Scary food isn’t just for Halloween

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/10/2010 (5425 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eating isn’t usually thought of as scary, unless it’s wondering where the 10 bags of miniature Almond Joys went and why there is coconut between your teeth.

But food can be scary if it’s not clean, or if the hands of those serving it aren’t. Men’s Health calls this list “dirtiest foods,” but in honour of Halloween, we’re calling ’em scary. We culled their 10 to five.

Washed prepackaged lettuce: Lettuce accounted for 11 percent of reported food-poisoning outbreaks linked to produce from 1990 to 2002, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. When you bring it home from the grocery store, rinse every leaf under running water. And please don’t wrap it in the towel you just used to wipe up chicken juice.

Chicken: In a word, yecch. Recent testing of 484 raw broilers found 48 per cent contaminated with an unpronounceable, particularly nasty form of bacteria. When you open a package of chicken, pop it right into the baking pan. Cook till the thickest part reaches 180 degrees.

Eggs: Avoid being one of the 660,000 egg-related cases of food poisoning by making sure your eggs are pasteurized. Examine each one before you buy that carton. Store them in the coldest part of the fridge, the back of the lowest shelf. Wash your hands after cracking them.

Scallions: Innocent they may seem, they’ve caused several deadly hepatitis A outbreaks. Buy them refrigerated; run them under full-force faucet to get rid of visible dirt. Remove the outer layer, too.

Ground beef: Lessen your chances for E. coli by adding a tablespoon of oregano to each pound of ground beef. Also, make sure patties are flat; otherwise, the outside will be done and the inside a nursery for bacteria.

 

— The Dallas Morning News