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Olivia McAfee, Sara Welden, and Olivia Casenhiser

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Food poisoning can be more serious for people with weakened immune systems or health conditions. Most of the time, people get better on their own.

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Preventing Food Poisoning In Restaurants

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Preventing Food Poisoning In Restaurants

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In this article health experts give you a few tips about what to look for when you go to eat at a restaurants. Most of the tips have to do with looking around to see how clean the place is. It also gives you a few things on the menu to look out for, that are common products that cause food poisoning.

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Have you ever had food poisoning? Chances are, on some level, the answer is yes. I have, and it really stinks.

Health experts say that the majority of time, food poisoning occurs when we're outside our homes. That is, when we eat at restaurants, delis, or cafeterias, or when we buy a quick bite from a street vendor.

But is there any way to avoid getting food poisoning when we go out? Well, yes, but only ifwe know what to look for.

In a previous post, I went over some tips to prevent food poisoning in general. Today, I want to specifically give some advice that will help you lessen the risk of food poisoning at restaurants and the subsequent health expenses that go along with it:
1. Trash and Parking Lot
First, take a look at the restaurant you just pulled into. Can you see the trash bins from the parking lot? Is there trash in the parking lot, or overflowing from bins? Is the back door open (which would allow flies and vermin in)? Is there pooled water around the restaurant?

Also, observe the employees, if any are outside. Are they hosing down mats or tossing wastewater onto the concrete or grass?

These are all details that health inspectors look for because each of these things will attract rodents, cockroaches, and other unsavory things.

Keep in mind that how people take care of the outside of their restaurant offers some great insight into how they take care of the inside. If the outside is grubby and unkempt, what's the kitchen going to look like?
2. Watch that Salsa
The Center for Disease and Control says that salsa and guacamole is increasingly becoming the cause of food poisoning.

The reason why salsa and guacamole can be dangerous is because they're often made in large batches with several ingredients, and often not refrigerated properly. One bad ingredient can sicken a lot of people.
3. Don't Eat Fish on Monday
According to the Food Poison Journal, restaurant-goers should never eat fish on Monday.

Why?

Because chances are the chef bought the fish for the busy Saturday night. If it didn't sell out, then it likely sat in the fridge all day Sunday. By the time you're there on Monday night, it's way, WAY on its last legs.
4. Examine the Cooks and Wait Staff
What should you look for?

Clean aprons and uniforms. Cook staff especially should not be wiping their hands on their uniform (which harbors bacteria that can spread to food). Dirty aprons are not a good sign.

Hair restraints.

Clean and manicured hands (no cuts, bitten nails, or raw cuticles).

5. Avoid, At All Costs, Buffets and Salad Bars
The Food Poison Journal puts it bluntly: eat at a salad bar only if you have a loaded gun to your head. Many people think salad bars are fine, but the Journal says this is one of the main places people get sick in a restaurant.

Food in salad bars and buffets are rarely kept to the correct temperature. Also, lots of people touch both the food and the utensils. Bacteria can multiply rapidly here.
6. Beware of Specials
In high class places, specials are the result of the chef scoring some awesome produce or meat.

In lower class places, specials are sometimes a way to "dress up" produce or meat that's been sitting around so they can move it out. Buyer beware.
7. Smell Your Food
Your food should smell good. If there's any kind of funny odor or taste, send it back pronto.
8. Check out the Restroom
Health inspectors say that the condition of the restroom isn't always a good indicator of the kitchen like you might think. A restroom can be pristine because it's what the public sees, and the kitchen can be a mess.

But you can still get some clues about the place. Is the soap filled (and it better be liquid, not bar soap) so that restaurant staff can properly wash their hands? Are there paper towels?
9. Eat at a Chain
It pains me, PAINS me, to say this, but according to MarketWatch, you're statistically safer if you eat at a chain. Why? Because chains have a lot to lose if their diners get sick. Due to the potential consequences and negative publicity, chaings have a ton of resources to help manage food safety. And they have cleanliness standards that employees must abide by.

Also, although eating at chains (especially fast food chains) isn't healthy for you, they can be a good way to save money when eating out. If you want to go this route, I might recommend a place like Wendy's, which at least has a slightly healthier 99-cent menu.
10. Send it Back
If your beef or chicken is undercooked and still pink in the middle, send it back after the first bite. Undercooked food supports the growth of bacteria.

