Food Borne Illness Essay

Food that is mishandled can lead to foodborne illness. While the United States has one of the safest food supplies in the world, preventing foodborne illness remains a major public health challenge. Often when you purchase foods from the grocery store or the food market, you have to check all the expiration dates. When a food is expired, they tend to give you a sign that the food is no good. For example, when you go to the store and shop for bread, you have to check the expiration date. If you purchase bread when the date on the bread is expired, the bread will mold within in the next three days or so. The same situation with the expiration dates is for meat as well. According to â€Å"Food Borne Illnesses & Disease† (2012), as pertaining to storage, for example meat, you can store meat in the freeze for a specific amount of time and it will still be as good as it was when you bought it from the store. * * If you store meat over the amount of time that is listed in this chart, the meat is no longer good. The presentation of the products in the store tend to look good when they might not be. Some foods are advertised as being healthy and clean but they could be bad as well. * Listeria, salmonella, E. Coli, Botulism, are some food borne illnesses that America try to avoid everyday. To prevent the food borne illness Listeria, you must set your refrigerator to 40  °F or lower, and the freezer 0  °F or lower. Use a refrigerator thermometer to check your refrigerator’s inside temperature. When you check in your refrigerator and you see juice from hot dogs or any type of meat leaking, you have to clean the inside thoroughly to avoid catching this illness. Clean the inside walls and shelves of your refrigerator with hot water and liquid soap, then rinse. Use precooked or ready-to-eat food as soon as you can. Do not store the precooked or ready-to-eat food in the refrigerator too long. Wash your hands after you touch hot dogs, raw meat, chicken, turkey, or seafood or their juices. Readers might search for more information on the food safety and inspection service website. They can and will inform you about the many illnesses that are out and how you can and can not prevent them. They will also give you many charts on how to take care of your meat and how to store your meat so you will prevent catching any food borne illness. * To determine if the research is credible, you have to search for the same information through other websites as well. Never just go along with one website and say that it is credible. It is very important to use this criteria when searching for information on nutrition and health because on some sources, they might give you information on telling you what to do with your raw foods and you end up getting sick. To avoid all of the confusion and the illnesses, make sure that the sources are credible. References: Food Borne Illnesses & Disease. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.fsis.usda.gov/fact_sheets/Foodborne_Illness_&_Disease_Fact_She