What Foods Are Most Likely to Cause Food Poisoning?

Key Takeaways

• Undercooked poultry, leafy greens, fish, rice, and eggs are common culprits of food poisoning.

• Different foods carry different risks like Salmonella in poultry, E.coli in produce, and histamine in fish.

• Purchase seafood from reputable sources, refrigerate rice promptly, and avoid raw or undercooked eggs.

• Wash hands, cooking utensils, and produce thoroughly. Cook food to safe temperatures and avoid cross-contamination.

Have you ever eaten something and immediately felt sick?

Ideally, it’s just a sign of something not tasting good to you and making you feel a bit queasy. However, in the most severe instances, feeling violently ill following a meal is a sign of something more dangerous: food poisoning.

Food poisoning, which is a foodborne illness, happens when someone ingests something that has bacteria in it or on it that makes them sick. Some types of food are more likely to cause food poisoning than other types.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect yourself against the illness that comes with food poisoning. Before we dive into which foods are most likely to cause food poisoning, let’s take a look at some of those steps.

How to Reduce the Likelihood of Food Poisoning

One of the most effective ways to prevent food poisoning is to make sure that you’re cooking food to a safe temperature.

Obviously, you can’t be involved with food preparation when you go to eat at a restaurant, but good restaurants have safety procedures in place that ensure that cooks get food to a temperature high enough to kill any bacteria.

In your own home, you can invest in a food thermometer (they’re incredibly affordable online and in many retail stores) to make sure that food is cooked to a safe temperature.

Cooking to a safe temperature typically refers to meats, but it’s also important to consider your fruits and vegetables. Obviously, produce can be eaten raw, but it’s only safe to do so if you thoroughly wash what you’re going to eat.

Also, make sure that you’re regularly washing your hands, cooking utensils, cutting boards, and other items that you use during food preparation to cut down on cross-contamination.

Finally, make sure that you’re keeping different kinds of food separate until they’ve been cooked. For instance, you should never cut vegetables on the same cutting board or with the same knife that you use to cut raw chicken.

With these safety tips in mind, let’s look at the most common causes of food poisoning.

Poultry

Undercooked poultry, such as chicken, turkey, and duck, is considered high-risk when it comes to food poisoning. This is largely because of two types of bacteria found in poultry, Salmonella and Campylobacter.

Both of these types of bacteria typically get into the poultry during the slaughtering process and can live through transport, packaging, and refrigeration. The only way to kill these bacteria is by cooking the meat to a safe temperature.

Several research studies conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom indicate that anywhere between 41% and 84% of raw poultry found in supermarkets contains Campylobacter.

While somewhere between 4% and 5% of the poultry in supermarkets has Salmonella.

Leafy Greens and Vegetables

Vegetables are certainly good for you, but they’re also a common cause of food poisoning. Food poisoning is even more common among people who eat raw vegetables and leafy greens, which is a scary thought if you’re a big fan of salads.

It’s also worth noting that fruits are often responsible for food poisoning.

Salmonella, which we just discussed as a cause of food poisoning from poultry, can also impact produce.

Additionally, lots of produce has E.coli and Listeria, two other types of bacteria. Generally, produce gets exposed to these types of bacteria at various stages of the supply chain.

The bacteria that affects fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens can get into the water around where these items are grown. This not only includes the water that’s sprayed on the produce but also the water runoff that seeps into the soil where the food grows.

85% of food poisoning outbreaks that took place in the United States between 1973 and 2012 were attributed to leafy greens such as cabbage, lettuce, kale, and spinach. This is why it’s so crucial to thoroughly clean any type of produce that you’re going to eat.

Fish and Other Seafood

Many people don’t understand how easy it is to get food poisoning from fish, shellfish, and other seafood because so much of it can be eaten raw.

If you’ve ever been to a sushi restaurant, you’ve probably had raw fish. Even if that’s not something you’ve had, plenty of restaurants offer seared fish that isn’t cooked all the way through.

Bacteria that are often found in fish produce something called histamine, which is dangerous for humans to consume. To further complicate matters, histamine isn’t destroyed by normal cooking temperatures and can result in the usual GI-related food poisoning issues, as well as wheezing and swelling.

There’s another type of fish-related food poisoning called ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) that affects anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 people each year.

Typically, CFP impacts people who live in or visit warm, tropical areas and eat fish from local waters.

Since cooking the fish doesn’t totally eliminate these toxins, there’s no way to completely avoid these causes of food poisoning. Instead, the best option is to only purchase seafood from reputable, well-monitored stores and restaurants.

If you’re purchasing seafood to prepare at home, make sure to keep it cold until you’re ready to cook it.

Also, if you’re preparing shellfish such as clams, oysters, and mussels, cook the shellfish until the shell pops open. If any shells don’t pop open, throw them away.

Finally, if anything tastes odd, stop eating and discard the rest of the dish.

Rice

More than 50% of the world’s population consumes rice as a regular part of their diet. However, even though rice is incredibly popular, it’s also a leading cause of food poisoning all around the world.

It’s common for uncooked rice, like the kind that you can purchase in any grocery store to be infected with bacteria called Bacillus cereus.

Unlike some of the other types of bacteria that we’ve discussed, Bacillus cereus thrives in dry conditions, just like those in a sealed bag of dried, uncooked rice.

The best way to combat this bacteria is to serve rice as soon as it's cooked. If you let the cooked rice sit at room temperature for too long, the spores can multiply and grow, even though the environment is no longer dry.

If you’re done serving your rice but have some left over, get it into the refrigerator as quickly as possible. Cooked rice can be reheated, but you need to make sure that the rice is steaming all the way through.

Eggs

Finally, despite all of their nutritional value, eggs can be a source of food poisoning, especially if they’re eaten raw or undercooked. If you’ve ever fixed yourself a protein shake or a pre-workout protein boost, you may have used raw eggs.

While this is certainly an efficient, effective way of getting the high doses of protein from the egg into your body without adding any butter, salt, or other items, it’s not necessarily the safest route to go.

There were several Salmonella outbreaks in the United States in the 1970s and 80s, most of which were related to eggs.

Fortunately, the early 1990s saw major overhauls that changed how eggs could be processed and produced on a large scale. This led to a significant drop in the number of Salmonella cases.

Still, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that eggs cause around 79,000 cases of food poisoning in the United States every year.

The best way to avoid becoming part of that number is to avoid digesting raw eggs and to not consume eggs that have a cracked or dirty shell.

How Long Do Food Poisoning Symptoms Last?

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), around 48 million people in the United States get sick from food poisoning. Out of that, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.

While some cases and symptoms can be more severe than others, many people often experience the same type of illness.

Food poisoning symptoms typically come on suddenly and can be pretty miserable. You might experience nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and even fever or chills. Since these symptoms can feel similar to the flu, its important to know the difference between food poisoning vs stomach bug.

Food poisoning typically comes on and passes faster than the stomach bug does.

Food poisoning symptoms can be pretty intense but usually only last between 12 to 48 hours, though in some cases they may linger for up to a week. If you're experiencing severe symptoms or they don't seem to be improving, be sure to seek medical attention.

What Should I Do If I Get Food Poisoning?

In some mild cases, food poisoning results in nothing more than an upset stomach that lasts for less than a day. In those cases, hydrating well should be enough to let the sickness pass.

However, if you’re frequently throwing up, or experiencing dizziness, diarrhea, or other symptoms, you should seek medical care as quickly as possible.