Wednesday, September 29, 1999
Don't make yourself sick
Taking safety steps while cooking can prevent food-borne illness
BY SUE MacDONALD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's enough to make anyone stop eating food altogether. In July, federal health officials found that Kentucky Fried Chicken cole slaw contaminated with the E. coli bacteria made at least 11 Tristate residents sick.
Over Labor Day weekend, 39 people who ate at Kenwood Country Club became sick from a Norwalk-like intestinal virus because an ill food-service worker didn't wash his hands properly, spreading the virus through cold cuts and egg salad.
And tragically, a 51-year-old Northern Kentucky man died Aug. 28 after eating a restaurant's raw oysters contaminated by a common bacteria called vibrio vulnificus.
The reality about poisoned and contaminated food is troublesome, but the myths can be just as dangerous, says Dr. Timothy Ingram, Hamilton County Health Commissioner.
“Most people think that food-borne illnesses are only caused by restaurants. That's not true,” he says. “As a matter of fact, people can really get themselves sick if they're not practicing safety methods at home.”
Which poses the question: if restaurant health inspectors visited your kitchen, would your food-handling, storage and cooking practices pass muster?
Many wouldn't pass
Chances are most people would flunk, because when scientists have sent inspection teams or video cameras into American kitchens to monitor food safety, very few meet established safety standards. (In a Utah study of 106 private kitchens, in fact, only 1 percent passed a restaurant-style inspection).
While outbreaks of restaurant- or catering-related sicknesses often receive widespread publicity, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control points out that food-related illnesses are far more common than most people think. According to the CDC:
• 325,000 Americans are hospitalized each year because they became sick from something they ate.
• 5,000 Americans die each year from the germs transmitted on products such as undercooked meat and unwashed vegetables.
• Exact numbers aren't known, but an estimated 76 million Americans develop some sort of stomach or intestinal illness linked to contaminated food.
“Food is not sterile,” Dr. Ingram reminds. “Just because you buy it from a grocery and it's all wrapped up and pretty, there are micro-organisms out there on food. Some of them are harmful, some of them are not.”
Dr. Ingram says four basic steps would prevent a lot of the sickness and contamination that occurs from undercooking food, handling food improperly and not keeping cooking, eating and food storage areas clean.
Among his top recommendations:
• Buy a meat thermometer and use it. Make sure meat and other hot foods are cooked hotter than 140 degrees (or higher, depending on the type) and that cold foods are stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below. The range between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for the growth of microbes that live on food, he says. “If you're cooling or holding warm food, it needs to be outside of those ranges or else you're asking for trouble.”
• Avoid cross contamination, which means that bacteria or germs from raw meat come in contact with other foods because cutting boards, knives, utensils, platters and shared cooking surfaces aren't cleaned between foods.
If possible, use one cutting board for meat and another for fresh vegetables and other foods; wash and disinfect cutting boards after each use and before another food is placed on them.
• Wash hands frequently and thoroughly. “You can't just rinse them under the spigot,” he says. “You've have to use soap and warm water and you physically have to agitate your hands for at least 10 seconds. Agitate the soap into a lather and work it in between your fingers and under your fingernails, almost like a surgeon does.”
• If you are sick or have a fever, don't cook for others. Touching, sneezing/breathing on or otherwise delivering your germs to food can pass those germs to others. “It doesn't take a very large number of these organisms before they can induce illness in most folks,” he says.
• Store foods properly. Wash off the tops of soda cans or canned goods if they're dirty, dusty or have been stored in a garage/basement area. When running errands, make the grocery store your last stop so that vulnerable foods — meat, poultry, diary products — don't spoil on the way home. Ideally, get food home within 30 minutes and keep a cooler in the car or trunk to hold frozen and cold foods for the trip home.
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