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It's really hard to determine when someone ACTUALLY has true food poisoning and where it came from.
Most times, food poisoning is a 24-48 hour incubation, so.. What happens is someone eats somewhere and truly does get food poisoning. They usually eat 2 or 3 more times, at least, since then.. And the last place they ate before they started blowing chunks gets the blame.
Or.. They pick up some norovirus or similar from a door handle they opened and then wipe their eyes.. Boom, they've got it.. But the last place they ate gets the blame for "Food Poisoning"
Unless multiple people get sick from the same place and that's the only commonality. It's usually NOT food poisoning.. But.. Explaining that to someone who has gotten sick is... Damn near impossible.
STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH YOUR STATEMENT highlighted above.
It's pretty apparent that you've never taken a food safety handling course …
or you'd know that there are a fair number of the more "common" food contaminants that are pretty fast acting and have the symptoms the OP described; ie:
1) Salmonella, which can show up in as little as 8 hours
2) Staphylococcus, in 1-6 hours
3) Clostridium, in 8 hours
These are pretty much dependent upon poor food prep, storage, and handling practices for common foods at many restaurants. Proper cooking temperatures and proper holding temperatures are critical. Some foods are more susceptible to the contaminants growth, such as dairy, seafood, and raw items.
There are, of course, other pathogens and bacteria which can take much longer to show up.
You'll have to take my word for it that I didn't eat another meal between the one where I got sick and the following distress an hour later.
PS: as a Food Vendor at our local Farmer's Market, I am required to take recurrent state sponsored "Food Safety Training" courses for our business license/sales permit. The industry information about food contaminants is well documented and taught. As well, our refrigeration and freezer units are inspected for proper cleanliness, sanitation, and temperature control of our stored foods. The inspectors frequently go through the stored foods looking for any signs of spoilage or failed containers. This isn't trivial stuff, they're pretty serious about enforcing the regs and safe industry practices especially in a sales environment where it's a bit more difficult to keep foods at proper temperatures than in a brick'n'mortar restaurant.
As much as I eat outside, I'm surprised I haven't gotten sick that much.
Going back 10 years, I've gotten seriously ill about four times all from something I suspect I got from restaurant food. I don't ever recall getting sick from something I've cooked myself as I am a stickler about proper food prep and ensuring foods are not expired (though my kitchen isn't exactly the cleanest surface wise).
The weird thing is that each time I've gotten sick, I've never vomited which is odd. I did feel a little queasy but the worst side effect was nonstop diarrhea over and over throughout the night. The worst obviously would be if it came out both ends, but for some reason it only gave me the runs. After the purging stopped, my stomach was unwell and I couldn't stomach normal foods for several days and didn't feel completely normal until a week later.
Two of those instances were from Thai restaurants I think were not exactly hygienic in food prep. Another was a brewery where I ate some sort of hummus and veggies.
It's really hard to determine when someone ACTUALLY has true food poisoning and where it came from.
Most times, food poisoning is a 24-48 hour incubation, so.. What happens is someone eats somewhere and truly does get food poisoning. They usually eat 2 or 3 more times, at least, since then.. And the last place they ate before they started blowing chunks gets the blame.
True. Most of the time when people say they'd had food poisoning, it was something else that caused the discomfort.
The one time I did have food poisoning, it started about 20 hours after I ingested whatever it was that made me sick. I felt fine most of the day, ate breakfast and lunch, and then began feeling sick. I blamed it initially on the hamburger I'd eaten for lunch (and it was months before I could eat a hamburger again), until I found out that a dozen other people at the party I'd attended the night before also were sick. We never figured out what it was that caused the illness. Could have been anything.
STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH YOUR STATEMENT highlighted above.
It's pretty apparent that you've never taken a food safety handling course …
or you'd know that there are a fair number of the more "common" food contaminants that are pretty fast acting and have the symptoms the OP described; ie:
1) Salmonella, which can show up in as little as 8 hours
2) Staphylococcus, in 1-6 hours
3) Clostridium, in 8 hours
These are pretty much dependent upon poor food prep, storage, and handling practices for common foods at many restaurants. Proper cooking temperatures and proper holding temperatures are critical. Some foods are more susceptible to the contaminants growth, such as dairy, seafood, and raw items.
There are, of course, other pathogens and bacteria which can take much longer to show up.
