Eat, drink, but be wary of food-borne diseases

It’s summer (as if you didn’t know)! And with summer come the summer diseases, among other summer woes. The top five summer diseases to watch out for are: chicken pox (usually in children), measles, mumps, typhoid fever, and jaundice or Hepatitis A (a water-borne disease caused mainly by contaminated water supplies and food cooked in unclean places).

Globally, cases of food-related diseases are on the upswing. In the Philippines, the College of Veterinary Medicine, UP Los Baños reports that a number of food-borne parasites have been recorded, some of which are cause for public health concern mainly because of the Filipinos’ habit of consuming raw or partly cooked fish, snails, crustaceans, and meat. Sometimes, you suddenly get food poisoning and you don’t remember what and where you ate or drank. A colleague once had diarrhea for three days and, according to her doctor, her kidneys nearly shut down. Her case was traced to contaminated ice cubes she took with her vodka on a drinking spree with friends in a bar you wouldn’t exactly classify as el cheapo.

So, this summer (as in other days of our lives), eat, drink, but be very wary of the food and drink you take in. Now, this book could save your life: Protect Yourself from Contaminated Food & Drink by Carol Turkington.

Take a few handy tips from medical journalist Turkington.

THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG:

Supermarket tips

• When shopping, pick up fresh chicken last and check the expiry or “sell by” date. Store poultry in your cart away from other food items. (Some people carry their own plastic bags to put packages of chicken into because the chicken can leak potentially contaminated juice.) At the checkout counter, make sure the poultry products are bagged separately.

• When buying giblets (heart, liver, gizzard of poultry), select them just before checking out at the cash register. The giblets should feel cold to the touch. Use or freeze them within a day or two of purchase. If there’s an expiry date, observe it. Place giblets in a disposable plastic bag to avoid potential leakage.

Storage

• Keep eggs in their original grocery carton and keep in the coldest part of the refrigerator. (Don’t store on the ref door — which is what we normally do — as it’s not cold enough.) Don’t wash the eggs before storing (which is what some people do). If some eggs have cracked on the way home (which often happens), break those eggs into a clean container, cover tightly, and keep refrigerated for use within two days.

• Use refrigerated intact raw eggs within three to five weeks. Leftover yolks and whites should be used within two to four days after you break the shell.

• Avoid keeping eggs outside the refrigerator for more than two hours (or shorter in a hot kitchen on a hot summer day).

• Dishes made with eggs may be refrigerated for later use (within three to four days).

Defrosting

• Never defrost poultry on the counter. Instead, put the wrapped bird in the fridge. Or immerse it in a bowl of cold water that you can then change every half hour.

• If microwave-defrosting, cook the bird immediately after thawing. While you can refreeze food defrosted in the ref, foods defrosted in the microwave or in cold water should be cooked before refreezing.

Preparing

• Because many types of food poisoning are spread via the fecal-oral route, it’s vitally important that you wash your hands after using the toilet and before preparing food. Anyone with diarrhea and/or vomiting should use a separate towel and washcloth, and should not prepare food (especially uncooked food).

• Cut the poultry on a nonporous cutting board of plastic or acrylic which you can wash in between uses. Some people use separate boards for poultry and meats, vegetables and fruits, and bread.

Cooking

• Be sure to cook your poultry to an internal temperature high enough to kill harmful bacteria.

• The USDA recommends cooking whole poultry to 180°F. It’s not safe to partially cook poultry or to microwave whole stuffed poultry as the meat will cook so fast that the stuffing inside might not reach a hot enough temperature.

• Poultry should never be cooked in an oven set lower than 325°F.

• If you cook poultry pieces in a microwave, remember that microwave ovens vary in power and efficiency. Check the pieces in several places to make sure of the temperature and doneness.

• Many consumers have been conditioned to be wary of the pink color in pork, and so when they see other meats with that rosy appearance, red warning flags pop up in their minds. The color of cooked meat and poultry isn’t always a sure sign of doneness. Only by using a meat thermometer can you really determine when the meat has reached a safe temperature.

• Avoid eating raw or undercooked eggs. Cook eggs long enough to kill any bacteria that may be present.

• The USDA recommends: 

Fried eggs — cook for two to three minutes on each side (or a total of four minutes in a covered pan) until yolk thickens.

Scrambled eggs — cook until firm (not  runny) for at least one minute.

Poached eggs — cook for five minutes over boiling  water.

Soft-boiled eggs — cook in the shell in  boiling water for seven minutes.

Happy — and safe — eating everyone!