And this goes for all your food. If the food is supposed to be hot, it should be steaming. If cold, you should be able to feel the coolness. Lukewarm anything is bad.
Last Word
It's hard, at least for me, to know where to draw the line on being overly-cautious. I mean, I love local, small restaurants with a passion. Avoiding these places just in the off-chance I might get sick is not going to happen. It's also very difficult for me to start visiting chains (which I avoid like the plague) and expensive restaurants simply because it's statistically safer.

It's also hard to know where to draw the line with grungy. One of the most amazing restaurants I ever ate at was this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place in San Francisco's Chinatown. This place was Dirty, capital "D" required. You practically had to walk through the kitchen to get to the dining room upstairs (San Franciscans, do you know the place I'm talking about?).

But the food was AMAZING. I mean, stunningly delicious, supreme happy food. And CHEAP. I've thought about flying all the way back just to go to this place again. If I'd been super cautious about cleanliness, I would have missed this great experience. And that would have been a real loss, since it's one I'll never forget.

What do you think? Are you able to draw that line between being smart and being overly cautious?

Conversely, have you ever gotten sick from food poisoning at a restaurant? Did you notice anything about your food, or the restaurant/staff, that should have clued you in?

(Photo credit: albera)

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How to Prevent Food Poisoning In Restaurants

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Have you ever had food poisoning? Chances are, on some level, the answer is yes. I have, and it really stinks. Health experts say that the majority of time, food poisoning occurs when we're outside our homes. That is, when we eat at restaurants, delis, or cafeterias, or when we buy a quick bite from a street vendor.

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America's food industry has a $55.5 billion safety problem 

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America's food industry has a $55.5 billion safety problem 

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This article talks about the multiple companies that have had food poisoning outbreaks recently. Some of these companies include Starbucks, Dole, and Chipotle. The deadly bacteria called listeria is what is to blame for most food poisoning related deaths. It killed four people who ate packaged salads by Dole. Around 48 million Americans get sick every year due to food poisoning.

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In the last few months it's been found in frozen veggies sold at grocery stores like Costco cost , Safeway swy , and Trader Joe's. Its detection in a manufacturing plant led to the recall of Starbucks' sbux breakfast sandwiches . It's killed four people who ate packaged salads made by Dole and sent 33 more to the hospital. This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We're talking about listeria-it's deadly and, to read the headlines, it would seem the bacteria is everywhere and unstoppable.

In September Fortune dove into the world of food-borne pathogens as we tried to understand what's making 48 million Americans sick every year. Fortune has resurfaced this story in the wake of the recent string of listeria-related recalls as well as Chipotle's cmg food safety crisis , which has become an almost existential threat to the burrito chain. Is there an increasing number of contaminants in our food, or are we just getting better at detecting these outbreaks? Here's what we found.

Allow us, just for a moment , to be completely-and irresponsibly-alarmist: We are in a battle with bacteria. And from the numbers, it might well appear that we are losing.

Each year an estimated 48 million Americans are stricken ill as the result of one food-borne pathogen or another-listeria, E. coli, salmonella, and even a number of stowaway viruses are among the culprits. But in many cases the victims don't know they've been infected. For those who go to a doctor or the hospital, the collective bill is substantial. A 2015 study by Robert Scharff, an associate professor at Ohio State University, estimates the annual cost of medical treatment, lost productivity, and illness-related mortality at $55.5 billion. For lack of a good Latin name for the constellation of ailments that fall into the above category, we'll call the pathology "getting sick from what you eat." And the scariest part is, that's about as precise as the medical explanation often is. "The route by which most of these individuals get ill is unknown," says John Besser, the deputy chief of the Enteric Diseases Laboratory Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That's not just a scary prospect for those of us who are consuming food these days (that's you, dear reader), but also for those who are making and selling it. Food-borne illness is a giant, expensive challenge for companies big and small-and the surprise is, their exposure to the risk (and the liability when linked to an outbreak) is arguably bigger than ever. "Thirty years ago if you had a little problem, you were not going to get discovered," says David Acheson, former associate commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who today runs a consulting firm. "Now the chances of getting caught are significant, and it can be the end of your company."

