It Was Probably Something You Ate: A Practical Guide to Avoiding and Surviving Food-borne Illness

From the preeminent journalist and authority on contaminated food, a one-of-a-kind guide for safeguarding against food hazards. Slight fever. Nausea. A rumbling in the stomach. Diarrhea. What you might think is the flu was probably something you ate. Food-borne illness afflicts 81,000,000 Americans each year, killing 9,000 annually, and yet too many people ignore the fatal hazards lurking in our markets, restaurants, and kitchens. Now food-pathogen expert Nicols Fox offers a useful, informative guide to preventing, diagnosing, and surviving a food-borne illness. Far more serious than a slight discomfort in the abdomen, food-based pathogens can have long-term physical consequences, leaving victims with lifelong impairment of the digestive system and damage to the lungs, ears, kidneys, brain, and heart. Fox surveys the complicated terrain of food-borne disease, profiling common and uncommon pathogens such as Salmonella, hepatitis A, E. coli, Campylobacter, and Cyclospora. She also outlines practical advice for dealing with common symptoms and illness-prevention techniques for the home and restaurants. Combining the real stories of victims of food-borne illness with the most up-to-date information about emerging food-borne pathogens, It Was Probably Something You Ate is a sourcebook you may not be able to live without.