{"id":254,"date":"2014-01-18T00:46:41","date_gmt":"2014-01-18T00:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.besthealthsciencedegree.com\/?page_id=254"},"modified":"2014-01-18T00:46:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-18T00:46:41","slug":"food-contamination","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.besthealthsciencedegree.com\/faq\/food-contamination\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Food Contamination?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Food contamination is a general term for what causes food borne illnesses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in six Americans gets sick with a food contamination related illness each year, and more than 250 food borne illnesses have been identified. A variety of mechanisms can lead to food contamination, and it is important to identify them in order to prevent sicknesses caused by contaminated food.<\/p>\n
Since there are so many forms of food contamination and related illnesses, a single description of symptoms or causes does not exist. Microbes, pathogens, poisonous chemicals or other dangerous materials like metals, natural toxins, and pesticides can cause diseases to be present in foods. The top five pathogens causing foodborne illnesses in the United States in 2011 resulted in tens of thousands of hospitalizations. Nontyphoidal salmonella caused over a million illnesses and 378 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most common causes of food contamination in the U.S. are Salmonella, Norovirus, Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, E. coli O157, Listeria, and Clostridium perfringens.<\/p>\n
One of the causes of food contamination<\/a> is inadequate hand washing. When people handle food before they wash their hands, the pathogens on their hands can enter the food. Cross contamination can also cause disease. For example, when someone uses a knife used to cut raw meat to also cut raw vegetables or when someone puts food on a dirty countertop, cross contamination can occur. Inadequate food temperature can also cause food to become contaminated. If animal waste is introduced to food during meat or poultry slaughtering or perhaps through contaminated water, it can also cause illnesses in the person who eats the food.<\/p>\n If a person has a foodborne illness, the first symptoms tend to be abdominal cramps, vomiting, nausea and diarrhea. While about 48 million people get sick each year with food contamination related diseases, about 3,000 die from them, according to a CDC estimate. Some long-term effects of food poisoning can include kidney failure, death, brain and nerve damage and chronic arthritis. Older adults, pregnant women and those with chronic illnesses are particularly susceptible to food poisoning.<\/p>\nSymptoms<\/h3>\n
Precautions<\/h3>\n