Question – How long does it take for food poisoning to occur after eating something, and can you cook the bad stuff out of everything if you cook it on high enough heat?

Food Poisoning is mainly of three kinds:

1. MICROBIOLOGICAL: Spoiled food due to microbiological growth of “BAD” – Bacteria, Yeast, Molds and also contaminated with infectious viruses.

2. CHEMICAL: Presence of chemicals – accidentally added or intentionally added (to make the food look good)

3. TOXIC SUBSTANCES: The ‘Toxins’ are produced by certain bacterial growth and the bacteria are self destroyed by their own toxins (e.g. Staphylococcus-generally called Staph, Botulin by Clostridium). The bacteria may be absent because they self destroyed after producing the toxins.

People eating the food tainted/contaminated as above usually show these symptoms – fever, vomiting, nausea, headache, etc., from a few minutes (due to toxins) to several hours. Sometimes depending on the contamination type, it could be overnight (E.Coli, Endotoxins, Salmonella, Yeasts, etc).

Bacterial toxins – Botulin (a deadly toxin. It is easily destroyed by cooking while Endotoxin from Staph.. bacteria is NOT destroyed by heat). These are very potent and deadly toxins and are NOT obvious by bad smell or color of the contaminated food. Best solution is SANITATION by food preparers (the only solution to prevent these problems).

Chemicals also are not destroyed by heat.

Food Laws and Regulations are there for these reasons to prevent these problems. Even then these problems surface and make news (Contaminated Peanut Butter, Ground Beef, etc., in recent times).

Viruses are easily destroyed by heat (cooking the ‘contaminated’ food).