CARE TO PREVENT FOOD POISONING

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31224, 23 November 1966, Page 9

CARE TO PREVENT FOOD POISONING

With the summer approaching, extra care was necessary to avoid food poisoning, such as occurred recently at a ball in Christchurch, said a Health Department spokesman yesterday. Thirty-three cases of food poisoning were notified to the department last week, as well as three suspected cases. The spokesman said the people affected had recovered.

Poultry served at the supper at the ball was the cause of the trouble. Food-poison-ing organisms multiplied at room temperature, and were not destroyed by rapid cooling in a refrigerator before serving. Cooked meat was subject to rapid growth of bacteria, but refrigeration would pevent multiplication of bacteria, said the spokesman.

He advised housewives to cool meat to be served cold as quickly as possible after cooking and to store it in a refrigerator. About 800 cases of food poisoning were notified to the department every year, he said. Many minor cases were often not notified.

In a statement, the Health Department emphasises the need for care in handling household refrigerators and warns against overcrowding. In some cases this could cause contamination.

“A refrigerator does not kill bacteria,” the department said. “Though frozen bacteria are prevented from multiplying, typhoid fever has been traced to contaminated ice blocks.

“Putting cooked and raw meats next to each other is dangerous. They should be placed on separate shelves, or put into plastic bags.”

The less crowded the refrigerator the better. It should be used for chilling food and drink. Often it became a cupboard and the contents of the shopping basket were pushed into it

Industries Fair.—The 1967 New Zealand Industries Fair had been given the tentative dates of August 17 to September 2, said the chairman of the fair committee (Mr H. W. Revell) at a meeting of the council of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association.