Volume 1   Issue 13                  December  2002

"Food Safety: This Holiday Season, Go Back to Basics"

By Gary Stevens

The recent wave of bio-terrorist scares-particularly contamination of the nation's mail stream with anthrax bacteria-has raised questions about our other biological vulnerabilities in food, for example. As consumers begin to plan their Thanksgiving and other holiday meals, the consensus among nutrition experts is that fundamental handling and sanitation practices are still our best protection against food-borne dangers-whether they're malicious or not.

        By fundamental practices, we mean the time-tested, germ-killing behaviors-such as thorough cooking of meats and poultry-that authorities like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been urging us to use for many years. With the public taking renewed interest in food safety, this is a good opportunity to review the basics.

       According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), food-borne illness strikes an estimated 76 million victims each year, hospitalizing 300,000 and causing as many as 5,000 deaths. More than 200 known diseases are caused by food-borne sources, including viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and prions. The symptoms of food-borne illness range "from mild gastroenteritis to life-threatening neurologic, hepatic, and renal syndromes," CDC reports.

          SafetyTips.com reports that "of the four most serious food-borne bacteria, campylobacter affects between 1 and 6 million people annually, and Salmonella strikes 2 to 4 million. E. coli affects at least 21,000 additional people, while Listeria strikes around 1,850."

            For more information about these and other food-borne illnesses, visit the CDC FAQ on "Food-borne Infections" at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/foodborneinfections_g.htm

        The reality is that anybody who consumes animal products faces the possibility that they might contain dangerous organisms. According to the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), "the presence of microorganisms on raw meat and poultry is almost unavoidable and quite variable... testing helps establishments know how effective their slaughter and sanitary dressing procedures are at preventing and removing microbial contamination."