Less Americans Eating Risky Foods
Posted on March 24, 2006
Reuters reports on a study that examined people's consumption of seven foods that are known to cause food-borne illnesses like E. coli, vibrio and salmonella. The seven foods studied were pink hamburger patties, pink ground beef, raw fresh fish, raw oysters, unpasteurized milk, runny eggs and alfalfa sprouts. Runny eggs were the most commonly eaten food of the seven food items. The study found less people are eating these risky foods.
The survey, made public at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, led researchers to conclude that media reporting and public health education efforts on risky eating habits and food-borne illnesses may be working.The study didn't give any insight as to why people under age 18 were 14 to 21% more likely to eat these risky foods. You can find more information about the study at MedPage Today.But people under 18 years old with compromised immune systems were much more likely -- by 21 to 14 percent -- to eat risky foods than healthy people of the same age, the survey found, leading researchers to believe they may have to target specific groups for education.
The proportion of people eating risky foods dropped from 31 percent in 1998 to 21 percent four years later, according to the results of telephone surveys of 15,000 to 20,000 people conducted by the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, known as FoodNet.