Here are the Six Foods Most Likely to Give You Food Poisoning
According to Bill Marler, a prominent food-safety lawyer who's been representing people in food-poisoning cases for the past 20 years, including the recent one against Chipotle, there are certain foods you might want to avoid since they are most likely to give you food poisoning.
A website called Bottom Line Health asked Marler to list the foods he personally never eats because they're too risky. Here are his top six:
- 1
Raw Oysters
They've always been risky, but you're even more likely to get sick from them now, because the oceans are warming. And even slightly warmer water helps microbes grow.
- 2
Pre-cut Fruit and Vegetables
Meaning the ones they sell in plastic tubs at the grocery store. The fact that they're pre-cut means someone's already handled them, so they're more likely to be contaminated.
- 3
Sprouts
A lot of people put these on salads. There have been over 30 bacterial outbreaks linked to them in the past 20 years, mostly salmonella and e coli.
- 4
Rare Meat
If you love your steak rare, this probably won't change anything. But it SHOULD be cooked to at least 160 degrees all the way through to kill any bacteria. And that means at least medium-well.
- 5
Unpasteurized ("raw") Milk and Packaged Juices
Unpasteurized milk can sometimes be contaminated with bacteria, viruses and parasites. There have been 148 food poisoning outbreaks linked to raw milk, and with not many people in the country consuming these products, 148 is nothing to ignore. As for the juice, one of Marler's first cases was the 1996 E. coli outbreak from unpasteurized Odwalla apple juice.
- 6
Raw or Undercooked Eggs
The salmonella epidemic of the 80s and 90s was linked to maily eggs. The risk of a salmonella outbreak from eggs is much lower today than 20 years ago, but still smart to err on the side of caution.