| Organisms
involved |
Food commonly
affected |
illness
Incubation Duration period |
Comment | |
| Salmonellae | Meat,easpecially sliced
cooked meat and meat pies. Duck eggs. Synthetic cream. Ice cream.shellfish |
12-36 1-8
hours days |
Main cause of food poisoning in
U.K
Unpleasant, often with severe diarrhea but not usually serious. |
|
| Clostridium
welchii |
Gravy, stews, precooked meat |
8-22 12-24
hours days |
Can occur when food is kept hot. Causes severe stomach pains. | |
| Staphylococci | Pies,meat, especially sliced meat, pies and gravy.Sythetic cream.Ice cream |
2-6 6-24
hours days |
Unpleasant but not normally serious. Causes severe vomiting. | |
| Clostridium
botulinum |
INadequately processed canned meat, vegetables and fish | 24-72
Often
hours death within a week |
Very rare but often fatal. |
This can be prevented by cooking
food thoroughly immediately after preparation. It should also
be rapidly after it has been cooked.
If infected food is allowed to stand
in warm moist condition for
any length of time, the bacteria multiply and
poison is formed. The poison is
rather resistant to heat treatment and
subsequent cooking may fail to
destroy it once it is formed.
Food which is cooked and then stored
for some time in warm moist
condition may cause food poisoning
even though cooking has destroyed
all the bacteria.
This is explained by the fact that
when some bacteria
find themselves in conditions which
do not favour growth, they develop
spores which are resistant to heat.Thus
if such food -especially
cooked meat products-is badly stored
it can easily cause food
poisoning.
Note: Please try to not reheat
food twice or three times because
it may lead to food poisoning.
KEY POINT: Food that may have been
contaminated with Salmonellae
must be cooked really well to destroy
any such bacteria present.