Before Christmas and New Year's Eve, experts point out the unsavory dangers of popular holiday dishes.

Scientists from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) write in the journal "Scientific Reports" that there is a connection between a contagious diarrhea and meat fondue and raclette.

The Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) sees a risk from lead in game meat for certain groups of people.

A research team led by Bettina Rosner from the RKI wanted to know, based on a survey, whether in a group of patients who had developed Campylobacter enteritis - a diarrheal disease - shortly after the holidays, had eaten an above-average amount of fondue or raclette.

The comparison with a control group showed that there is a connection between these dishes and the occurrence of enteritis.

The effect was particularly noticeable on chickens.

In the group of people who fell ill after the holidays, the proportion of those who had eaten fondue or raclette with chicken was more than twice as high as in the control group.

Infections from raw meat

"Raw chicken is often contaminated with Campylobacter bacteria," writes the RKI.

Especially with meat fondue, but also with raclette, raw meat is also touched with bare fingers.

This increases the risk that germs from meat can get onto hands, other food and utensils and lead to infections in humans in this way.

For your own protection you should wash your hands thoroughly after contact with raw meat and clean kitchen utensils and preparation surfaces.

In addition, raw meat and foods that are consumed without further heating should be consistently separated.

According to the RKI, Campylobacter enteritis is the most common bacterial reportable disease in Germany with 60,000 to 70,000 reported cases per year.

In addition to fondue and raclette, some families swear by game dishes on the holidays.

However, due to the use of lead ammunition in hunting, game meat can contain lead, as the BVL emphasizes.

In analyzes of 75 wild sausage products, lead was detected in 72 percent of the cases, writes the BVL.

There is currently no limit value for lead in game meat.

Danger from increased lead concentration

"A total of seven samples were rejected, six of which were classified as" not suitable for consumption "and one sample was even classified as harmful," writes the BVL.

The higher the proportion of game meat, the higher the proven lead content in general.

Products with wild boar tend to be more polluted than sausages made from roe deer and deer.

"Even small amounts of lead are harmful," said Jan Backmann, chairman of the federal state consortium for consumer protection. According to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), increased lead concentrations in the human body can damage blood formation, internal organs such as the kidneys and the central nervous system and are deposited in the bones. "Risk groups such as children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age should therefore not eat game that has been shot with lead ammunition," said Backmann.

The BVL does not know from which countries the meat in the examined sausage products came.

"In Germany, lead-free rifle ammunition for hunting deer, roe deer and wild boar is now standard," said Torsten Reinwald, press spokesman for the German Hunting Association, when asked by the dpa.

More and more hunters were using bullets made from copper alloys and other alternatives.