No, I'm not really the expert, (we'll get to him in Part 2) but what I can tell you from personal experience is; food poisoning is no laughing matter! Well, okay, I can laugh about it now, but while it was going on, I assure you there was no laughter!

I have been treated by my doctor for three different bouts with food-related illness; Campylobacter enteritis, (medical and health professionals often shorten the name to the cutesy "Campy" for inexplicable reasons, because believe you me- the results are anything but cute!) Listeria, and the last and worst was, Salmonella. I even asked my doctor at that appointment if it was possible to have a predisposition to developing food poisoning. He didn't think so, but according to a new study some people are protected by their genetics against developing certain food-borne illnesses. Lucky them!

The Salmonella was the one that landed me in the hospital emergency room where I was misdiagnosed, (by a 12-year old intern in a big hurry! Well, he looked like he was 12!) sent home with the wrong medication and then informed by my own doctor that I indeed had Salmonella and needed to get on the correct meds ASAP!

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Each time you have a confirmed diagnosis of food-borne illness, you end up on the phone with your state health department answering about 15 minutes worth of questions as they try to determine how you were poisoned. Is it part of a wide-spread food product contamination or a smaller unknown conduit?

The first two times it was impossible to know for sure. Although I swear a certain restaurant's Chicken Salad Sandwich was the culprit once at least once, (I did love that stupid sandwich!) It is very hard to track, most of the time, because of underreporting, the fact that these pathogens can also be spread from person-to person, through water and many of them have yet to be identified.

The Salmonella was a breeze to track down with my Health department buddy! After my illness, I had read about a certain company's processed salami causing an outbreak of Salmonella poisoning, and I still had the remainder of that packaged product in my fridge. The Salmonella apparently was contained in the peppercorns which dotted the deli delight. Mystery solved. A very expensive and painful mystery for me!

There are many kinds of food poisoning and most are primarily caused by one of three things: bacteria, parasites and viruses. The tainting of the food you purchase, prepare and consume can occur at any point from processing to preparation, whether at a restaurant or in your own kitchen .

How rampant is food poisoning? Brace yourself, these are per year figures from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control); 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths! Over one-fourth of all of the food poisoning cases in the U.S. are caused by three pathogens, Salmonella, Listeria and Toxoplasma.

In my next article we'll investigate the foods one food-poisoning expert never touches. It may change your mind about many of the foods you eat!

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