refrigerated ready-to-eat foods: Be aware of Listeriosis ! 🦠

Listeriosis is a rare infection caused by a bacterium called Listeria. This bacterial disease can be contracted through several types of food, especially refrigerated ready-to-eat foods.

Symptoms of a listeria infection can be similar to those of the flu, and include a high fever, muscle aches or chills, feeling sick, and diarrhea.

Some people are actually more susceptible to infection than others, including those over the age of 65, pregnant women, fetuses, babies under 1 month old, and people with weakened immune systems.

According to the Mayo Clinic, healthy people rarely get sick from listeria infection, but the disease can be fatal in unborn babies, newborns and those with weakened immune systems. Prompt treatment with antibiotics can help reduce the effects of listeria infection. .

To avoid this risk, experts have revealed some of the foods most likely to cause infection:

1. Ice cream

Experts have warned that ice cream may be one of the worst foods for food poisoning and listeria infections.

2. Buds

Uncooked and lightly cooked sprouts have been linked to more than 30 outbreaks of deadly germs.

As recently as 2014, salmonella from sprouts sent 19 people to hospitals in the United States.

According to the Food Standards Agency, all types of sprouts - including bean and radish sprouts - can spread infections caused by bacterial contamination of their seeds.

3. Salad

Surprisingly, experts say salads — and specifically pre-packaged items — pose a significant health risk.

One potential source of pollution is water used to irrigate lettuce fields. And when dung from a small pasture nearby gets into your lettuce irrigation system, bacteria from the animal feces can end up on your salad.

According to the Secrets of your Supermarket Food program, packaged salad is now the second biggest cause of E. coli.

Dr Primrose Friston, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology, noted: "What is now being recognized is that there is a potential infection risk associated with packaged salads. The EU Food Standards Agency is in fact now considering packed salads to be the second most common cause of food poisoning."

"Suspect bacteria commonly include Campylobacter, Salmonella, Escherichia coli and Listeria, all of which thrive in the warmer temperatures of summer, causing the high number of reported cases of food poisoning."

Source: The Sun