Unwelcome Guests
Make sure your summer cookout is not an open invitation to germs

Steve Pitt

Ah, summertime and the living is easy — especially when you’re a hungry little germ looking for a people party to crash. If picnics, barbecues and campfire cookouts are fun for humans, for bacteria they are veritable bug raves with an open bar. Just think of all the food and drink that spend extended periods set out in warm weather without refrigeration or proper sanitation.

Not all food poisoning is bacteria-driven. You can ingest parasites and viruses. You can swallow toxic chemicals such as cleaning compounds that have not been thoroughly rinsed off a work surface or utensils. You can also have an adverse reaction to an allergen if you did not read a food product’s label carefully or the list failed to include all potential allergens.

But bacteria — single-cell life forms that can reproduce to toxic levels in a matter of hours — are by far the most common cause of food poisoning. They make you ill by infecting your digestive tract or by excreting sickening toxic waste products.

After soap and water

Look! Down on your hands! You can’t see it but it’s able to resist powerful antibiotics and reach tall numbers in a single hour! It’s Superbug! Scientists are becoming concerned that the overuse of antibacterial products may promote the growth of super germs that can resist the antibiotics people need to fight serious infections. “We live in a bacteria swamp, and using antibacterials is like breeding alligators,” says Shirley Paton, acting director of the Health Care Acquired Infections Division at the Public Health Agency of Canada in Ottawa. Antibiotic-like antibacterials kill off weaker bacteria, while the stronger ones evade, survive and multiply competition-free in an open field.

The alcohol-based hand wipes commonly available in stores are safe to use because alcohol kills germs by poisoning them on the spot. In contrast, antibacterials kill germs by preventing them from performing essential functions such as turning glucose into energy or replicating. The strongest bugs can evade their effects. And in order to work, an antibacterial usually needs to be left on the hands for two minutes or more — something most people are not willing to do in the middle of a picnic. With alcohol wipes it is still important, Paton says, to wash your hands with water first because the wipes do not remove dirt; they merely kill the germs in it. So unless you want to pop that finger food in your mouth with a fistful of dirt and dead germs, give your hands a thorough rinse and then use the wipes.

A common affliction
On average, we Canadians experience food poisoning at least 15 times in our lives, according to Health Canada. Most of us don’t realize we’ve been poisoned. The symptoms (cramping, nausea, vomiting, headaches, diarrhea, chills and dehydration) are usually wrongly ascribed to the flu. Symptoms can occur shortly after eating contaminated food or weeks later. Every year up to 13 million Canadians get food poisoning. Nearly 39,000 are hospitalized, and as many as 600 a year die. Still want to take a chance on that iffy effervescent potato salad?

Prepare your cooking and dining area. Crank the barbecue up to high (300°F/150°C) for 10 minutes, then drop the heat and give the grill a good wire brushing to remove germs. Clean, sanitize and rinse any surfaces and utensils used for cooking and eating. Here’s a recipe for a safe sanitizing solution. Add 1 tsp (5 mL) household bleach to 3 cups (750 mL) water. Spray down the work surfaces with the sanitizing solution. Let stand awhile, then rinse well and wipe dry with paper towels.

Remember the difference between soap or detergent and disinfectant. Unless they are specifically antibacterial, soaps and detergents do not kill germs — they cause them to lift off your skin and wash away. Even soapy water can be a breeding ground for germs unless you change it often. Disinfectants kill germs, but they are dangerous as well unless you wash surfaces and rinse objects thoroughly after cleaning. Bring lots of clean water and paper towels to your cookout.

Do not store cooked and uncooked food in the same cooler. Bacteria from raw items can cross over to the cooked food you think is safe to eat cold. Use separate coolers. Plastic does not seal food off from bacteria. In warm temperatures, the plastic acts like a greenhouse and under the right conditions food stored in plastic containers can actually go bad faster than unwrapped food. Just like unwrapped, wrapped food should be kept cool until it’s about to be used.

