Before I start this post, on a rather grim but unfortunately true note I’d just like to let you know my giveaway is still open and will be until the 5th of May, it’s quick and easy to enter so give it a try!
Pepper Bento is now also on Twitter, so feel free to follow me there if you use it!
Today’s subject is a dark one but it is one that many, many people especially people who love food might experience in their lives.
Food poisoning.
Now I’m not suggesting you or your family are bad cooks who skate on the rinks of death every day by having raw meat germs all over the kitchen.
Really, I’m talking about places you can’t control like fast food joints, take-away’s, even Café’s and restaurants.
This week I had such a take away.
I ordered it on-line at one of the many websites that you can order a takeaway in your area through.
I carefully read every review placed on this particular takeaway since I had never ventured there before and they seemed great.
Why not order?
It wasn’t bad.
The food was actually really great, everything tasted and looked above board.
The fish and chips in question looked as if they had come out of a clean fryer with clean oil and the chicken tikka kebab ordered alongside looked great too.
Being a bit of a lightweight in the art of eating I luckily did not feel the full force of what was to come almost a day later.
My husband on the other hand looked like death warmed up.
He was clammy and as white as a sheet.
He explained he felt like vomiting, had stomach pains, started feeling very weak and needed the bathroom.
My first thought was that it could be withdrawal from some medication he had to cut down on while waiting for the order to come through at a local pharmacy.
When an internet search didn’t seem to list any of these side effects, only answers a little more horrifying like seizures, I started to suspect the food.
Food delivered to your door is so easy to find and with so many places on-line to order your food like JustEat and takeaway.com just how can you be sure who and where you are eating from?
I’m not saying you couldn’t walk into a nice looking establishment, even a sparkling clean one since it’s not just dirt that could cause food poisoning, order something to go and end up ill.
You could even eat in a lovely restaurant and feel the same, but food prepared for you is just so readily available and is more anonymous with on-line ordering.
I’m certainly not going to blame on-line ordering, the same risk of food poisoning has of course been around a lot longer than that and will continue to affect more and more people as more and more takeaways, café’s, restaurant’s, pubs & food vans open up.
After all, a few bad germs can slip though the cracks when you’re serving hundreds, even thousands right?
You may be asking though, how is she sure it wasn’t her own food that poisoned him?
Well, thankfully as if it were a well thought out experiment, he hadn’t eaten anything that day or anything else up until he was ill, only this particular takeaway.
Still, food poisoning can exist in your own home too though according to the Food Standards Agency, 4.2 million people out of 5.5 million that believed they had food poisoning, believed it was also caused by food eaten outside of the home.
So, will I be eating a take out again?
Will the hubby?
Of course.
I can’t say I will be going to the place of suspected poisoning again but judging all takeaways as sludge pits of food poisoning terror and a threat to your health because of one experience in one place is also wrong and a discredit to a lot of hard, clean and safe workers producing delicious food!
So what do you think?
Have you ever experienced food poisoning?
Would you still go out to eat or order in?
