A Food-Poisoning Expert Reveals the 6 Foods He'll NEVER Eat
If you've ever had a bout of food poisoning, chances are you'll do anything to avoid feeling such misery ever again. Bill Marler, an attorney who has worked on countless food-poisoning lawsuits, knows more than a thing or two about troublesome eats. In an article he posted to the Food Poisoning Journal, he shared which foods he'll never eat again.
Here's a list of the bites he avoids completely.
Raw Oysters – Due to warming waters, raw oysters are more vulnerable to microbial growth. You can guess what that means if you slurp those microbes down: foodborne illness.
Precut or Prewashed Fruits and Veggies – These convenient tubs of chopped veggies and fruits may save you some time and effort, but Marler warns it's not worth it. He suggests avoiding these "like the plague" because more people are handling and processing the food, increasing the chances of contamination.
Raw Sprouts – According to Business Insider, "sprout outbreaks are surprisingly common, with more than 30 bacterial outbreaks (primarily salmonella and E. coli) in the past two decades. Nope. Just nope.
Rare Meat – You may like your steak rare, but Marler won't order anything that isn't cooked medium-well or higher. He says that meat needs to be cooked to 160 degrees throughout in order to kill the bacteria that causes foodborne-illnesses.
Uncooked Eggs – While this one should be pretty obvious, the chances of getting food poisoning from raw eggs is apparently much lower today than it was two decades ago, according to Marler. Yet, after the salmonella epidemic of the '80s and '90s, he isn't going to risk it.
Unpasteurized Milk and Juices – It may be all the rage to eat organic, whole foods, but one step you shouldn't skip when consuming milk or juices is pasteurization. Some argue that this process depletes nutritional value found in the drinks, but "there's no benefit big enough to take away the risk of drinking products that can be made safe by pasteurization," Marler said. Want bacteria, viruses, or parasites in your juice? We didn't think so.
[via Business Insider]
