Lifestyle Choices

For the protection of your family, watch for the unsuspected dangers that lurk in your kitchen

“The standard of food hygiene in this I country must be raised.” That statement has been voiced in the press, on the radio, in Parliament, even on the village green, with increasing frequency during the past few years. And rightly so, for it concerns us all. But it is the housewife particularly who has it in her power to see that the standard is raised.

She can start off by boycotting shops that are obviously dirty; ones where food is handled unnecessarily by assistants who do not appear to be clean in their personal habits, who blow in paper bags to open them or lick their fingers to get a better hold on a piece of greaseproof paper and, in between whiles, dangle a cigarette from their lips.

Having made sure that she has bought her foodstuffs from the cleanest possible source, it is up to the housewife to practice what she preaches in her own home. And this includes setting a high standard of hygiene for the rest of the family to follow.

The word hygiene, often thought of as being synonymous with “extra” cleanliness, is, in fact, open to the widest possible interpretation. Some people consider food- handling hygiene almost as a religion, while others regard it as rather a fad. However, since hygiene is a system of rules for promotion of health and the prevention of disease, it naturally follows that food- handling hygiene is a system of rules for the promotion of health by the prevention of food poisoning; and as most food poisoning is infectious, it must be preventable.

“Food poisoning” is the term used to describe any illness caused by eating or drinking anything unfit for human consumption. There are two principal causes of food poisoning, namely: chemical and bacteriological.

Direct Chemical Causes

Food poisoning due to contamination of food _with metals is occasionally reported. Antimony poisoning can arise from food cooked in cheap grey-enamelled pots; cadmium poisoning has been reported when acid fluids such as wine, fruit drinks and jellies have been stored in cadmium-lined containers; and zinc poisoning when acid fruits, such as apples, have been cooked in a galvanised iron kettle. Barium carbonate and sodium fluoride have been mistaken for flour or baking powder and put into pastry and tarts.

Certain mushrooms and toadstools have well-known toxic properties, and occasionally rhubarb leaves, eaten as greens, have caused oxalic acid poisoning. Rye meal or fungus-infected rye bread can cause ergot poisoning. Certain mussels may contain an excess of complex alkaloids which can be toxic. Most fish food poisoning, however, is the result of microbic infection.

Indirect Chemical Causes

If certain bacteria infect food they will grow rapidly in it, especially if warm, moist conditions prevail, and as these germs multiply they excrete a poison which can be toxic to man when the food is eaten.

Here are two examples:

• Botulism (botulus, a sausage) is caused by the toxin produced in food by the anaerobic soil bacterium, clostridium botulinum. This infection is found principally in canned foods, such as sausage, fish, meat and vegetables, and arises where heat treatment at the canning factory has been insufficient. Ordinary warming does not destroy the toxin, but thorough boiling does. Owing to excellent canning factory control, botulism is very rare indeed in the U.K. to-day.
• Staphylococcal food poisoning is caused by a toxin produced in food by the microbes known as staphylococci. Foods that may be affected include meat pies, cakes, sandwiches, meats, pastries, gravies, trifles, bread puddings, fish cakes, tarts, brawn, salad cream and synthetic cream. Unlike those affected with Cl. botulinum, foodstuffs affected with staphylococcal enterotoxin in amounts sufficient to cause food poisoning very rarely have any untoward odour or taste. Only prolonged boiling will break down this toxin. Many food poisoning cases are due to staphylococci, and these germs are frequently found in the noses, throats and hands of food handlers, and in skin infections such as boils and pimples.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Home Precaution against Food Poisoning (Direct and Indirect Chemical Causes)

• Home Precaution against Food Poisoning (Infection: Hands Kitchen Dishcloth)
• Nothing requires more Skill in the Home than Cooking: Principles of Good Cooking
• Get rid of Health Insurance Maze
• Home Precaution against Food Poisoning (Human Hazard)
• Health and conservation
• Health Food Shopping List
• Preoccupation with food
• Fat friendly Cooking Methods
• Food Products From Soybeans