Or a costly wound, at the very least. When the Grocery Manufacturers Association surveyed three dozen international companies in 2011, more than half reported being impacted by a food recall during the previous five years. Eighteen percent of those said the hit from the recall and lost sales was between $30 million and $99 million; 5% said the financial impact was $100 million or more. The long-term reputational damage to companies can have an even steeper price tag.

To help solve the problem, in mid-September the FDA released the first set of major rules it was instructed to create by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), passed long ago in 2011. But honestly, new regs alone won't solve this problem. Here are four reasons the food-poisoning conundrum is so hard to solve.

1. Health officials can identify only a fraction of those who get food poisoning.

Pinpointing an outbreak of food-borne illness is largely a matter of luck and circumstance. It can take dramatic symptoms for people to visit a doctor, and even then, physicians seldom order a stool sample-the prime way to trace a pathogen to a patient. If a specific germ is found to be the cause, public health authorities may then interview the person to determine what he's eaten (in the case of listeria, investigators might require a record of food consumption that goes back 28 days). And, well, people forget what they eat. Then epidemiologists have to take this indeterminate recollection of meals and snacks-something that might include hundreds of components-and isolate the source of the culpable microorganism.

None of this is easy. Most cases of food-borne illness are sporadic, meaning they cannot be traced to a specific "outbreak"-an event known to have caused illness in others. Even in the case of an outbreak, it's woefully hard to identify those who fall ill. For example, out of every 29 people who get sick from a typical salmonella outbreak, the CDC estimates that just one will be formally diagnosed.

Given such long odds, it's somewhat remarkable how many outbreaks have been isolated in recent years-particularly in cases in which foods and germs were linked together for the first time. For instance, since 2006 investigators have fingered a bacterial strain called E. coli O157:H7 (at one time widely thought to be found only in meats) in bags of baby spinach, in hazelnuts, and in cookie dough. They've identified botulism in pasteurized carrot juice and found salmonella in peanut butter, ground pepper, jalapeño peppers, Turkish pine nuts, and pistachios. They've discovered hepatitis A virus in pomegranate seeds; cyclospora in bagged salad mix; and Listeria monocytogenes in ice cream. ( Read about Blue Bell's recall crisis here.)

"I'm skeptical that these are new connections," says Ben Chapman, associate professor of food safety at North Carolina State University, who runs a website called the Barfblog. "It's stuff that's always been there, and now we're looking for it." That would help explain why FDA-regulated food recalls have more than doubled over the past decade, to 565 last year, according to insurance company Swiss Re-with nearly half related to microbiological contamination. In interviews with more than 30 experts, nearly all said the rise in recalls was less an indicator of deteriorating food safety than it was of our improving capacity to connect the dots between foods and microbes.

2. Regulators have new tools. Industry doesn't trust them.

Up until the 1990s, most outbreaks we found were in the same geographic location-the church picnic where everyone eats the same bad potato salad and calls in sick the next day. Then new technology enabled scientists to determine the various DNA fingerprints of food-borne bacteria, which were uploaded into a common database. Investigators were suddenly able to link disparate cases of illness by finding bacterial matches. "It revolutionized outbreak investigation," says Linda Harris, a microbiologist in the department of food science and technology at the University of California at Davis.

Since then the tech has gotten faster and more accurate-a fact that has allowed for the creation of large databases of bacterial genome sequencing. The CDC is building its own library of pathogen genomes isolated from patients. The FDA is doing the same with microbes found in food and company production facilities, a program it calls GenomeTrakr.

Major food companies, meanwhile, commonly test for bacteria in their own food and factories. (Bacteria are everywhere: On each square centimeter of your skin there are potentially millions of the tiny organisms. Worry not-nearly all of them are harmless.) And when companies find any worrisome strains, they increasingly do genetic analyses of their own. It would make sense, certainly, for them to contribute their own data to GenomeTrakr-which is something the FDA strongly encourages. (The word "encourage" here is in the softest sense: Companies are really required to report only contaminations of products that could cause a public health issue.)

But many food manufacturers are wary of giving regulators any information they don't have to. "There's clearly a nervousness around it," says Acheson. "If a company has got data that could incriminate them in an outbreak, they get reluctant to look for it. It's a very fine line."

