How can you prevent food poisoning?

On an individual level, preventing food poisoning starts when you buy food at the supermarket. Keep food safety in mind as you store, prepare, cook, and serve food at home. Food poisoning prevention can be simplified into three rules: keep food clean, cook food adequately, and keep hot food hot and cold food cold. It is necessary to make sure your hands are clean before handling food and to avoid the danger temperature zone between five degrees Celsius and sixty degrees Celsius, where food poisoning grows best. Also, try to serve food as soon as possible after preparation. Moreover, meeting the challenge of combating food poisoning requires the cooperation of regulatory agencies and industry also. Prevention can be aided by identifying key points in production: from field, farm, or fishing ground to the dinner table. Then, it is up to the individuals to eliminate contamination. In addition, antibiotics need to be used more prudently in animal and human medicine to limit antimicrobial resistance. This means that when antibiotics are used frequently, the bacteria can develop resistance to it so that when an infected person takes the prescribed antibiotic for the food poisoning, it is ineffective. (http://hna.ffh.vic.gov.au/phb/hprot/food/fhpp/fp1.html)

A study of prevention tried to prove that poultry and beef processors and government agencies concerned with food safety should take in account the opinions of dieticians. Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences took a sample of 592 members, who work in health care facilities, of the American Dietic Association. The response rate was 42% as 250 dieticians completed the mail questionaire. The survey asked of what degree would they accept price changes for food safety. The price changes went up in 5, 10, and 25 cents increments of price per pound above current prices. Also, the survey asked of "the acceptability of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Point System (HACCP), chemical rinsing, and irradiation" to increase food safety. (Gimamalava, 1998) Survey results concluded that the dieticians had a high interest for the safety of food and the respondents were most likely to pay for the HACCP and least likely for chemical rinsing. Another survey was done by the Department of Food Microbiology, who studied the effects of irradiation on Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus bacteria in roast beef and gravy. The bacteria was growing in storage at temperatures between 15 and 22 degrees Celsius. By studying the amount of toxins at certain temperatures, the study was able to make accurate conclusions that small doses of irradiation "would improve the microbiological safety" of roast beef and gravy (Grant 25-36).

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