The Food Poisoning Detective: Tracing the Real Offender

Was It Really Your Last Meal? The Truth About Food Poisoning

When you’re hit with a sudden bout of vomiting and or diarrhoea, it’s natural to blame the last thing you ate because it’s the first thing you see (!). But the real culprit behind food poisoning might be something you hadn’t even considered.

The Delayed Reaction of Foodborne Illness

Most people assume food poisoning strikes within hours of eating contaminated food. As an EHO I used to get members of the public complaining that a restaurant where they had eaten the day before had caused them to be sick, when in fact the figures didn’t add up. Let me explain why.

Take Campylobacter, for example—the most common cause of bacterial food poisoning in the UK. It doesn’t cause symptoms immediately. In fact, it can take 2 to 5 days (and sometimes up to 11!) for symptoms to appear.

Here is a scenario to explain. Someone in the house prepared raw chicken on Friday and made some hygiene mistakes:

• not washing their hands afterwards
• touching lots of items such as drawer handles or the kettle with chicken hands
• leaving contaminated kitchen surfaces and utensils around

Someone comes in the kitchen and touches the drawer handles, then uses the contaminated knife and board to make a sandwich (it doesn’t look particularly dirty).

They go out for a meal on Monday, and next day feel very ill with diarrhoea and sickness.  But it wasn’t the restaurant, it was a series of events in the kitchen on Friday! And they didn’t even eat chicken!

It’s these factors that make it often incredibly difficult to pinpoint the true source of infection, particularly if it is an isolated case. Contamination can come from all sorts of places, and of course our hands are very important in the “journey of the germ.”  With some bacteria such as Campylobacter and E. coli you don’t need millions to be ill – you may just get sick after eating as few as 10! Touching contaminated raw meat packaging, preparing a sandwich on unclean surfaces, or even biting your nails after handling contaminated items could be all it takes.

So, What Can You Do?

The key to preventing foodborne illness lies in good hygiene:

• Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water after handling raw meat or its packaging and before preparing ready-to-eat foods such as sandwiches.
• Clean surfaces and utensils that come into contact with raw food – immediately, don’t let them hang around.
• Be mindful of cross-contamination—don’t let raw meat touch ready-to-eat foods, or use the same plate for raw foods and then cooked foods.