Nine ways to avoid food poisoning: microbiologists advice for safe and healthy diet | In fact

Do you use the same kitchen sponge for days? Let your pizza take away languid on the counter during the night?

We all have questionable cooking habits – but with regard to food security, shortcuts that we consider harmless can open the door to dangerous pathogens such as bacteria and toxins, according to microbiologists. Here's how experts suggest staying safe in the kitchen.

Avoid spreading food from food

“Home cooks tend to underestimate how cross contamination can spread bacteria through cooking,” said Dr. Siyun Wang, professor of food security engineering at the University of British Columbia. E coli, Salmonella and Listeria can easily transfer raw products, meat and eggs to other points that we touch, such as a refrigerator or a handful of taps, where Wang's research has shown that they can be able to linger for weeks.

To avoid cross contamination when cooking, wash your hands frequently and well-for 20 seconds under lukewarm water, then dry them on a clean towel reserved in particular for this purpose.

Does not rinse The meat, like chicken, she says. This can help spread harmful bacteria, especially via tiny airborne water droplets.

Disinfect surfaces: Dr. Jae-Hyuk Yu, professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recommends using a bleach (a tablespoon of bleaching by water gallon), a resident of the kitchen at the environmental protection agency, especially after the preparation of raw meat. And when handling cleaning chemicals, use gloves and ventilate well. He recommends cleaning the shelves of the refrigerator monthly and ensuring that your refrigerator is constantly less than 40F to prevent bacteria from hiding.

Cook the meat carefully: Always cook meat at its appropriate internal temperature, according to the United States department of agriculture guidelines: 145F for whole cups of beef, pork, lamb, veal and fish (with a three -minute rest for meat), 160F for chopped meats and 165F for any poultry. Yu uses plastic cutting boards, rather than wood, for meat. “Even clean boards can accommodate microbes in grooves,” he says, then wash any type of board with hot water and antibacterial soap after use.

Replace or clean kitchen sponges and cricoths

“Sponges are notorious bacterial tanks”, explains Yu. “Cleaning a knife used on raw chicken with a sponge, then using the same sponge on other dishes, can absolutely spread dangerous pathogens.” If you need to use a sponge, microwave, wet, for one to two minutes once a day or pass it through the dishwasher with a heat drying cycle, he advises. Yu replaces cooking sponges every one to two weeks and personally prefers disinfected cricoths that can be changed daily and go through a hot laundry cycle.

Mice meat correctly

Although it is practical to defrost frozen meat at room temperature, this “allows the outer layers to enter the” danger zone “between 40F and 140F, where bacteria can multiply quickly, long before the center is thawed,” explains Yu. Instead, defrost the meat in the refrigerator. If you want to cook the meat immediately, use the microwave or place it in a sealed bag and immerse it in cold water, changing the water every 30 minutes. These methods maintain temperature in a safe beach and limit bacterial growth.

Avoid leaving food overnight

Leaving food at room temperature is “essentially incubating bacteria that are in this food,” explains a microbiologist based in Idaho and a medical laboratory scientist certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology which passes through the Morticia pseudonym To avoid harassment because it shares information on online food sciences. This gives them time to produce enterotoxins that can cause symptoms like vomiting. “Many of these toxins are stable to heat,” she says. Reheat can get rid of bacteria, “but toxins will always make you sick”.

Morticia recommends being particularly careful with starchy remains such as rice and pasta, where Bacillus cereusA pathogen of unpleasant food origin can start to develop in a few hours if it is excluded.

If you save food for later, refrigerate it within two hours. If you are actively eating over time – for example, during an indoor celebration – food can stay away for up to four o'clock. But in hot outdoor parameters like a barbecue, this shortened window, she explains.

Food and Drug Administration and USDA recommend Keep the refrigerated remains no more than three to four days. “If you freeze food, it will remain safe to eat for a very long time,” says Morticia.

Be careful 'Best before' dates

“Respect for these dates is one of the best ways to avoid potential health problems,” said Dr. Alvaro San Millan, an expert in bacteria in the National Center for Biotechnology in Madrid.

Certain foods, such as packaged snacks, may be good for eating days or weeks After their best, before the date, especially if they are not open or have been properly stored. But it is not always easy to say if something went wrong.

“If food smells or has a funny taste, it is definitely a red flag,” explains San Millan. But pathogens can accumulate without alerting our senses to trouble. “Some bacteria, such as Salmonella, can produce infections in humans even if they are very low concentration in food – so weak that you could never appreciate any change in a sniffing or taste test,” explains San Millan.

Most of the time, eating questionable foods will probably only lead to a little gastrointestinal discomfort, but “if you are not damn for example and you are infected with bacteria such as Listeria or Salmonella, or in intoxication with a botulinum toxin, you can have serious problems,” he said.

Cut the cheese mold is ok – Sometimes

Can you just get rid of the mold visible on cheese and eat the rest? “It depends on the type of cheese,” says Wang.

If you spot mold on ocean cheese, such as chalet and cream cheese, “all the product must be thrown”. Mop can send microscopic wires throughout the cheese, contaminating more than what is visible on the surface.

“For hard cheese like the cheddar, you can cut at least 1 inch around and below the mold and continue to use it,” says Wang, because mushrooms cannot propagate so quickly through dense textures. “The knife must be kept away from the mold to avoid cross contamination,” she said.

Do not count on spices, salt or acid to ensure food safety

People have used food preservation techniques such as salting and stripping for millennia. But the addition of conservative ingredients to a dish did not “pass” it from bacteria. Spicy, salty or acidic elements can slow down deterioration under specific conditions, as with jerks or sauerkraut, but do not guarantee protection against harmful pathogens. There have been epidemics of Listeria and Salmonella de Pickles, for example, Note Morticia.

Do not presume that organic foods are safer

“There is not much difference with regard to bacterial contamination and the transmission of pathogens” with regard to organic and conventional products, known as Morticia.

However, during the local purchase, “the supply chain is much shorter and fewer people come into contact with this food,” she said. This means “you are more at risk of transmission of certain pathogens,” she says.

Be more prudent in the weakened regulatory monitoring periods

Unfortunately, individual consumers do not have total control over food security – systemic factors have a significant impact on the quality of what we eat.

The FDA has faced significant reductions in financing and staff, which “could lead to shortcomings in inspection and surveillance,” said Yu. Reports Suggest that expenditure freezes are already limiting the capacity of food security inspectors to go to farms or acquire samples of food for tests.

For people at home, less regulatory surveillance means higher decisions on the grocery store. The categories of common foods such as meat, eggs, crustaceans, germs, green vegetables and seed vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers are all at relatively high risks for contamination.

“The moment is the right time for consumers to be more cautious,” explains Yu, in particular with “high -risk foods like leafy green vegetables, in particular bag lettuce”, which is subject to contamination by pathogens such as salmonella, listeria and coli because of the way the greens are mixed from different farms and massacred before packaging.

Morticia has changed its eating habits to prioritize safety in the light of lower industry regulations. “I became a vegan in January, because most of the pathogens of food origin are of zoonotic origin, which means that they come from cows and pigs and chickens,” she said. She also opts for more jumpers and fewer salads. “The cooking of all my food considerably reduces risks,” she says.