In any discussion about food poisoning I've read, someone will inevitably mention that food poisoning takes a while to incubate so that what you ate for lunch may not necessarily be what made you sick a few hours later. As you've shown, in fact it is entirely possible that lunch caused you to get sick. So many people out there still believe that 'real' food poisoning takes 24 hours or longer to incubate.
first day there they had quite a spead...had a red stripe beer and the appetizers were fruit and salad bowls..... I ate one was very hungry,..... and had the runs for 4 days.....bought two bottles of 18.00 pepto bismol
I was reduced …. to eat those little boxed cereals.... and I noticed I wasn't the only one.....5 others had the same thing and they also had the fruit and salad bowl..
That was the "lose weight fast!" plan for me. I'm not so sure that it was food poisoning, but might have been due to the fact that I wasn't used to the local microbes. No one who worked there was sick, and I'm sure that they were eating the food. The hotel gave Lomotil to the suffering guests.
Me and a friend were in Nepal, we ate at a restaurant in Kathmandu one afternoon, and we ordered the exact same meals, each had the same beer. My friend had diarrhea all night and? It never effected me in the least.
I took my mother for a tour of New England in the Fall one year, to the see the colors, and our first night was in Lake Placid. For the 7 days I was there I had diarrhea, my mother none. Later I learned that if you're not accustomed to the water in upstate NY, it can do that to you. And I don't think it was any food I ate that triggered it.
I would imagine that you can develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from this happening to you. I believe if I ever had a serious case of food poisoning, I'd never eat at a restaurant again!
What has made me more comfortable in eating street food around the world, is you get to watch them cook it from beginning to end. In a restaurant, you can't see what's going on in the kitchen!
Some of these Health Inspections of restaurants that show up in the local newspaper, a number of them will say: This restaurant had a perfect record, thru the years, but not this time! Problem has been corrected.
Yes, once. It was a spicy chicken sandwich from Hardee's. I ordered it without mayonnaise. I ate almost the entire sandwich and did not notice any mayo.
When I got to the end of the sandwich, though, I immediately felt nauseous. There was a HUGE glob of mayonnaise on one edge of the sandwich.
I don't like mayo (hence why I ordered my sandwich without), so I thought that maybe the reason it tasted so horrible was just because I didn't like it...but I'll be honest, I thought right away that the mayo was rancid. I swallowed that bite but didn't take anymore.
About six hours later, I started sweating but had goosebumps all over me and felt cold and clammy. I won't get into further details, but I was the sickest I've ever been -- sicker than I have ever even imagined being, in fact -- for a good 48 hours. Couldn't even take sips of water. After that, I was weak and nauseous for another 2 days or so. It was a full week before I was "better" again.
-steam table cream of mushroom soup. I almost never eat soup any more.
-one small bite of potato salad at a restaurant. Had lunch with five friends, and we all got sick, including the woman who didn't eat the potato salad, just the lettuce it sat on.
-salmon or something else in a dinner at a friend's house. Horrendous. I had to borrow clothes to go home in. I didn't much like salmon before that, won't eat it at all now.
And several other times, these were just the most memorable. What's the opposite of cast iron? I have a rice paper stomach?
True. Most of the time when people say they'd had food poisoning, it was something else that caused the discomfort.
I always thought this, too, until I actually had food poisoning.
Someone having to use the toilet after eating or not feeling quite right is one thing...
When you have actual food poisoning, you know. In fact, as you're dealing with it, you're thinking to yourself -- THIS is what food poisoning actually feels like.
My closest neighbor fell victim to food poisoning last week, she was vomiting and had diarrhea for 3 days, and lost 5 pounds. She couldn't figure out, exactly, if it was the deli food from Whole Foods or the can of soup she bought there.
One of my Spanish class attendants missed class last Wednesday, and she thinks she pinpointed it to some spiced Pumpkin seeds she bought at Sprouts.
It hasn't happened to me yet in my 69 years and it must be miracle, as I've traveled all over the world, ate street food in India, Central America, China, Mexico and I must have a cast iron stomach.
Thank God I love to cook as 95% of my eating comes from my own kitchen. Intuitively, I've always avoided deli food from grocery stores, except fried chicken, and rarely eat out at restaurants, except when traveling.
'How about you, ever been food poisoned and you were able to pinpoint what caused it?
Never. But I also eat stuff most Americans wouldn't. Especially when traveling. I assume that my stomach just got used to it.
Sometimes I do wonder, but I think I have pretty amazing defense system in my body. I also never get sick. Like... literally. Never was a patient in a hospital and avoid doctors like a plague...
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