[INFOGRAPHIC] Food Poisoning

Food poisoning

1. Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Also, wash hands during cooking and preparations if you switch from one food to another.
2. Wash worktops before and after preparing food, particularly after they’ve been touched by raw meat (including poultry), raw eggs, fish and vegetables. Also keep the dining table clean.
3. Cooking kills bacteria. Use a thermometer to make sure meats are cooked to safe temperatures. For beef and pork, it’s 145 F. For poultry, it’s 165 F.
4. Keep raw meat away from ready-to-eat foods, such as salad, fruit and bread. Always cover raw meat and store it on the bottom shelf of the fridge, where it can’t touch or drip onto other foods.
5. If you have cooked food that you’re not going to eat straight away, cool it as quickly as possible (within 90 minutes) and store it in the fridge or freezer. Use any leftovers from the fridge within 2 days.
6. Clean your fridge every week. Throw away leftovers that look and smell suspicious.

Statistic Dat

• Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhoea to cancers.
• An estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420 000 die every year, resulting in the loss of 33 million healthy life years (DALYs).
• Children under 5 years of age carry 40% of the food borne disease burden, with 125 000 deaths every year.
• Diarrhoeal diseases are the most common illnesses resulting from the consumption of contaminated food, causing 550 million people to fall ill and 230 000 deaths every year.