Reviewed by: Zhengli Shi (Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University)
"Words can't be spoken indiscriminately, and things can't be eaten indiscriminately", we all understand this truth, but the news incidents of food poisoning every year are not uncommon. Drink a cup of soy milk on the vomiting diarrhea, eat a fungus into the ICU...
According to the analysis data of the epidemic characteristics of food poisoning incidents in the third quarter of 2018, a total of 119 food poisoning incidents were reported in 23 provinces across the country, with 3488 cases of poisoning and 27 deaths.
Even more surprising is that households are the main places where food poisoning occurs, accounting for 92.59% of the total number of deaths[1].
In September last year, a 40-year-old woman in Shenzhen ate black fungus that had been foaming for 3 days, causing food poisoning, multiple organ failures, and liver transplantation.
(Source: Screenshot of Shenzhen News Network Weibo)
Casually search on the Internet, similar news is really a lot, fungus poisoning, four seasons of bean poisoning, soy milk poisoning... Why do these home-cooked foods become "poison"? The real danger may not be in what you eat, but in the way you process the food.
Image source: Tencent Medical Code
Today, I will talk to you about the common food poisoning that we need to be vigilant about in our daily lives.
First, the fungus that has been soaking for too long
The dried fungus itself is innocent, but if it bubbles for too long, it is easy to be "locked" by microorganisms as a medium, relying on the fungus to proliferate wildly and produce toxins. Especially during the high temperature season, microorganisms live in optimal growth and toxin-producing temperature conditions, and the risk of poisoning is relatively higher.
The cause of the poisoning of this lady in Shenzhen may be that the edible foam fungus is infected with a bacterium called "Pseudomonas cocos", which is not good, it will produce a very heat-resistant, very toxic toxin - "rice yeast acid", even if you wash and wash the fungus, and blanch it with boiling water, you still can't completely remove this toxin.
Image source: Stand Cool Helo
Once infected with "rice yeast acid" poison, abdominal pain and bloating, nausea and vomiting is still a small matter, excessive intake can lead to human multi-organ failure! And there is currently no specific antidote, so the fatality rate is as high as 50%.
But we don't have to shiver and demonize the fungus, knowing that the cause of poisoning is improper human operation. Wood ear fungus is rich in dietary fiber, potassium, iron, etc., and it is good to eat correctly as an ingredient.
Generally speaking, fungus is soaked at room temperature for a long time to "gain" lethality. Therefore, we can ensure the safety of consumption by doing the following:
Be sure to wash the surface of the fungus before foaming, and then use a clean and pollution-free container to soak the hair;
The foaming process is carried out in the refrigerator and cold room, and the bacteria are not easy to survive and proliferate under low temperature conditions, and the virulence is naturally very weak;
Generally, cold water can be eaten for 3 to 4 hours, and if it is soaked in hot water, the time is shorter;
After the fungus bubbles, it is found that the surface is sticky and smells foul, and it is quickly thrown away, because this shows that the fungus has been occupied by microorganisms on a large scale, and the microorganisms say "you dare to eat, I dare to do things";
It is best to soak how much to eat, don't try to save trouble too much at one time;
If you accidentally soak too much, you can put it in a plastic bag and put it in the refrigerator to store, but pay attention to the storage time not to exceed 24 hours;
The inventory taken out of the refrigerator needs to be steamed and boiled to kill bacteria.
If you want to soak the fungus more quickly, you can add the right amount of sugar (to help the fungus absorb water faster) and flour (to remove impurities from the fungus), shake it vigorously in a closed box filled with warm water, and the fungus will soon bubble up.
In addition, we should also remind everyone that fungi (white fungus, shiitake mushrooms, mushrooms, etc.), cereal fermented products (wet river flour, rice dumplings, vinegar cold powder, etc.), potato products (potato noodles, sweet potato noodles, potato starch, etc.) are also easily contaminated by Pseudomonas cocos, improper storage or too long, may become the culture medium of bacteria, produce rice yeast acid toxin, resulting in food poisoning.
2. Uncooked lentils, beans and cowpeas
Lentils, seasonal beans, cowpeas are common vegetables on our table, these beans for people who can't cook, may be the hardest thing in the world to make, cooked, emmmm ??? I don't know how to do it...
This is because carob contains more plant hemoglogglutinins, glycotoxins, protease inhibitors and other toxic substances, these complex names you can't remember it doesn't matter, but you should know that their power is not small:
Accidentally eating uncooked beans will cause a strong gastrointestinal irritation reaction, and symptoms such as bloating, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may occur;
Some cowpeas also have hemolytic toxins, which can also cause symptoms of the nervous system such as dizziness, headache, cold sweat, and numbness in the limbs.
