HHS HealthBeat (May 13, 2010)

Are you going to eat that?

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Some foods look safer than they are. That’s because it can be hard to tell how safe a food is just by looking. Each year, millions of people get sick from food contaminated by bacteria.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks foodborne illnesses. Barbara Mahon reports some improvements – for instance, fewer infections caused by a particularly serious form of E. coli. But she says there haven’t been many others in recent years.

Cooking at high enough temperatures to kill bacteria can prevent illness. And Mahon says:

"Probably the most important things that consumers can do is to wash their hands thoroughly after touching raw meat or any other raw food product that comes from an animal." (10 seconds)

The research on foodborne illness is in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 21, 2011