Food-related illnesses are caused by eating foods that harbour harmful bacteria, parasites, viruses and toxins produced by them. It can cause illness or make you bed-ridden for weeks, months and in some cases even years. Although food-borne illness only has temporary effects but sometimes it can be fatal. So it’s better to avoid food-related illnesses and enjoy a healthier and happy life. 

How To Avoid Food-Related Illnesses?

We can prevent our food from getting contaminated with pathogens through safe shopping, safe storage and safe cooking. You might be thinking that these are very basic rules and you always follow them. But unknowingly you miss some important things which you don’t consider as a safety parameter and you end up eating E. coli, Salmonella and various other micro organisms in your dinner.

Safe Shopping Is The First Basic To Avoid Food-Related Illnesses

• Always check the expiry date of foods before you purchase them
• Do not select a torn or damaged food packages
• Keep raw poultry, seafood and meat in separate bags so that the meat juices do not cross contaminate your other purchased food items especially fruits and vegetables
• Never re-use your paper bags every week for grocery shopping. Instead, use properly washed cloth grocery sack.

Safe Storage Of Purchased Food Items

• Store the perishable foods in the refrigerator.
• If there is a poultry, fish or seafood, keep them in the deep freezer without removing the wrapper.
• Check that your refrigerator is set at 40°F
• Store securely other food items in food-grade containers

Precautions That Should Be Taken While Cooking Food

• Always wash your hands with hot soapy water before you start cooking. Ensure that you always wash your hands before and after handling raw foods and especially raw meat, fish and poultry, as they are one the biggest source of germs causing food-related illness.
• Ensure that your cooking utensils, bowls, gloves and kitchen surfaces are clean as maximum food borne disease occurs due to cross contamination. Also, keep raw food and cooked food separately to prevent cross contamination.
• It’s better to cook food at the temperature of at least 70 degree Celsius so that microbes if present get killed.
• Never refrigerate hot food as it can disturb the temperature of refrigerator and promote the growth of bacteria in all foods.
• Always eat freshly cut or peeled fruits and vegetables because when they are left out for few hours, bacteria starts growing on their surfaces.

Thus you can prevent food-related illnesses by safe purchasing, safe storage and thoroughly cooking the foods and ensuring that there is a minimum chance of cross contamination.

Image Credit: blog.bioethics.net