There are many incidents where people end up suffering when they enjoy their favorite foods.  Here are some safety tips you must know when it comes to preventing food poisoning from happening to you. 

We usually go buy food and go straight to eating it, but before you do that you must keep these informative tips in mind; to prevent you from getting food poisoned. Make sure that the food that you are going to consume is cooked thoroughly, check the expiration dates on packaged foods, wash your fruits and vegetables, and lastly refrigerate your foods properly. Incidents including the McDonalds E.coli outbreak, where 104 people had been sickened, 34 had been hospitalized and a few died, link to food poisoning, Later on detectives found E.coli bacteria in McDonalds Quarter Pounders It was detected that in 14 states E.coli was spread and caused many people to get ill. Quarter pounders were removed from menus in several states during the early days of the outbreak. It was known that around 900 restaurants temporarily stopped serving the burger´s with onions. These symptoms included a fever, vomiting, dizziness, and serious kidney injuries. 

There are 4 basic steps to food safety at home, these are known as the four C’s:

• cleaning – make sure your hands and clean, surfaces and equipment are clean before, during and after cooking
• cooking – make sure food is cooked thoroughly to kill harmful bacteria
• chilling – make sure foods are stored at the correct temperature to prevent growth of harmful bacteria
• avoiding cross-contamination – preventing the spread of bacteria to surfaces and ready-to-eat food

A freshman at ERHS had an experience with food poisoning which lead to him getting severely ill. Sergio Perez had consumed food that wasn’t properly cooked. Sergio Perez noted “ I experienced a frequently upset stomach, nausea, and headaches”. Usually food poisoning would pass within 12 to 48 hours but in this experience, it took Sergio one week to recover.

Food poisoning bacteria can duplicate extremely fast, causing pregnant woman, children, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses more at risk of food poisoning. There are many foods that are high-risk for food poisoning that we all eat on a daily that we don’t seem to notice.   Foods including raw meat, dairy products, eggs , but mostly prepared foods and seafood can contain a dangerous bacteria called “pathogens”.   This bacteria is what leads to food poisoning and sometimes it can severely make you ill.