Many people eat canned hams at Christmas. It is an easy and wonderful tasting meat to eat. Precooked hams are very easy to warm up and prepare.
Precooked hams contain a lot of salt and are cooked to prevent people from getting food poisoning. However, just because it is precooked and salty does not guarantee freedom from food poisoning. In fact, what you do after you open up the ham - if you handle it improperly - can result in food poisoning. The most common food-borne illness in the United States is caused by bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus. It produces a protein called enterotoxin (entero=affects our gastrointestinal system; toxin= poison). Ham is the most common food from which people get this kind of food poisoning.
On Sept. 27, 1997, a community hospital in Florida notified authorities that 17 persons attending a party had gotten food poisoning from eating precooked ham. Within seven hours of eating the ham most of the 17 experienced nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and weakness.
The following is a description of how the food was prepared from the Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report:
On Sept. 25, a food preparer purchased a 16-pound precooked packaged ham, baked it at home at 400 F (204 C) for 1.5 hours, and transported it to her work-place, a large institutional kitchen, where she sliced the ham while it was hot on a commercial slicer. The food preparer reported having no cuts, sores, or infected wounds on her hands. She reported that she routinely cleaned the slicer in place rather than dismantling it and cleaning it according to recommended procedures and that she did not use an approved sanitizer. All 16 pounds of sliced ham had been placed in a 14-inch by 12-inch by three-inch plastic container that was covered with foil and stored in a walk-in cooler for six hours, then transported back to the preparer's home and refrigerated overnight. The ham was served cold at the party the next day.
Can you find what she did wrong? How can you prevent such a thing from happening to your guests.
- The slicer was not properly cleaned. All utensils that contact the meat must be clean. All people handling the meat should touch it as little as possible and they should wash their hand before handling the meat. Most of us carry Staphylococcus aureus in our noses and on our hands and any one of us could place that bacteria in our food.
- The hot meat should not have been sliced hot if it was going to be served cold. Imagine your knife blade covered with bacteria. Every time
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