see also:

• gastroenteritis
• The child with gastroenteritis
• traveller's diarrhoea
• diarrhoea

• illness after eating food may be caused by either:
  • toxins in the food produced by bacterial contamination of the food
    • symptoms tend to occur very soon after ingestion eg. Staph, E.coli toxins, botulism (or may take days)
  • bacterial or viral contamination of the food resulting in infection
    • many foods stored in the “danger zone” of 5-60degC for some hours may become tainted with excessive growths of pathogenic bacteria
      • food that needs to be chilled should be kept below 5degC, and hot food should be maintained and served above 60degC
    • meats should be cooked to the minimum recommended temperatures for the type of meat
    • boiling suspect water is a good way to eliminate hepatitis A and giardia
    • unlike heating, freezing foods does not usually kill pathogens it just slows their growth substantially
    • avoid eggs that are dirty or cracked
    • avoid eating foods past their expiry date
    • unpasteurised milk causes 840x more illnesses and 45x more hospitalisations from illness than pasteurised milk - esp. Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, and Salmonella (and potentially viruses including avian influenza) ¹⁾.
    • symptoms are generally delayed by days eg. Salmonella, hepatitis A, giardiasis
    • symptoms may be delayed by months eg. Listeria monocytogenes / Listeriosis, parasites
  • allergy reactions
    • type 1 HS reactions such as:
      • eggs in infants
      • peanuts, cashews, walnuts
      • shellfish
      • quinine (rare severe kidney injury via immune-mediated thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA))
      • tick-induced mammalian red meat allergy (MMA)
  • food intolerances
    • inability to absorb the amount of sugars, etc
    • coeliac disease
    • malabsorption
  • organic disease and other causes of food “intolerance”
    • biliary colic
    • hyperemesis gravidarum
    • gastritis

• Norovirus was the primary contaminant in fruits and vegetables during foodborne illness outbreaks in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) during 2004-12, followed by bacterial pathogens - three bacterial pathogens, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli (mainly Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) ), and Salmonella enterica, were responsible for 82% of hospitalizations and deaths due to foodborne illnesses in the US during 2009-15 ²⁾
• fruit and vegetable supplies can be contaminated by enteric pathogens (mainly via pathogens in soil) via:
  • production sites were previously used for waste disposal or animal rearing
  • extreme weather events such as dust storms and flooding
  • germinating seeds attracting enteric pathogens in soil
  • sowing of pre-contaminated seeds
  • contaminated irrigation water
• bacterial pathogens can survive on leaves for several weeks to months via various colonization methods such as biofilms, cellulose synthase complex, internalizing into plant tissue through surface pores, etc.
• risk of crop contamination by enteric pathogens increases as urban populations extend into the countryside