How To Avoid Food Poisoning

By: Sylvia Tsang

Break Studios Contributing Writer

If you don’t want to get sick from eating and cooking, knowing how to avoid food poisoning is a must. You should handle food poisoning seriously because the germs can attack your immune system, and you will become hospitalized. This sounds very scary, but no worry! Just follow these easy steps in order to avoid food poisoning.

To avoid food poisoning, you will need:

  • Liquid hand soap
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Internet
  1. Always wash your hands before you eat or cook. The first step to avoid food poisoning is to wash your hands prior to your chow time or cooking preparation. If washing your hands is never a habit, then make it a habit! Some people think that the process is very inconvenient and unnecessary because they don’t see the importance of it. In other words, they have been extremely lucky. If they never want to clean their hands, they might get food poisoning sooner or later due to the germs on their hands. Just remember: When dining out, always bring hand sanitizer with you. For people who cook at home, make sure to put liquid hand soap near the kitchen sink. This will save you a trip to wash your hands in the bathroom.
  2. Handle all food carefully. The second step to avoid food poisoning is to pay attention on how you deal with all raw and cooked food. Regarding to the raw food, if they aren’t prepared correctly, no matter how well you cook them, they can still make you very sick. Let’s say you will make a stir fry chicken and mixed vegetable dish. If you don’t freeze the chicken at the right temperature, they can get rotten. About the vegetable, you skip washing it due to its nice and clean look. The heat on the stove isn’t going to kill the germs because the vegetable has been contaminated. Don’t take it easy on cooked food. For example, you have some leftover potato salad laying on the countertop. Put it in the fridge right away if you are done with it! The longer you leave it out, the more germs the salad will build up.  
  3. Pick a clean restaurant for dining. The last step to avoid food poisoning is to dine out at descent restaurants that practice sanitization. There are stories about how some people have to visit the emergency room after dining out. Sometimes, they aren’t experiencing any food poisoning symptoms until a few days later. Although the situation seems like very unpredictable, you can always do some restaurant researches before eating out. If you know the name of the restaurant that you want to eat at, research it on the Internet and see what people have to say about it. Or, you can ask around for opinions.

You can definitely avoid food poisoning by following easy steps. Now, you have nothing to worry, but to enjoy your food and cooking!

Posted on: Nov. 09, 2010