Salmonella

When talking about food safety, salmonella is a disease that gets brought up frequently.  This year, salmonella has prompted hundreds of food recalls from items as diverse as salami, tortilla chips, and salad dressing.  During the past few years, health officials have identified the bacteria in eggs, peanuts, black pepper, spinach, meat products and the list goes on and on.  Salmonella contamination becomes an even greater issue when contaminated food items are sent to multiple locations as ingredients as other products.  It becomes extremely difficult to trace where the infection began, and how far it spread.  This year alone, salmonella-contaminated black pepper was distributed as an ingredient in Italian-style deli meats, which then infected 252 people in 44 different states!  The same contaminated black pepper has also sparked countless spice, snack, and condiment recalls since January 2010.

Of the 2,000 strains of salmonella, only about a dozen can infect humans.  Still, the number of persons infected annually remains high from year to year.  The CDC estimates that there are a 1.4 million cases of salmonella infection each year in the United States, with only about 3% officially reported.  These numbers make is clear that it is impossible to overstate how crucial it is that food handlers become aware of this disease and how to protect consumers from it.

A few things to know about Salmonella:

• Salmonella can be transmitted from animals to humans (see Kissing Frogs) and from food to humans.
• Persons at greater risk for serious infection include infants, small children, chronically ill persons with weak immune systems, and the elderly.
• Salmonella can survive for weeks outside a living body.
• Salmonella is not destroyed by freezing.
• An infectious dose of salmonella can be as small as 15-20 cells (bacteria).
• Incubation period–the time it takes to get sick once a patient has contracted the disease–is anywhere from six to 72 hours.
• Common symptoms of salmonella infection include exhaustion, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea (which can be bloody in serious cases!).

What can you do to prevent salmonella infection in the workplace?  One of the first things each food service employee must do to prevent infection of any kind is wash their hands.  For salmonella-specific prevention, the Mayo Clinic recommends the following practices:

1. Cook poultry, ground beef, and eggs thoroughly before eating (or serving).   Poultry specifically must reach 160º F throughout before it can be served.
2. Eggs must be cooked until they have a hard yoke.  Pasteurized eggs may also be used.  If consumers insist on soft yokes, they must be made aware of the risk of salmonella infection.
3. Never consume or serve raw milk.  Milk must be pasteurized to be used in a consumer setting.
4. Wash and sterilize hands, utensils, and surfaces immediately after they have come in contact with foods of animal origin.
5. Be extremely cautious when preparing food for babies, children, sick persons, or the elderly as they are at a greater risk of infection.

If you have additional questions about salmonella and how to prevent it, please contact your local health department.

Sources:  Mayo Clinic, Wikipedia

To help us introduce Trichinellosis, we thought we’d use this handy chart:

We had no idea what this chart meant, so we went to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) website for some clarification.  Trichinellosis is a cycle of disease.  For the patient, it begins when he or she consumes meat of an animal infected with Trichinella cysts.  Trichinella is a parasitic worm that enters the body of its host through ingestion.  The worm’s larvae are in the form of round cysts with a hard outer shell.  When an animal eats infected meat, the cystic shell dissolves in stomach acid and the baby worm is released into the intestinal tract and become mature within 1-2 days.  Once the mature worm mates, it lays its eggs which develop into immature worms.  The young worms then travel through the host’s and are carried into the muscle tissue where they curl up and become cysts.  When the host tissue (i.e. contaminated pork) is consumed, the cycle begins anew.  Gross, right?  Here are some additional facts from the CDC:

• What is Trichinellosis? Trichinellosis, or Trichinosis, is a disease caused by eating undercooked meat of animals infected with the larvae of the worm Trichinella.  Although this is most common in carnivorous (meat-eating) wild animals, Trichinellosis can also be contracted through domestically-raised pigs.
• What are the symptoms? In the first stages of infection (in the majority of cases) fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain are all common.  The second phase of symptoms will often add chills, eye swelling, aching joints, muscle pain, itchy skin, and constipation to the list.  For patients who contract a larger infection labored breathing and coordination problems are possible.  Death is rare, but can occur.  Generally symptoms subside in a few months.
• How soon to symptoms appear? Abdominal symptoms can appear within 1-2 days, whereas other symptoms may take as much as 8 weeks to become apparent after eating infected meat.  Severity of symptoms depends on how many Trichinella worms were ingested.
• Am I at risk for Trichinellosis? Do you eat raw or undercooked meat from wild animals such as bears, pigs, felines (cougars), foxes, dogs, horses, seals, or walruses?  Then yes, you are at risk.
• Is Trichinellosis common in the United States? Trichinellosis used to be very common in the US because of undercooked pork.  Today, however, infection is rare.  Infection in the US has decreased due in part to refrigeration and in part to new regulations making it illegal to feed raw meat to hogs.

For more information about Trichinellosis, visit the CDC website.