Food Poisoning, Mind what you eat

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah.
On September 28, 2007, I found myself listening to a conversation between two young mothers in a hospital in Accra. One of them was hysterically pouring curses on some unknown persons whom she claimed had wanted to kill her child. Immediately I heard the word “kill”, I craned my neck to hear more so I could do a story. In fact, I made up my mind to abandon my scheduled assignment for the day and accompany them to the police.
In my desire to get the whole story, I approached them and with signs of genuine concern on my face, quietly asked who had wanted to kill her child.
“My sister, ask again ooh ooh, my seven year old child came from school vomiting and passing stool which continued till this morning. When I sent her to the hospital this morning, the doctor said she was suffering from food poisoning. My sister can you imagine someone trying to kill my only child by putting poison in her food”.
If it is was not for the fact that food poisoning could be fatal and also for the pain I saw on the woman’s face I would have laughed but I could not do that because although what she thought was not the case, the life of her child was in danger all the same. For about 10 minutes that we waited at the pharmacy department for our individual medication, I was able to explain the possible causes of her child illness, which to some extent relieved her from the fear that someone hated her so much as to poison her child.
What Is Food Poisoning?
Food poisoning, according to medical journals comes from eating foods that contain germs like bad bacteria or toxins, which are poisonous substances and can affect one’s health.
It is common to find bacteria are all around us especially in environments such as what prevails in Ghanaian communities. That is the more reason why cases of food poisoning are common.
Bacteria are all around us, including in food, and more especially leftover foods.
Germs that cause food poisoning could be found in animal products, raw foods, rotten foodstuffs and unwashed vegetables. The most likely source is food from animals, like meat, poultry (such as chicken), eggs, milk, and shellfish such as shrimps.
Some of the most common bacteria are: Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and E. coli
If a person has food poisoning, he or she might have an upset stomach and nausea, have stomach cramps, diarrhoea which may contain blood and fever.
Sometimes feeling sick from food poisoning shows up within hours of eating the bad food. At other times, someone may not feel sick until several days later.
Sometimes it becomes hard to tell if you have food poisoning or something else. You might do a little detective work and see who else gets the same sickness. Did they eat the same thing you did? If only people who ate that food got sick, food poisoning could be the problem.
It is one thing to get food poisoning from something in your fridge, but imagine how many people could get sick if a restaurant served food that had these bad germs in it. When that happens, people from the health department might get involved and try to figure out what happened and make sure everyone gets the medical care they need.
To avoid food poisoning, people need to prepare, cook, and store foods properly and that is where women come in since they normally prepare.
Many things can be done to prevent food poisoning from happening. These precautions should be taken at every stage; from preparation to cooking to storing leftovers. A lot of this responsibility falls on mothers but other members of the family can help since you all need to fight diseases.
One of the best ways is to wash your hands if you are helping to prepare foods so germs from your hands do not get on the food. Hand washing also be done after so you do not pass along germs from the food to yourself or anyone else.
Other steps you can take to keep your food safe include: Wash fruits and vegetables well before eating them, only eat foods that are properly cooked; look at what you are eating and smell it, too. If something looks or smells different than normal, do not eat or drink it.
Another point is that if you are going to eat leftovers, heat them up because by heating them, you can kill bacteria that grew while it was in the fridge.
It is also important to check the dates on products we buy from shops since lots of packaged foods have expiration dates. Do not eat or serve your family with food after the expiration date. IT is also important to cover and refrigerate food right away if it must be done since food which are left to sit at room temperature, could be contaminated with bacteria. By putting food in the fridge, you re putting the chill on those bad germs!