Germs in food: why every Mett roll is a risk

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Microbial pathogens in food cause more than 100,000 cases of illness in Germany every year - and these are only those that have been reported by a doctor and confirmed in a laboratory.

"The number of unreported cases is likely to be ten times as high," estimates Bernd-Alois Tenhagen from the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

The BfR has also identified the most common sources of pathogenic germs for humans: raw meat, frozen fruit from the Far East and oysters.

"Products made from raw pork and game can lead to hepatitis E infection," says Professor Reimar Johne from the BfR.

Frozen berries from the Far East have already caused a large number of norovirus infections.

“Our advice is to always cook pork, beef and oysters through,” says Johne.

Mett, carpaccio or oysters, however, are not cooked or fried - and Johne knows that too: "Everyone has to decide for themselves whether they are taking the health risk."

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Most consumers in Germany are now familiar with salmonella in food or the existence of antibiotic resistance, according to the BfR experts after a population survey for the consumer monitor.

"The majority of those surveyed stated that they were concerned about these issues," said BfR President Professor Andreas Hensel.

"Everyone is able to minimize the personal health risk through appropriate kitchen hygiene."

It starts with washing hands before preparing food and does not stop with cleaning the whisk immediately after breaking eggs: the BfR has summarized its tips in a leaflet.

According to this, meat and fish should be stored in the refrigerator above the vegetable compartment, for example, so that their juice cannot drip onto other foods.

Your hands on your mouth, nose or hair have not lost anything during preparation.

The sequence is also important: First of all, what is usually not heated should be prepared in the kitchen - dessert, for example.

Then the plant-based foods come under the knife that are eaten raw - i.e. salads or cut vegetables.

Only in the last part of the preparations should food come from the animal be prepared.

If the cookbook, time, or both force a different order, at least the work surfaces, the equipment and the hands should be thoroughly cleaned between the work steps.

And if you take a ready-made salad with you from the supermarket, you should wash it again.

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The number of salmonella infections has decreased significantly: while 200,000 cases were reported in 1992, 12,000 to 15,000 cases were registered per year in 2018.

Tenhagen sees the reason for the positive development that programs have been set up to reduce the germ load on poultry meat throughout the EU.

In 2018, infections with Campylobacter bacteria overtook Salmonella: every year, up to 70,000 people in Germany contracted it.

“We don't have any effective methods yet to get rid of the germ that is everywhere,” says Tenhagen.

For chickens, the pathogen is a normal roommate that does not cause them any problems.

When slaughtering, the germ remains on the slaughtered animal.

Sensitive people react to him with a gastrointestinal disease.

Save on antibiotics today so that they still work tomorrow

When people get sick from bacteria, however, they don't always come from the kitchen, and so researchers at a second symposium are looking at antibiotic resistance in the food chain - in other words, where they often originate.

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Because if antibiotics are used too often in the stables in Germany and Europe, bacteria can become resistant to them - and at some point the drugs no longer work on humans.

In order to contain this risk, the number of antibiotics given to veterinarians has been recorded since 2011.

The balance seven years later: The use of antibiotics in the stables has decreased by 57 percent - "although more meat is being produced," says Tenhagen.

Broilers and turkeys, for example, no longer have so many common antibiotic-resistant E. coli bacteria - but still so many that they can be dangerous to humans.

The World Health Organization, of all places, presented the BfR experts with another challenge: They classified the active ingredient colistin as an important antibiotic for treatment in humans.

It is therefore to be expected that it will be used more frequently in the future.

So that it still works, the massive use in the stables must now be quickly reduced - because this is the only way that bacteria do not have the opportunity to become immune to it.

The dilemma: In 2018, the drug was one of the most frequently used substances in animal husbandry.

The BfR experts cannot give the all-clear for antibiotics from the group of fluoroquinolones.

"The resistance to these antibiotics has increased in some types of bacteria in recent years," says the institute.

“Yes, we have a resistance problem,” summarizes Tenhagen.

"But it's not nearly as big as in Southeast Asia."

More about antibiotics

This article was first published in November 2018.