How to avoid food poisoning?
- Types of food poisoning
- What to do in order not to get poisoned?
- How to avoid other forms of food poisoning
- Prevention of alcohol poisoning
A pretty high percentage of emergency medical care is accounted for poisoning Incidents. They are acute conditions related to entering toxic substances toxic into the human circulatory system. The most common case is food poisoning, with a toxic factor entering the body through the gastrointestinal tract with food or drink.
TYPES OF FOOD POISONING
Depending on the toxin type and source, there are several types of food poisoning:
| Foodborne diseases | They are associated with the food contaminated with live bacteria. The toxins they secret disrupt the intestinal mucosa performance and are absorbed into the blood, having a general toxic effect. Such a disease can be caused by various bacteria, and the most frequent case of bacterial food poisoning is salmonellosis. That is it, which results in most of the egg, dairy, ice cream, confectionery and sausage poisoning. |
| Food bacterial toxicity | The symptoms appear due to the ingestion of food contaminated with bacterial toxins. And the microbes secreting them usually die by the time of poisoning. A classic example of bacterial toxicity is botulism |
| Mushroom poisoning | The reason is consumption of poisonous or improperly processed conditionally edible mushrooms. |
| Plant poisoning | Vegetable poisons can enter the digestive system with erroneous or deliberate eating of some plants. By the way, only their specific parts are poisonous: berries, leaves, rhizomes. Some medicinal plants are toxic too when taken at maximum allowable dosage or increased individual sensitivity. |
| Venenation | Some fish produce toxic milt during the spawning period, mucus lamprey is toxic too. Many blowfish (for example, fugu) are poisonous.Ciguatera is another special group of foodborne illnesses. It is related to eating reef fish accumulating siguatoxin, a toxin released by marine unicellular creatures. |
| Alcohol poisoning | This includes states associated with the using alcohol substitutes (methanol, ethylene glycol, technical liquids, etc.) or toxic doses of ethyl alcohol. Strictly speaking, alcohol poisoning is separated from other food poisoning and is highlighted as a separate type of poisoning. This follows from alcohol special influence on the human body, because it has primarily a general toxic effect with the vital organs affected. |
WHAT TO DO IN ORDER NOT TO GET INTOXICATION?
How to avoid food poisoning? Preventive measures include:
- Observance of food storage rules, especially during the hot season. It is necessary to control the expired date, enough distance between the made dishes and raw meat / fish uncovered with a bag, film or lid and placed in the refrigerator near each other, avoid repeated freezing of semi-finished products, meat, fish and minced meat. It is very important to put in the refrigerator cooled, brought-up-home and uneaten food timely.
- Compliance with hygiene rules while cooking in the kitchen. You should carefully wash your hands and food, ensure dishes and cutlery to be clean, use a special board and knife for cutting raw meat and fish. It is recommended to wash the eggshell before breaking.
- Observance of personal hygiene rules. It is necessary to develop habit of washing hands after coming from the outside, visiting the toilet, before eating, after cooking.
- Sanitary treatment of the house, if someone of your closest got an intestinal infection. He/she should apply a separate dish during the period of illness and some time after that, which should be regularly pelted with boiling water and treated with disinfectants.
- Refusal to take products if suspected of the storage rule violating. The alarming signs include evidence of package tempering and unintentional mechanical damage, label re-marking, even a slight swelled container walls, uneven and excessive ice-crusted frozen foods.
- Refusal to take tainted food, as it can be contaminated with bacteria at the stage of cooking or serving. The cause of the products infected can be chronic or hidden forms of intestinal infections in cooks, cleaners and waiters, non-observance of sanitary and hygienic standards by kitchen workers (dirty tools, utensils, cutting boards). Don`t have meals in cafes, where the administration pays insufficient attention to cleansing the hall, tables, dishes and cutlery, where the waiters are untidy and indirect signs of the living insects and rodents are visible.
These simple measures prevent from food poisoning. If you doubt about quality of meal eaten, the risk of poisoning can be reduced with enterosorbents taken. They assume toxins and bacteria and are not absorbed into blood or toxic, even when several tablets are taken in one go. is convenient, safe and universal enterosorbent. It is authorized for use also by infants.
Important: Before using, consult a specialist.
How to avoid other forms of food poisoning.
Eat only well-known species to avoid fish poisoning. When traveling to exotic countries, order in restaurants cod dishes and made from other edible species. During the spawning period, it is recommended to stop eating milt of pike, burbot, mackerel, perch, balyk and some others.
Mushroom poisoning can be avoided by careful sorting mushrooms before cooking. Each doubtful item should be thrown out. If possible, refuse to have conditionally edible mushrooms. Nevertheless, if they are picked up, carefully observe the cooking rules. It is advisable to avoid using homemade dried, salted and pickled mushrooms bought from strangers in the markets.
After the first signs of intoxication appeared, call on the doctor at once. Before that, pump the stomach and take an enterosorbent (for example, Filtrum®) to reduce a number of toxins concentrated in the digestive tract.
PREVENTION OF ALCOHOL POISONING
To avoid alcohol poisoning, buy only famous brands only in large trusted stores. Check each bottle for signs of tampering. Slightly different font or uneven letters on the label, poorly glued or printed excise stamp, a slightly different color of liquid and sediment present in the bottle: all these things should make you doubt when buying. The signs may indicate a fake alcoholic beverage.
Currently, you can check whether the alcohol is legal by QR-code. It is pointed out on officially issued bottles only and is indicated by a special scanner at the time of check formation at the counter. This is an effective way to avoid buying a counterfeit, so go to stores provided with such a scanner only.
If doubts about the alcohol authenticity come after the bottle uncorked, you should stop taking such alcohol. If the first signs of poisoning appear, call an ambulance, pump the stomach and take an enterosorbent (for example, Filtrum®). A doubtful bottle should be kept for toxicological examination.
