• Question: how does food poisoning happen?

    Asked by haseebatahir786 to Sarah, Dalya on 13 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Dalya Soond

      Dalya Soond answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      You eat something infected with bacteria, it gets to your stomach and intestines, divides very rapidly and make toxins which make you sick.

      All food will have bacteria on it, but usually it can be cleared from your body without getting sick. Also you should know we always have bacteria in our bodies that help our bodies function properly, but they don’t make us ill. It’s called symbiosis. ACtually, 90% of the genetic material in our bodies are from bacteria and fungus.

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Bacteria is everywhere! Certain foods are called “high risk” – these are foods that we have to keep in the fridge because at room temperatue the bacteria in them would mulitply really fast and the food would no longer be safe to eat.

      You can get food poisoning from eating food contaminated by bacteria, and food can be contaminated in a number of ways like not washing hands, not storing it properly etc. You have vast numbers of good bacteria on your stomach (think of it like an overcrowded swimming pool) so when small numbers of bad bacteria get in, there is no room for them and you don’t get sick. this is your body’s natural defense.

      But when there is too many of the bad bacteria it can make you really sick. But the good news is that food poisoning doesn’t last long and you are only sick for a couple of hours before you get it out of your system.

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