The concern is twofold: First, these techniques are imperfect. Not all genomic sequences of linked food and patient pathogens will have exact matches. "There's a range of relatedness," says Carlota Medus, an epidemiologist at the Minnesota Department of Health. "The new advancements are more specific," says Elisabeth Hagen, a former undersecretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who is now a senior adviser to Deloitte. "But there are reasonable questions about what constitutes a match and how the technology will be used to definitively identify the source of an outbreak."

The second worry is that regulators will shoot first and ask questions later. Companies fear they will be implicated before the necessary epidemiology is done. "They could send a swat team into a plant, and the business is going to be disrupted significantly," says Mike Robach, vice president of corporate food safety, quality, and regulatory affairs at Cargill. "We just want to make sure we have due process and are not falsely accused."

One potential solution is VoluntaryNet, which is run by Michael Doyle at the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety. Currently Cargill and other companies anonymously submit bacteria samples that might cause food-borne illness to Doyle's team, which genetically sequences them. If the university researchers discover a match with a genetic isolate from a patient in the CDC database, they send a report to all the food companies in the network, letting them know of a potential contamination link.

3. Our pantry is global. (So are the chances for contamination.)

Americans love strawberries-we annually con sume about eight pounds of them per capita-and we want them year round. The berries we can't get from U.S. growers we bring in from Mexico, mostly. Overall we import nearly 20% of our food-and each of these exporting countries has different food-safety standards and inspection regimes.

The global supply chain has not only given us a cornucopia of food choices; it has also cut costs. The downside is that it has made preventing food-borne contamination nearly impossible. By the time milk tainted with melamine produced in China was detected, it had already been exported to 47 countries by way of milk-containing products.

The more stops food takes before it enters the U.S., the more opportunities there are for contamination, says Bill Marler, an attorney and an oft-cited authority on food-borne illness. Companies now fret about so-called economic adulteration, in which suppliers in some cases add something to food that shouldn't be there-as occurred with the melamine scandal in China, when the chemical was put in diluted milk to increase its protein content. This form of food fraud-which happens most prevalently in liquids like olive oil and in powders such as spices-costs the industry $10 billion to $15 billion a year. "I'm not sure we truly worried about this 20 years ago," says Sara Mortimore, vice president of product safety, quality, and regulatory affairs at Land O'Lakes. And for companies, the stakes could get much higher: Additional FSMA rules anticipated later this year are expected to hold importers responsible for whatever they bring into the country.

4. Oh, yeah-and it's our fault too.

Increasingly, consumers are rebelling against pre servatives-fearing those additives intended to prevent food poisoning more than the sickness itself (see our special report, "The War on Big Food," on Fortune.com). Cargill's Robach says a number of customers have asked the company to remove the potassium and sodium lactates and diacetates it puts in processed meat to inhibit listeria growth. "We have not taken it out because we feel there's an added layer of protection that's important," he says.

A growing segment is also pressuring manufacturers to cut back on salt and sugar-both of which help prevent bacterial growth by reducing the amount of available water in food that the microbes can grow in. Then there's freezing, which also boosts food safety. But today's shoppers are turning away from frozen food because of a desire for fresh goods, which they equate with healthy.

Some food companies are experimenting with techniques like high-pressure processing, which squashes the bacteria on the surface. But it can impact quality. "You can't do that with a tomato," says Acheson. A similar concern is voiced over food irradiation, which is even more off-putting to many than sugar, salt, and preservatives.

Ironically, trying to eat more fruit and vegetables-especially raw-can be the riskiest thing of all. We eat them without performing what food-industry vets call a "pathogen-reduction step." Most of the rest of us call it cooking.

Is there a solution?

Pizza is perhaps the best example of why our regu latory structure is a challenge. "It's very confusing," says Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who visited Fortune in mid-September. "If it's a plain pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella, crust, it's the FDA. If it's a slice of pepperoni, it's mine. Sausage, it's mine. Mushroom, it's theirs." Indeed, it is hard to conceive of a more haphazard regulatory regime than the one intended to protect Americans' food. The USDA regulates meat, poultry, and processed egg products and has an agent in every processing plant in the U.S.  The FDA minds everything else but requires no testing of food from manufacturers. That's not to suggest that testing is the obvious cure-all for our seemingly endemic food-safety predicament. "If you take a whole bunch of lettuce heads off a truck and test one out of 100, you still might not find a problem because it's not likely to be spread evenly," says North Carolina State's Chapman. "We could have a really big sampling program and never find a pathogen."

