Food Poisoning fromPoultry
One chicken sandwich and you had such a severe headache and abdominal cramps that you wished you had never eaten it. At the time, you probably didn’t know that you had fallen prey to poultry food poisoning.
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| Food Poisoning from Poultry |
Causes:
If you eat poultry products that contain bacteria, parasites, viruses,
and poisonous substances, it’s easy to be a victim of poultry food poisoning.
Often, this is a life-threatening problem. The bacteria that usually harbor in
poultry are Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shigella, Listeria, E. coli and
Botulism. Of these, Campylobacter and Salmonella reside in the intestinal tracts
of poultry and livestock, and are therefore the No. 1 cause of poultry food
poisoning among human beings.
Symptoms:
If you have a weak immune system, you are prone to be infected with
these two bacteria that enter the bloodstream and cause life-threatening
problems. The most prominent symptoms of poultry food poisoning are diarrhea,
fever, stomach cramps and vomiting. You might also suffer from high fever and
blood in stools, in which event you must immediately see your doctor.
Treatment:
The severity of your poultry food poisoning will decide how long
your chicken food poisoning will last. If your poultry food poisoning infection
is mild, you will recover within two days with no treatment, but if it is
serious, you will be put on a course of antibiotics for complete relief.
Prevention:
- Practice washing
your hands well before handling poultry.
- Avoid eating
leftover poultry, or if you must, heat it thoroughly so that any bacteria
residing in the chicken can be destroyed which developed while the food
was lying in the fridge.
- When buying raw
poultry, check its expiry dates and avoid buying chicken items after their
expiry dates.
- Store poultry at the
right temperature in the refrigerator.
- To kill bacteria,
cook raw poultry, don’t freeze it.
