that while the mercury might tell you it's in the 80s, food sitting out in the sun can easily be heated up past the 90-degree mark. 

Use a thermometer. Take special care when storing, handling and cooking meat. "There's a danger zone between 40 and 140 degrees — that's the temperature that bacteria multiply more rapidly at," Van explains. "You want to get food to 160 as quickly as possible." 
USDA recommends the following cooking temperatures for different types of food: hamburgers, 160; chicken breast, 170; chicken thighs and legs, 180; pork chops, 160; hot dogs, 165. 
There's no way to tell by sight whether your burger or chicken breast has been cooked enough to kill dangerous bacteria, Van warns. The best way to be safe is to use a small digital thermometer, which can tell you nearly instantly whether you've heated your food adequately. Ideal for checking the temperature of small cuts of meat like hamburgers, pork chops and chicken breasts, digital thermometers are available in hardware, grocery and kitchen specialty stores, as well as most places where grills and other barbecue supplies are sold. 

For more information, visit the USDA's Foodborne Illness Education Information Center (http://g.msn.com/us23/1?http://www.nal.usda.gov/foodborne/&&DI=2314&PI=7327&PS=74221&CM=Article&CE=Article+L ink&HL=FoodborneIllnessEducationInformationCenter). 
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Anne Harding is a science and health writer based in Maplewood, N.J.