That's why regulators-and companies-are focusing more on prevention. The new FSMA rules, indeed, mark a big regulatory shift: one that mandates companies take a more proactive approach to food safety rather than wait for an outbreak to trigger a frantic cleanup response. "Instead of the FDA having to show that firms are doing something wrong, firms have to show that they're doing something right," says Charles Breen, a former FDA district director who is now a food-safety consultant.

As for consumers (again, that's you): Use a meat thermometer, wash your hands, don't drink raw milk. Those in the know also suggest being especially wary of items like oysters, sushi, and sprouts. Bill Marler, for one, routinely chucks the bagged salad that his wife buys. "I will grab it out of the refrigerator and throw it away," he says. What's the safest thing to eat? That's easy, he says. Scotch.
Read about Blue Bell's ice cream recall here. A version of this article appears in the October 1, 2015 issue of Fortune magazine with the headline "Contamination nation."

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In the last few months it's been found in frozen veggies sold at grocery stores like Costco cost , Safeway swy , and Trader Joe's. Its detection in a manufacturing plant led to the recall of Starbucks' sbux breakfast sandwiches . It's killed four people who ate packaged salads made by Dole and sent 33 more to the hospital.

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Food safety involves four basic steps...
- clean
- separate
-  cook
- chill
If you remember these steps and observe the following tips, you can help prevent foodborne illness.

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Foodborne illnesses are sicknesses caused by eating contaminated food.

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- Diarrhea
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- Fever
- Abdominal pain and cramps

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-Keep all chemicals, such as medicines, household cleaners, and pesticides, away from food storage areas. If you suspect any food is spoiled, do not taste it. Throw it out immediately.

- Keep food out of range when spraying chemicals. Wipe counters thoroughly when spraying.

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Food poisoning is caused by eating contamination of food, including many bacteria. Contamination happens during processing or production, also incorrectly handling foods or not cooking them all the way. Symptoms occur within hours, most cases are mild and can be eliminated without treatment.

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Overview

Food poisoning, also called foodborne illness, is illness caused by eating contaminated food. Infectious organisms - including bacteria, viruses and parasites - or their toxins are the most common causes of food poisoning.

Infectious organisms or their toxins can contaminate food at any point of processing or production. Contamination can also occur at home if food is incorrectly handled or cooked.

Food poisoning symptoms, which can start within hours of eating contaminated food, often include nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Most often, food poisoning is mild and resolves without treatment. But some people need to go to the hospital.

Symptoms

Food poisoning symptoms vary with the source of contamination. Most types of food poisoning cause one or more of the following signs and symptoms:

Nausea

Vomiting

Watery or bloody diarrhea

Abdominal pain and cramps

Fever

Signs and symptoms may start within hours after eating the contaminated food, or they may begin days or even weeks later. Sickness caused by food poisoning generally lasts from a few hours to several days.

When to see a doctor

If you experience any of the following signs or symptoms, seek medical attention.

Frequent episodes of vomiting and inability to keep liquids down

Bloody vomit or stools

Diarrhea for more than three days

Extreme pain or severe abdominal cramping

An oral temperature higher than 100.4 F (38 C)

Signs or symptoms of dehydration - excessive thirst, dry mouth, little or no urination, severe weakness, dizziness, or lightheadedness

Neurological symptoms such as blurry vision, muscle weakness and tingling in the arms

Causes

Contamination of food can happen at any point of production: growing, harvesting, processing, storing, shipping or preparing. Cross-contamination - the transfer of harmful organisms from one surface to another - is often the cause. This is especially troublesome for raw, ready-to-eat foods, such as salads or other produce. Because these foods aren't cooked, harmful organisms aren't destroyed before eating and can cause food poisoning.

Many bacterial, viral or parasitic agents cause food poisoning. The following table shows some of the possible contaminants, when you might start to feel symptoms and common ways the organism is spread.

Contaminant

Onset of symptoms

Foods affected and means of transmission

Risk factors

Whether you become ill after eating contaminated food depends on the organism, the amount of exposure, your age and your health. High-risk groups include:

Older adults. As you get older, your immune system may not respond as quickly and as effectively to infectious organisms as when you were younger.

