Today's Health and Safety Concerns

76 million people suffer food borne illnesses each year in the United States, accounting for 325,000 hospitalizations and more than 5,000 deaths (figures as reported by the World Health Organization). Add to this the rise in food allergies, particularly among children, and we realize that home food safety cannot be taken too lightly.

The objective of food safety is to protect you and your family from these potentially dangerous food borne diseases and illnesses. Food borne illnesses and diseases are caused by bacteria, viruses, toxins or parasites. By practicing food safety you help protect yourself against harmful bacteria.

Food spoilage bacteria cause food to spoil and decay. It's a visual sign that food is well past its prime and should not be eaten. Pathogenic bacteria however, are the bacteria that cause illness and you can not sense that a product has an unsafe number of pathogenic bacteria on it.

All the food that you eat has bacteria on it, but your body's immune system kills small numbers of pathogenic bacteria that have the ability to make you sick. In large numbers however, pathogenic bacteria overwhelm the body's immune system and you become ill.

Bacteria thrive at unsafe temperatures in what is call the "Danger Zone" - the temperatures between 40 - 140° F (5 - 60° C). Under the proper conditions, a single bacterium can grow to 4 million bacteria in 8 hours.