Untitled Document
 Did
you ever eat the leftovers in the fridge that
smelled a little weird? What happened? I bet
a couple of hours later, you started feeling sick. You might have
even needed to go to the bathroom because of strong stomach pains. Well, if this has
ever happened to you, you might have been a victim of food poisoning. Think someone
put poison in your food? No!
The reason why you felt sick was because of the bacteria that grew in the
leftovers. Want to know how to protect yourself from food
poisoning? Read on!
Bacteria Is The Problem!
Food poisoning comes from eating foods that contain germs like dirty bacteria
which have poisonous substances. Since bacteria
are always around us, light cases of food poisoning are common. Ever
felt like you had a bug in your stomach? Or ever had diarrhea that just seemed
to never disappear? These are light
cases of food poisoning. And usually light food poisoning goes away.
But it's impossible to kill all the
bacteria around us. This means we need to learn how to avoid bad germs entering
our food. Foods from animals, raw foods, and unwashed vegetables all can have germs
that cause food poisoning. The most likely sources are food from animals
like meat, poultry, eggs, milk and shrimp.
To avoid food poisoning, people need to always prepare, cook, and
store food properly.
Food Poisoning is a Serious Problem!
 Sometimes
the sick feeling from food poisoning shows up within hours of eating
the bad food. At other times, someone may not feel sick until several
days later. To see if you really caught food poisoning, you might
have to do a little detective work. Check if
people around you who ate the same food got sick. If they are all
ill, it's 100 percent likely that the pain you are feeling is from
food poisoning. Getting food poisoning from the food in your fridge
is one case, but can you imagine how many people would get sick if
a restaurant or cafeteria served food that
had gone bad? When that happens, people from the health department come out
to make sure everyone gets medical help.
Many things can be done to prevent food
poisoning from happening!
Before cooking the food, the chef must always wash his or her hands.
That's common sense. If you are
helping your mom prepare a meal, make sure your hands are clean as
well! Remember that bacteria can travel. So, it's also important to wash your hands
after preparing a meal. Here's an example. Let's say you helped mommy
make hamburger patties. You get bad bacteria from the raw ground beef on your hands.
You hold your little sibling's hands. He or she
uses that hand to eat a snack. Now the bacteria have made it inside
the stomach and make your little brother or sister sick. You see?
The bacteria from ground beef will die as the patties are cooked.
But if you don't wash your hands after preparing it, some of the bacteria
on the raw beef may make others ill!
Protect Yourself and Others!
 1. Always
wash fruits and vegetables well before eating them.
2. Only eat foods that are properly cooked. If you cut into chicken
or meat and it looks pink inside, tell your parents.
3. Don't just look at your food! Smell it too! If something looks
or smells different than normal, check with your parents before eating
or drinking it. Milk is a good example. If you've ever had a sip of sour milk, you know
you never want to taste that again!
4. Want to eat the leftovers? Ask your parents to help heat them up.
By heating leftovers, you can kill the bacteria that grew on it while
it was in the fridge.
5. Always check the date. Lots of packaged foods have expiration dates! Never eat
a food if today's date is after the expiration date.
6. Cover and refrigerate food right away.
Room temperature is perfect for bacteria to grow. By putting food
in the fridge, you're putting the cold chill on those bad germs! |
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