Following Up on Food Borne Illness
For my midterm this semester, I looked at data from the National Outbreak Reporting System from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as well as New York Public Library food archives to see where and how certain foods were linked to food borne illnesses. I focused on sausage, which of course led to a lot of sicknesses — God only knows what really are in those things. But what else caused mass waves of food borne illnesses in the United States?
In an AARP article about food related sicknesses, it referred to information from the CDC to list the 7 foods that caused the most food borne illness outbreaks. Take a shot (of water) every time I say “food borne illness” in this article, because it’s going to be a lot. The article lists all the meats, fruits and vegetables, raw milk and cheese products, eggs, seafood, sprouts, and raw flour. Basically, regardless of our diets, we’re all screwed. Let’s go to the trusty CDC to see what kind of damage these foods have caused in 2018, the most recent year on record. The point of all this? To judge how us Americans handle food.
Total Outbreaks in the Year of 2018
The overall amount is staggering. And to no surprise, the most common cause is…
Meat
The hard numbers are as follows: 126 Outbreaks, 3,668 Illnesses, 528 Hospitalizations, and 5 Deaths. There were also meat outbreaks in every state, with the most popular being California (19), Texas (24), Florida (15), and llinois (14).
Next we’re looking at fruits and vegetables. Nearly not as much, but still more than I expected. Remember — this is just in one year.
Fruits and Vegetables
The hard numbers are as follows: 7 Outbreaks, 176 Illnesses, 4 Hospitalizations, and thankfully, 0 Deaths. Texas had the most cases, at 3.
Raw milk & cheese (milk, cheese, dairy)
Ahh, yes, dairy products — my favorite thing to eat! But now I’m reconsidering all that.
We’re at 30 Outbreaks, 581 Illnesses, 72 Hospitalizations and 1 Death. These illnesses occurred in nearly every state —the standouts being Florida (7), Pennsylvania (5), and Texas (4).
Now, onto…
Eggs
Eggs really had a lot of outbreaks. What are you people doing with eggs? Like, how are eggs one of the most popular? I don’t know why this has stumped me so much, but really people, cook your eggs thoroughly. I mean, even seafood didn’t have this much, and people are always speculating about the cleanliness of seafood. We’ve got 172 Outbreaks, 3,225 Illnesses, 265 Hospitalizations, and 5 Deaths. Unbelievable.
Seafood
Not bad, but unfortunately there was a death. There were 84 Outbreaks, 1,027 Illnesses, and 29 Hospitalizations.
Now let’s look at sprouts.
With 58 Outbreaks, 1,981 Illnesses, 221 Hospitalizations, and 5 Deaths, sprouts were among the most dangerous and deadly. Interestingly enough, most of the cases were on the west coast, in California (17), Colorado (12), Oregon (11), and Washington (10). I heard they have issues with soil…
One last metric.
Raw flour…
…with 0 cases! Great, no one is eating raw flour!
That concludes our very formal study. But for funsies, let’s do a roundup of the most common states that had outbreaks in 2018. So now we know to never eat any of these foods there.
Texas, New York, California, and Florida had the most outbreaks. Let’s hope things have changed since.
The fact that these food borne illnesses are so widespread, amass much of this country, and are from a variety of foods really comes down to one conclusion: Americans eat like shit. Our food quality is poor. Our immune systems aren’t strong enough to process this food either. And also that there are germs everywhere, and sicknesses just waiting to be had. Sorry to break it to you all.
