Microbologist: Follow these cooking rules to avoid food poisoning

Food poisoning is a common and sometimes deadly condition. Most recently, 20 children were hospitalized because they were poisoned by eating donuts in the village of Rosino.

 

Life-threatening cases of food poisoning are rare, and most people who get food poisoning recover within a few days, but it is still important to be aware of food safety.

 

Dr. Primrose Freestone, a senior professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Leicester, UK, gives important advice, such as that washing hands before and after handling food is extremely important. Here’s how she cooks to prevent food poisoning.

 

 

 

Watch the expiration date

 

 

 

Freestone advises you to regularly check the shelf life of perishable products, such as vegetables, meat or yogurt. But if something doesn’t look or doesn’t smell good before the expiration date, it could be contaminated with bacteria, she says.

 

„ If the food packaging looks swollen or when it opens before the expiry date, the food looks or smells different than expected, I throw it in the “ trash, she says.

 

 

 

Use different boards for cutting raw and cooked foods

 

 

 

As a microbiologist, Freestone says she would never use the same board to cut raw and ready-made food. If not cleaned properly, the boards may contain harmful bacteria, according to the Food Standards Agency.

 

Use a separate raw meat cutting board to prevent the spread of bacteria and allergens. If raw meat juices accidentally touch cooked foods, cross-contamination occurs and the bacteria can spread very quickly on the ready-made food

 

Eat only well-cooked meat and seafood

 

 

 

Well-prepared food is unlikely to be contaminated with harmful bacteria, as heat effectively kills germs, she says. For this reason, it eats only cooked mussels and measures the temperature of the meat (it should be at least 70 degrees Celsius when cooked) with a thermometer before eating it.

 

„ Eating raw or under-treated mussels may put you at risk of infections and in some cases there are no visible signs of infection. For example, an oyster that contains harmful bacteria does not appear to smell or taste different from any other ” oyster warns the microbiologist.

 

 

 

Do not eat rice that is not freshly cooked

 

 

 

High in the list of rules for avoiding food poisoning is the reheating of rice to eat it later, it is categorical. This is because raw rice can contain a pathogenic bacterium called Bacillus cereus.

 

When rice is cooked, bacteria are destroyed, but spores that are small, usually unicellular, reproductive units capable of producing new cells can survive.

 

If the rice is allowed to cool and stays at room temperature, the spores quickly grow into bacteria, says Dr. Freestone. And they can produce toxins that, once consumed, can cause food poisoning with vomiting and diarrhea lasting up to 24 hours.