Pregnant women. During pregnancy, changes in metabolism and circulation may increase the risk of food poisoning. Your reaction may be more severe during pregnancy. Rarely, your baby may get sick, too.

Infants and young children. Their immune systems haven't fully developed.

People with chronic disease. Having a chronic condition - such as diabetes, liver disease or AIDS - or receiving chemotherapy or radiation therapy for cancer reduces your immune response.

Complications

The most common serious complication of food poisoning is dehydration - a severe loss of water and essential salts and minerals. If you're a healthy adult and drink enough to replace fluids you lose from vomiting and diarrhea, dehydration shouldn't be a problem.

Infants, older adults and people with suppressed immune systems or chronic illnesses may become severely dehydrated when they lose more fluids than they can replace. In that case, they may need to be hospitalized and receive intravenous fluids. In extreme cases, dehydration can be fatal.

Some types of food poisoning have potentially serious complications for certain people. These include:

Listeria monocytogenes. Complications of a listeria food poisoning may be most severe for an unborn baby. Early in pregnancy, a listeria infection may lead to miscarriage. Later in pregnancy, a listeria infection may lead to stillbirth, premature birth or a potentially fatal infection in the baby after birth - even if the mother was only mildly ill. Infants who survive a listeria infection may experience long-term neurological damage and delayed development.

Escherichia coli (E. coli). Certain E. coli strains can cause a serious complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome. This syndrome damages the lining of the tiny blood vessels in the kidneys, sometimes leading to kidney failure. Older adults, children younger than 5 and people with weakened immune systems have a higher risk of developing this complication. If you're in one of these risk categories, see your doctor at the first sign of profuse or bloody diarrhea.

Prevention

To prevent food poisoning at home:

Wash your hands, utensils and food surfaces often. Wash your hands well with warm, soapy water before and after handling or preparing food. Use hot, soapy water to wash utensils, cutting boards and other surfaces you use.

Keep raw foods separate from ready-to-eat foods. When shopping, preparing food or storing food, keep raw meat, poultry, fish and shellfish away from other foods. This prevents cross-contamination.

Cook foods to a safe temperature. The best way to tell if foods are cooked to a safe temperature is to use a food thermometer. You can kill harmful organisms in most foods by cooking them to the right temperature.

Cook ground beef to 160 F (71.1 C); steaks, roasts and chops, such as lamb, pork and veal, to at least 145 F (62.8 C). Cook chicken and turkey to 165 F (73.9 C). Make sure fish and shellfish are cooked thoroughly.

Refrigerate or freeze perishable foods promptly - within two hours of purchasing or preparing them. If the room temperature is above 90 F (32.2 C), refrigerate perishable foods within one hour.

Defrost food safely. Don't thaw food at room temperature. The safest way to thaw food is to defrost it in the refrigerator. If you microwave frozen food using the "defrost" or "50 percent power" setting, be sure to cook it immediately.

Throw it out when in doubt. If you aren't sure if a food has been prepared, served or stored safely, discard it. Food left at room temperature too long may contain bacteria or toxins that can't be destroyed by cooking. Don't taste food that you're unsure about - just throw it out. Even if it looks and smells fine, it may not be safe to eat.

Food poisoning is especially serious and potentially life-threatening for young children, pregnant women and their fetuses, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems. These individuals should take extra precautions by avoiding the following foods:

Raw or rare meat and poultry

Raw or undercooked fish or shellfish, including oysters, clams, mussels and scallops

Raw or undercooked eggs or foods that may contain them, such as cookie dough and homemade ice cream

Raw sprouts, such as alfalfa, bean, clover and radish sprouts

Unpasteurized juices and ciders

Unpasteurized milk and milk products

Soft cheeses, such as feta, Brie and Camembert; blue-veined cheese; and unpasteurized cheese

Refrigerated pates and meat spreads

Uncooked hot dogs, luncheon meats and deli meats

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Food poisoning, also called foodborne illness, is illness caused by eating contaminated food. Infectious organisms - including bacteria, viruses and parasites - or their toxins are the most common causes of food poisoning. Infectious organisms or their toxins can contaminate food at any point of processing or production.