Every year millions of people around the world die of food poisoning. Two thirds of children who die each year from diarrhoea do so as a result of eating contaminated food.

Food poisoning is very common. While the number of deaths attributed to food poisoning is very small, it is responsible for a great deal of discomfort which can be easily avoided by following these simple rules:

1. Cook Foods Properly. Meats should reach at least 75^o C to kill E. Coli and most other bacteria. Reheat cooked food to 75^o C for the same reason.
2. Keep Cooked and Raw Foods away from each other. This means don't chop food which isn't going to be cooked on a chopping board that has already been used to chop raw meat. Once raw meat has been chopped, you then must thoroughly wash your hands, the chopping board and the knife.
3. Wash Hands Thoroughly. Our skin has a bacterium called staphylococcus aureus living on it, so hands must be washed thoroughly before handling food.
4. Store Food at the Right Temperature. Prepared food needs to be kept at the correct temperature i.e. over 60^o C or below 5^o C. Anything in between will let food-poisoning bacteria multiply rapidly.
5. Follow instructions closely when cooking frozen, pre-pared food to kill off the bacteria. Increases in salmonella poisoning have been traced to people undercooking their "heat and serve" frozen dinners.

Bibliography

Australian Consumers' Association. How Safe is Our Food?. (Sydney: Random House, 1991).

Australian Academy of Science, When bugs have you on the run (http://www.science.org.au/nova/030/030key.htm, April 1998).