Food Poisoning: What Foods to Avoid to Avoid Illness?

The next morning she didn’t recognize her mother, her kidneys stopped working, she developed brain swelling and suffered epileptic seizures.

Her parents arranged for emergency medical evacuation to the United States, where she developed a serious bacterial infection, E. coli (a bacterium commonly found in the large intestines of warm-blooded animals. Most strains of E. coli are harmless, but some can cause serious food poisoning). Her condition deteriorated overnight, she fell into a coma, and a priest was called to perform the last rites.

Stephanie is one of the main contributors to the documentary Poison: The Dirty Truth About Your Food, which explores how unsanitary conditions in our food chain can lead to truly devastating consequences for consumers.

As the priest began to pray, Stephanie opened her eyes and was told that she would survive, but would suffer for the rest of her life from her E. coli infection.

“I have to take medication every day to increase the blood filtering processes in my kidneys … there is a possibility that I will have to have a kidney transplant … and he will have to do dialysis for the rest of my life,” Stephanie says in the documentary.

“I ate a salad, and because of that, I have long-term health effects.”

Stephanie is one of the 600 million people the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates become ill each year from eating contaminated food. Fortunately, Stephanie was not one of the 420,000 people who died from eating contaminated food.

Bill Marler suggests that watching what you eat can save your life, so you should avoid it to stay healthy.

Marler’s long experience as a food safety advocate led him to be reluctant to eat fresh or unpasteurized dairy products or unpasteurized fruit juices.

His reluctance is caused by the same E. coli bacteria that made Stephanie so sick.

“None of the health benefits of unpasteurized milk are worth the risk…People forgot about the diseases of the 19th century,” says Bill Marler.

Marlers also do not eat raw sprouts such as alfalfa sprouts, lentil sprouts, or bean sprouts.

These raw sprouts have been linked to the world’s largest outbreak of foodborne illness. In 2011, an outbreak of a disease linked to fenugreek seeds in Germany caused kidney failure in up to 900 people, and more than 50 deaths.

“Seeds are contaminated when they’re grown outdoors, and when you bring them inside and put them in a good water bath to germinate, you’ve created the perfect environment for bacteria to grow,” says Marler.

“I don’t know anyone who works in food safety who eats sprouts raw,” she adds.

With minced meat, any bacteria on the surface of the meat is mixed into it during the grinding process, which is why it’s important to cook hamburgers thoroughly.

It takes some bacteria to make you seriously ill.

“About 50 E. coli bacteria are enough to kill you; 100,000 of them take up the space of a needle tip… it’s something you can’t see, taste or smell… so the safest way is to cook the hamburger thoroughly,” says Marler.

He recommends cooking your burgers to 155 degrees Fahrenheit (69 degrees Celsius) to kill pathogens.

When it comes to steak, the risk is generally low because the cooking process kills the bacteria on the surface of the steak.

“When you eat a hamburger, the most dangerous part of it is not the minced meat, but the onion, lettuce and tomato,” says Mansoor Samadpour, a food safety consultant on the Netflix documentary.

In 2006, a large outbreak of E. coli caused by spinach sickened more than 200 people in the United States and up to five people died.

The bacterial contamination was eventually linked to a lettuce farm in California that was parasitized by some animals whose feces contaminated the lettuce with E. coli.

When the lettuce plants were collected and sent to a triple-washing facility, the bacteria spread and were shipped across the country, sickening many people.

“Is the convenience of pre-washed lettuce worth the risk of damage by multiple hands?” Marler says.

The danger of eggs lies in salmonella infection, a common bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever, vomiting and stomach cramps. It can cause serious illness or even death in some cases in the very young and the elderly.

Recent history has seen many egg-related disasters: a salmonella scare in 1988 prompted the UK government to kill more than two million chickens. In 2010, a similar threat led to the recall of 500 million eggs from the market in the United States.

Marler says eggs are safer today than they used to be, but he urges caution and believes salmonella still poses a risk to those who eat raw or undercooked eggs.

“One out of every 10,000 eggs has salmonella. Hens can get salmonella in the uterus, so the bacteria gets into the egg, and there’s nothing to do except overcook the eggs.”

The danger with raw shellfish and raw shellfish is that they are filter feeders (filter feeding is a method by which some animals move through or use the water moving around them to extract small food and other particles from that water).

This means that if water is contaminated with bacteria or viruses, it can easily enter the food chain. Marler believes the problem is getting worse because of global warming.

“As the ocean warms, there is an increase in shellfish-related forms of pollution: hepatitis, norovirus, etc… I’m from Seattle and the best shellfish in the world come from the Pacific Northwest, but clearly there are continuing problems. “Water quality and temperature. A new risk factor to consider when you order that raw oyster.”

“Check the expiration date on your sandwich’s wrapper,” advises Marler. “It’s better to eat food that we prepare or that is prepared in front of us.”

He points out that the main risk factor is the expiration date, which, if missed, can lead to an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes — a much more nasty bacterium.

He says it kills many people in the U.S. and around the world, and everyone who gets it ends up in the hospital.

“Listeria monocytogenes grows and multiplies at refrigerator temperatures, so if someone gives you a sandwich and eats it right away, there’s less risk of Listeria infection… This gives Listeria a chance to grow and multiply. Enough to make you sick.”

The popular sushi dish — which has many questioning its safety — doesn’t seem to worry Marler, though he admits you should be careful when you buy it.

“I often prefer going to a good sushi restaurant to a steak house,” he says, “and the risk of fish poisoning isn’t as high.”

“I don’t buy sushi from a grocery store,” he says. “A good sushi restaurant is very safe because the fish is a little bit safer when it comes to bacterial infection … or you could say it’s a risk. Still feels comfortable.”