Most types of food poisoning cause one or more of the following signs and symptoms:. Signs and symptoms may start within hours after eating the contaminated food, or they may begin days or even weeks later.
Sickness caused by food poisoning generally lasts from a few hours to several days. Contamination of food can happen at any point of production: growing, harvesting, processing, storing, shipping or preparing. Cross-contamination — the transfer of harmful organisms from one surface to another — is often the cause.
This is especially troublesome for raw, ready-to-eat foods, such as salads or other produce. Because these foods aren't cooked, harmful organisms aren't destroyed before eating and can cause food poisoning.
Many bacterial, viral or parasitic agents cause food poisoning. The following table shows some of the possible contaminants, when you might start to feel symptoms and common ways the organism is spread. Whether you become ill after eating contaminated food depends on the organism, the amount of exposure, your age and your health.
High-risk groups include:. The most common serious complication of food poisoning is dehydration — a severe loss of water and essential salts and minerals. If you're a healthy adult and drink enough to replace fluids you lose from vomiting and diarrhea, dehydration shouldn't be a problem.
Infants, older adults and people with suppressed immune systems or chronic illnesses may become severely dehydrated when they lose more fluids than they can replace. In that case, they may need to be hospitalized and receive intravenous fluids. In extreme cases, dehydration can be fatal. Some types of food poisoning have potentially serious complications for certain people.
These include:. Cook foods to a safe temperature. The best way to tell if foods are cooked to a safe temperature is to use a food thermometer. You can kill harmful organisms in most foods by cooking them to the right temperature. Cook ground beef to F Cook chicken and turkey to F Make sure fish and shellfish are cooked thoroughly. Food poisoning is especially serious and potentially life-threatening for young children, pregnant women and their fetuses, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems.
These individuals should take extra precautions by avoiding the following foods:. These precautions should be taken at every stage a food takes — from preparation to cooking to storing leftovers. A lot of this responsibility falls on grown-ups, but kids can help fight germs too. One of the best ways is to wash your hands if you're helping to make foods. When should you wash? Before you start helping — so germs from your hands don't get on the food — and after so you don't pass along germs from the food to yourself or anyone else.
Reviewed by: Ryan J. Brogan, DO. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size. What Is Food Poisoning? What Are the Signs of Food Poisoning? Someone who has food poisoning might have: an upset stomach called nausea , say: NAW-zee-uh stomach cramps diarrhea say: dye-uh-REE-uh , which may contain blood a fever Sometimes feeling sick from food poisoning shows up within hours of eating the bad food.
Which Germs Are to Blame? What Will the Doctor Do? Other ways to keep your food safe include: Wash fruits and vegetables well before eating them. Only eat foods that are properly cooked. If you cut into chicken and it looks pink and raw inside, tell a grown-up. Look at what you're eating and smell it too. If something looks or smells different from normal, check with an adult 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!
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that toxic chemicals in food, everyday products, the general environment and even the air are poisoning our children, a leading group of US scientists, medical experts and health organisations have said.
Such toxins can interfere in the development of the brain with unborn children being particularly vulnerable. As of , 1 in 68 children in the US has an autism spectrum disorder. They pointed to a previous study that found 90 per cent of pregnant women in the US had detectable levels of 62 chemicals in their bodies, including phthalates, lead and mercury.
These replacements are now under investigation for disrupting the endocrine system.
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