Although these beans contain toxins, they all have a weakness - intolerance to heat: heating above 100 °C, so that they lose their original raw green and beany smell, the toxin is broken down, and eventually completely destroyed.
Therefore, in order to avoid poisoning, it is best to use boiling water to fully heat and cook thoroughly; or blanch with boiling water first, and then fry in an oil pot.
Third, uncooked soy milk
Raw beans contain saponins, plant hemagglutinins, trypsin inhibitors and other toxic substances, if not cooked to drink, can cause dizziness, headache, abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting and other food poisoning phenomena.
Therefore, soy milk must be cooked in order to completely eliminate these toxic substances.
(Source: soogif)
So, how can soy milk be fully heated?
If you cook soy milk yourself, it is best to heat it until the foam of soy milk dissipates before drinking. It should be noted that there will be a "false boiling" phenomenon in raw soybean milk: when heated to 80 ° C ~ 90 ° C, there will be a large number of white foam.
Many people think that the soy milk at this time has been cooked, but the heating temperature at this time is not enough to decompose the toxic substances of soy milk, and should continue to heat for 3 to 5 minutes until the foam is completely gone, and then eat.
At the same time, we should remind everyone that if you smell soy milk with a more obvious bean smell, it means that it is not cooked, it is best not to drink.
Fourth, fresh yellow cauliflower
Fresh broccoli contains "colchicine", which is also a non-toxic "silly white sweet", once absorbed and metabolized by the gastrointestinal tract, it will produce a highly toxic "colchicine", which has a strong stimulating effect on the human gastrointestinal tract and urinary system, causing nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and other symptoms.
(fresh yellow cauliflower and dried yellow cauliflower)
Toxicity reports for colchicine indicate that a dose of more than 0.5 mg/kg has a high fatality rate, and the doses that cause poisoning and lethality vary from person to person, and for some people, a mere intake of 7 to 26 mg may lead to death [2]. Death has been reported in foreign countries after ingestion of 0.4 mg/kg [3].
Because colchicine is a water-soluble substance, the way to remove toxins from fresh broccoli is also simple: soaking and blanching.
Dried broccoli has been treated, is non-toxic, and can be eaten with confidence. If it is a fresh yellow cauliflower, it is best to soak in water for more than 2 hours, or boil it with boiling water and cook it thoroughly, and you can generally eat it with confidence.
5. Sprouted potatoes
This is believed to be no stranger to everyone, and has been taught since childhood that sprouted potatoes are poisonous.
This is because sprouted potatoes produce a toxic alkaloid longan, and as the potatoes continue to sprout, the content of diplodolin in potatoes will continue to increase.
Aloethrin is an anti-insect and antibacterial substance for potatoes, but it is a fairly toxic toxin to the human body.
Never germinated to sprout, the amount of tarragon per 100g of potatoes increases from less than 20 mg to 25 to 50 mg, and sometimes even to 500 mg. If a person eats 50 g of sprouted, green potatoes at a time, the intake of tarragon is about 200 mg, which may lead to poisoning [4].
Longalin has a strong stimulating effect on the mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract, mild nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and heavy electrolyte disorders due to severe vomiting and diarrhea, blood pressure drop, but also cause heart failure, respiratory center paralysis and death.
Therefore, the key to avoiding poisoning is not to eat green, sprouted, rotten potatoes; and potatoes need to be cooked at high temperature before they can be eaten (because high temperature can destroy the dragon sunflower); if you eat potatoes, you feel bitter and numb, you should also stop eating immediately, and actively take the vomiting method to spit out the potatoes that have been eaten into the stomach to avoid excessive absorption of dragon sunflower.
While the food is not to be disappointed, it is still necessary to pay attention to health and hygiene.
After all, at the dinner table, when you encounter an unfamiliar crab, it may also stretch out its pliers to stop you.
But if you encounter the above undercooked food, it will make trouble after you finish eating: sorry, we are really not cooked.
bibliography:
Jinghuan Ren, Xiaoye Wang, Xiaomin Wu, Rui Wang, Epidemiological characteristics of food poisoning incidents in China in Q3 2018[J], Disease Surveillance, 2018, 33(6), 14-18.
[2] Finkelstein Y, Aks SE, Hutson JR,Juurlink DN, Nguyen P, Dubnov-Raz G, Pollak U, Koren G, Bentur Y (June2010). Colchicine poisoning: the dark side of an ancient drug. ClinicalToxicology. 48 (5): 407–14.
[3] Mullins ME1, Carrico EA, Horowitz BZ. Fatal cardiovascular collapse following acute colchicine ingestion[J]. ClinToxicol (Phila). 2010 Jun;48(5):407-14.
[4] https://www.cfsa.net.cn/Article/News.aspx?id=77F6BDE1D283244F01F17B231791215DEC0F7DD491D8BEC1
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