Food and nutrition.pdf

140 Food Safety and Preparationget about 70 percent of their calories from foods eaten at home or packedin a bag lunches. Keeping nutritious, easy-to-prepare foods on hand forquick meals and snacks can assure your family a healthful diet.IMPORTANT FOOD SAFETY INFORMATIONFood-borne microorganisms cause tens of millions cases of intestinalillness each year. For most healthy people, the distressful vomiting,abdominal cramps, and diarrhoea are short-lived. But in people withweakened immunity, such as those with AIDS, symptoms are often severe,and the infections are so difficult to treat they can be fatal.Salmonella bacteria frequently contaminate unpasteurized milk andraw poultry, meat and eggs. Up to 40 percent of marketed raw chickenscarry this bacteria. Cross-contamination from raw poultry to other foodsduring storage or food preparation is a major pathway for salmonella intothe diet.Listeria bacteria are found in unpasteurized milk, cold smoked fish,and certain cheeses, particularly soft-ripened varieties such as Brie andCamembert. Even vegeta~les can carry Listeria and, once cut, support itsgrowth. A quarter of the estimated 1600 listeriosis cases each year end indeath.Hepatitis A can be transmitted by unsanitary food handling or byeating raw or undercooked shellfish harvested from contaminated waters.Common-sense precautions in food selection and preparation cansignificantly lessen the hazard of infection from contaminated food.According to Hawley, M.D., medical director Whitman-Walker Clinic,Washington, D.C., a cardinal rule is:"Any raw animal-derived food must be considered to becontaminated with harmful microorganisms. Under no circumstanceshould a high-risk person consume unpasteurized milk or raw orundercooked eggs, poultry, fish, shellfish or meat."Look for cleanliness at meat and seafood counters and salad bars.For example, cooked shrimp lying on the same bed of ice as raw fish couldbe contaminated. Buy only Grade A or better eggs. Avoid eggs that arecracked or leaking. Don't buy any foods whose "sell by" or "best usedby" date has passed. Read the label to see if the food contains raw orundercooked animal-derived ingredients. Caesar salad dressing, forinstance, traditionally uses raw eggs. Buy only milk and cheeses labelled"pasteurized. "Put raw seafood, poultry and meat in plastic bags so drippings can'tcontaminate other foods in the shopping cart or bag. Take groceriesdirectly home and refrigerate cold foods. Hot foods from the deli shouldbe eaten, kept hotter than 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit), or