Food safety
Written by Dr. T. M. Wassenaar Tuesday, 06 January 2009
In our section
on pathogenic bacteria you can learn about bacteria that cause disease. Many bacterial infections are caused by ingestion of contaminated food. Contamination of food often occurs at home, but can be easily prevented. Home hygiene is particularly important for children, elderly people, pregnant women and immuno-compromised people.
- Do you want to know more about food safety, check these frequently asked questions or have fun with the Food safety page for kids, which includes a quizz, for kids and educators!
- A very useful and informative site is the Fight bac home page.
- Test yourself: is your kitchen safe?
- Here's more on food safety, where you can do a real internet course on food safety in four lessons.
Special care should be taken when handling meat, fish and poultry. These products may have reached your fridge loaded with bacteria, while it looks and smells normal. Make sure those invisible bacteria are not spreaded to other food stuff, and that they are killed by proper heating. Know your Kitchen Control Points! Cleaning or spreading bugs: what about your wiping cloth.
- If you want more information and further links on food handling and safety, with the latest news on large outbreaks, check the food safety home page of the USDA/FSIS. Clear advise on water- and food handling for the traveller provides the food- and water safety sheet.
- Surprising finding: spices can protect bacteria in food from being killed by irradiation.
Are you concerned about your safety? Do you use antibacterial cleaning liquid liberally? Consider this: Many bacteria are good for you! Your immune system can generally deal with low numbers of pathogenic bacteria. The trouble starts when there are too many of those disease-causing bugs. Bacteria can multiply in 30 minutes or less. Even if you would wipe out 95% of all bacteria in your kitchen, it would take less than 3 hours to get them back, provided they had enough to feed on. Don't keep food too long, keep its temperature low, and don't spread bacteria to other food stuffs, remains in a proper way.
- The use of antibacterial agents can result in bacteria becoming resistant. This would make such agents useless, and could make elimination difficult. Therefore use your common sence when using antibacterial agents at home.
More about antibiotics can be found in another subject catagory.
So why isn't anything done about food safety? Well, in fact, a lot is being done. A lot of research is constantly trying to improve the quality of food, at every possible step in the food chain. But in case there is a failure in one of multiple steps, you can still avoid trouble if you treat your food sensibly.
Food safety is not our only concern. The water we drink must be safe as well. Also see our exhibit on Water safety.
From all this, it is obvious that bacteria can make us ill. However, not all bacteria are 'bad'. In fact, most are not, and our body is equipped with defenses against the odd bad bug. Read more about such defenses in our exhibit on the immune system. Know the risks. But do not overestimate them. Human beings are not supposed to live in a sterile environment. For instance, children need to encounter enough bacteria so that their immune system learns to deal with them.
Last Updated on Monday, 07 November 2011