Salmonella, or what's more commonly known as just good old fashioned food poisoning, is the most common type of food borne illness in the U.S. And, spoiler alert!: it's more common during the summer months. Last year alone, Salmonella caused 2,300 hopitalizations and 29 deaths in the U.S.
E coli has been getting a whole lot of press lately, in light of the German e coli outbreak, which has already killed 26 since May 2. But you're far more likely to come down with Salmonella. Luckily, there are some simple things you can do to protect you and your family from the next dreaded case of food poisoning, straight from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
Here are Seven Salmonella Secrets So You Can Skip Summer Sickness
1. You can get Salmonella from eating a wide variety of foods, not just from eggs and undercooked poultry. Although poultry and eggs are primary culprits, Salmonella can be found in a variety of foods including ground meat, fruits, vegetables—even processed foods such as frozen pot pies.
2. Salmonella illness can sometimes be serious. In most cases, illness lasts 4–7 days, and most people recover without antibiotic treatment. But, in rare cases, people may become seriously ill. Compared with other food borne germs, Salmonella is the deadliest. It also causes more hospitalizations as well.
3. For every 1 case of Salmonella illness that is confirmed in the laboratory, there are about 30 times more cases of Salmonella illnesses that were not confirmed. Most people who get food poisoning usually do not go the doctor, and therefore don't get laboratory confirmation of exactly what made them sick. So Salmonella can cause more illness than you might suspect.
4. Salmonella illness is more common in the summer.
- Warmer weather gives bacteria more opportunity to contaminate food. When eating outdoors in the summer, either in the backyard or on a picnic, follow these guidelines:
- Always keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot.
- When you're finished eating, refrigerate leftovers promptly. Don't let food sit out for more than 2 hours. On a hot day (90°F or higher), reduce this time to 1 hour.
- Be sure to put perishable items in a cooler or insulated bag.
5. You can get Salmonella from perfectly normal-looking eggs. Chicken feces on the outside of egg shells used to be a common cause of Salmonella contamination. To counter that, stringent procedures for cleaning and inspecting eggs were implemented in the 1970s. However, now there's a new cause for concern. An epidemic that started in the 1980s and continues today is due to a type of Salmonella that is inside intact grade A eggs with clean shells. This type of Salmonella can silently infect the ovaries of healthy appearing hens and contaminate the inside of eggs before the shells are formed.
6. To avoid Salmonella, you should never eat raw or lightly cooked (runny whites or yolks) eggs. Cooking reduces the number of Salmonella bacteria present in an egg. However, a lightly cooked egg with a runny egg white or yolk still poses a greater risk than a thoroughly cooked egg. Lightly cooked egg whites and yolks have both caused outbreaks of Salmonella infections.
7. Salmonella is more dangerous for certain people. Although anyone can get a Salmonella infection, older adults, infants, and people with impaired immune systems are at increased risk for serious illness. In these people, a relatively small number of Salmonella bacteria can cause severe illness.
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