Before preparing foods, wash your hands with soapy, preferably warm, water. Wash them for at least 20 seconds and dry them on a clean towel. “Done properly, this simple step is a major weapon against food poisoning,” says Dr. Paul Socketts, director of Foodborne, Waterborne and Zoonotic Infections at the Public Health Agency of Canada in Ottawa. Most people just do a quick dip and wipe, sometimes without soap or a clean towel for drying. “That will neither kill nor wash away the bacteria on your hands,” Socketts says. “I always tell people to hum one verse of ‘Happy Birthday’ to themselves to time hand washing properly.”

Do not leave food items exposed any longer than necessary. Unpack prepared food just before you intend to eat it. Unpack the unprepared items just before you intend to cook them. Once you’re finished, put the leftovers away.

Throw an impermeable cloth over your picnic table. Old-fashioned oilcloth is great. So is brown butcher paper (available at kitchen specialty stores or meat shops). This can be thumbtacked down on a picnic table. Bring along some crayons and let your kids decorate the paper while you cook.

Cook ground red meat to an internal temperature of 160°F (71°C). Poultry — ground or in pieces — must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165°F (40°C). Whole chickens — stuffed or unstuffed must be cooked to an internal temperature of 185°F (85°C). Hand-held food thermometers are available for under $20 (a great host gift); thermometers are the only reliable way to tell if food is cooked. Just remember to clean the thermometer after every use.

If in doubt, throw it out. You can’t always detect spoiled food by sight, smell or taste. At room temperature, one bacterium on an uncooked hamburger can multiply to one million in just two hours.

Wash and disinfect all coolers thoroughly before and after use. Bacteria can lie dormant for years, and the minute you put in food, moisture and fresh air, it’s microbe party time.

Rinse off drinks standing in melted ice. Those cubes are great for keeping things cool but when they melt and the water warms up, you’ve just thrown a pool party for germs. In fact, rinse all cans and bottles before opening; they are only as clean as the factory in which they were filled, the warehouse in which they were stored, the truck in which they were carried to market...you get the picture.

Don’t try to salvage left-out food by blasting it on the barbie. Ditto by nuking it in the microwave. You may kill most of the bacteria, but their toxic waste will still be there. Give it the heave-ho.

Discard any marinade used to steep raw meat. Never use it on food during or after cooking. Even boiling it will not make it 100% safe. Most marinades are cheap to make or buy, so go wild and make a double batch, one for marinating and one for basting during cooking.

Remember the danger zone — the temperature range in which bacteria multiply quickly in food. The zone is between 40°F (4°C) and 140°F (60°C). Food set out in this temperature range can go from safe to toxic in less than two hours. Keep cold food cold and hot food hot. That means maintaining it below 40°F (4°C) until you’re ready to cook it, or over 140°F (60°C) until you’re ready to serve it.

Bird bombs, mosquitoes and wind blowing away the serviettes; it’s hard to explain why humans even like eating outdoors but undeniably we do. Maybe it hearkens back our hunter-gatherer days when all our meals were alfresco. Now we can enjoy the same pleasures our primitive ancestors did without risking the runs from a bad rack of mastodon ribs. Following a few rules and investing in a food thermometer will ensure that you and your guests enjoy your outing while your local bacteria do not.

Not all bug waste is bad

Without the right kind of flatulence from yeast and bacteria, we would not have wine, leavened bread and cheese. And speaking of wine, a hangover is technically a form of food poisoning, the flu-like consequences of drinking too much.

All good hosts provide their guests with food, water, oxygen and a comfortable ambient temperature — all of which elements are dear to microscopic malefactors. The best way to ward off bacteria is to think of them as potential party crashers and place a bouncer at the door. Deny them your hospitality and they won’t make an appearance at your alfresco bash. Here’s a baker’s dozen worth of tips for safe outdoor eating

Five to avoid

The following pathogens are the five most common culprits in food-borne infections.

Campylobacter
Escherichia (E.) coli
Salmonella
Shigella
Yersinia

--Public Health Agency of Canada

A word about water

Cooking around the campfire by a pristine lake or a crystal clear creek? Well, don’t even think of drinking untreated water in the wild no matter how pure it looks, warns Dr. Paul Socketts of the Public Health Agency of Canada. The tail-slapping denizens of that downstream beaver dam may be releasing the infectious parasite giardia into the limpid depths. Parasites, viruses, bacteria and even most chemical pollutants are invisible to the eye and have no scent or taste.