We have previously looked at some of the foods that people consider high risk when it comes to safety and preparation. However, there are other high risk foods that haven’t quite earned the same reputation in the public mind-set even though they share that ‘high risk’ status with the likes of eggs, chicken and shellfish.
Take rice, couscous and pasta, for instance. These starchy foods have a high content of moisture. So do lots of ready meals and cooked meats. It’s not widely known that reheating all of these foods necessarily involves certain risks – the same level of risk we so readily attach to chicken, eggs and shellfish.
It’s recently been suggested that some of the more high profile food poisoning outbreaks of recent times were caused by the likes of beansprouts, celery, watercress and curry leaves – not the sorts of foods we think of as being dangerous.
The truth is that they aren’t dangerous in and of themselves. It’s all a question of preparing them properly. This takes the danger out of it completely – provided we can all be sure that standards are upheld when it comes to storage, logistics and the rest. Fortunately, food safety standards are something we can always educate people about.
