What’s Making Us Sick? Most Common Foods Prone to Contamination Uncovered!

What’s making us sick? Most common foods prone to contamination uncovered!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 48 million people become sick with a foodborne illness each year. That is one in six of us! This places a burden of around 128,000 hospitalizations each year and around 3,000 deaths resulting from those illnesses.

Foods Prone to Contamination

Certain foods prone to contamination should be handled carefully. Prevention is the key when it comes to any foodborne illness. For the most part, there are things that people can do to help reduce those risks.

The first step in reducing those risks is to understand common foods prone to contamination so that steps can be taken to avoid these bad bugs as much as possible.

Poultry

One of the most common foods prone to contamination that many of us come in contact with is poultry.

Poultry consists of chicken, duck, and turkey. This is because Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria are commonly found in the guts and on the feathers of these fowl friends.

Bacteria end up on the meat during slaughtering and processing activities. While Salmonella is a serious threat and most commonly associated with poultry, studies have found that around 4 to 5% of supermarket chicken is contaminated with the bacteria. The bigger threat is Campylobacter. Around 41 to 84% of raw chicken sold in supermarkets is contaminated with this germ.

Reduce Your Risk from Poultry

Cooking poultry to an internal temperature of 165° F kills these harmful bacteria. Keep poultry meat and its juices away from ready-to-eat foods and clean utensils, kitchen surfaces, chopping boards, and anything that comes in contact with it.

Vegetables and Leafy Greens

Vegetables and leafy greens are foods prone to contamination and foodborne illness. Especially when they are eaten raw. Lettuce, spinach, cabbage, celery, and tomatoes have been associated with many food poisoning outbreaks.

E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria are germs most associated with vegetables and leafy greens. Most of the time this contamination occurs from unclean irrigation water and dirty runoff, allowing these harmful germs to leach into the soil where these foods are grown. Some huge multi-state outbreaks were traced back to processing facilities, as cross contamination can easily impact huge shipments of produce.

To make the situation worse, most of these foods are consumed raw, so there is not heat step to kill these harmful germs. Between 1973 and 2012, 85% of reported foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States were caused by leafy greens prepared in a restaurant or food service setting.

Reduce Your Risk from Leafy Greens

Reduce the risk of foodborne illness by washing salad leaves and other vegetables you plan to eat without cooking. Rub them under running water and rinse thoroughly. Only purchase prepackaged salads if they are refrigerated.

Fish and Shellfish

Fish and shellfish are also common foods prone to contamination due to sensitive storage requirements. Histamines are often produced by bacteria in fish when temperature deviations move to the danger zone of 40° F to 140° F. Histamines are not destroyed by normal cooking.

Other toxins, such as those produced by Vibrio bacteria can contribute to foodborne illness.

Reduce Your Risk from Fish and Shellfish

If caching fish or shellfish, ensure that the area you are harvesting from has not been reported for increased risk. Keep seafood chilled and refrigerated until you are ready to cook it. Cook clams, mussels, and oysters until the shells open. Discard all shells that do not open or are open prior to cooking.

Rice

A staple in most households and one of the oldest grains consumed across the world, rice is included in foods prone to contamination and food poisoning. This is because uncooked rice may contain spores of Bacillus cereus, a toxin-producing bacteria that can make people very sick.

What makes it even more dangerous, is that these spores can survive long storage periods in dry conditions and even survive heat steps in cooking. When cooked rice is left at room temperature, those spores wake up and start replicating. The longer rice remains at room temperature, the more likely it will contain those harmful toxins.

Reduce Your Risk from Rice

To reduce your risk of food poisoning from rice, either serve or refrigerate it as soon as possible after cooking.

Deli Meats

Ham, bacon, salami, hot dogs, and other deli meats are a common source of foodborne germs. Listeria and Staphylococcus aureus can contaminate these foods at various places in the processing and manufacturing activities.

These products are often cross-contamination, further spreading foodborne illness.

Reduce Your Risk from Deli Meats

Most of the risk from deli meats comes from those sliced and packaged at deli counters. In fact, 83% of Listeria illnesses associated with deli meats are linked to this activity. Pre-sliced deli meat poses a reduced risk, with 17% of Listeria illnesses associated with these manufacturer-sliced products.

Unpasteurized Dairy

Unpasteurized dairy has not been subject to a heat-kill step. Despite being commonly associated with bacteria and parasites like Brucella, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella, raw dairy products are still legal in most states.

Risks associated with raw milk come from contamination from feces that can make its way into the milk.

Reduce Your Risk from Unpasteurized Dairy

To reduce your risk from unpasteurized dairy products, you best bet is to opt for products that have been pasteurized instead. Store all dairy products at refrigeration temperatures at or below 40° F and discard any products beyond their use-by date.

Eggs

Raw and undercooked eggs are foods prone to contamination. Eggs carry Salmonella bacteria from the chicken’s digestive tract. This can contaminate both the shell and the product within it. Salmonella–contaminated eggs are responsible for around 79,000 cases of foodborne illness and about 30 deaths each year.

Reduce Your Risk from Eggs

To reduce your risk from eggs, keep them stored at refrigeration temperatures and fully cook them. Raw, undercooked, or eggs with a cracked or dirty shell may make you sick. For recipes that call for raw or undercooked eggs, opt for pasteurized eggs. They may be a little more expensive, but so is foodborne illness.

Fruit

Fruits are common foods prone to contamination and cause foodborne illness. Berries, melons, and pre-cut fruit have been linked to recent foodborne illness outbreaks. Listeria, a common food poisoning germ, can grow on the rind of these fruits and spread to the juicy flesh within.

Melons are a top contender for the most prone to contamination. Between 1973 and 2011, a whopping 34 reported outbreaks were associated with the fruit. This resulted in 3,602 illnesses, 322 hospitalizations, and 46 associated deaths.

Reduce Your Risk from Fruit

Reduce your risk of consuming foodborne pathogens by thoroughly washing it prior to consuming or cutting it. This includes fruits with hard, inedible rinds. Scrub rinds of melons, like cantaloupes, because harmful germs can lurk in those crevices. Keep pre-cut fruit in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat it, and only purchase pre-cut fruit that is stored cold.

Sprouts

Sprouts are among the top of the list when it comes to foods prone to contamination. Alfalfa, sunflower, mung bean, and clover are some of the more common varieties. Seeds require a moist, warm environment to sprout. These are also ideal conditions for bacteria like Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria.

Reduce Your Risk from Sprouts

To reduce your risk of becoming sick from sprouts, avoid eating them raw. Wash them and cook them thoroughly to kill any harmful bacteria growing with them.

Interested in Learning More?

If you’d like to know more about food safety topics in the news, like “What’s Making Us Sick? Most Common Foods Prone to Contamination Uncovered!,” check out the Make Food Safe Blog. We regularly update trending topics, foodborne infections in the news, recalls, and more! Stay tuned for quality information to help keep your family safe, while The Lange Law Firm, PLLC strives to Make Food Safe!

By: Heather Van Tassell (contributing writer, non-lawyer)