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Health Options
Have you ever had that feeling in the pit of your gut that you must have eaten something really "bad?" Where to call when
food bites backYou don't remember eating anything that tasted unusual so you don't know if you ate the suspect food a few hours or a few days ago. What you do know is that the intestinal hurricane is about to hit.
By far, the most common food safety problems arise from microorganism contamination of foods. And the most common cause of microbial contamination is improper food handling by the consumer. For handy information on the most dangerous microorganisms and how to avoid them, see the FDA's "Bad Bug Book" at vm.cfsan.fda.gov/ ~mow/intro.html.
Adverse food reactions also occur due to allergies to specific foods, unintended contamination with toxic chemicals and mistakes in the formulation of processed food products. Both human and mechanical errors in food processing are common causes of food product contamination and misformulation.
If you eat a food product that makes you sick, who do you call? If you feel severely ill, you should immediately call your doctor or possibly an emergency medical facility. To get answers to questions about toxic chemicals, call the Hawaii Poison Center at 941-4411.
To help others avoid the same fate, call the Epidemiology Branch of the state Department of Health at 586-4586. Your report may help the department prevent related illnesses. This is the major way authorities are able to tell that something is becoming a public health problem.
If you have a food, drug, or dietary supplement product that you think is defective or contaminated, call the Food and Drug Branch of the Department of Health at 586-4725. They can investigate the problem and determine if there is a need for public warnings and product recall. If the product is manufactured outside of the state, you can call the local U.S. Food and Drug Administration office at 541-2662. These state and federal agencies appreciate knowing about your problem. As it is, their records may represent just the tip of the iceberg, since many problems go unreported.
If possible, keep a sample of any suspect product in case it is needed as evidence. If you decide to contact the manufacturer, it is often helpful to return a sample of the product with your description of the problem. Retain the packaging material with the product coding numbers and the "sell by" date or other coding information.
A recent example of a mechanical malfunction occurred in a Slim-Fast product. A few batches apparently caused temporary gastrointestinal symptoms in five people. The company announced a recall.
It's always possible for things to go wrong and manufacturers want to know when there are problems. They work hard to produce a high-quality product and they want to correct problems promptly. When there is a legitimate problem, most companies will bend over backwards to fix it and make their consumers happy. They may even send you a refund or some other form of compensation.
On Sept. 6 Barbara Burke's column, "Good for You," will help you to make sense out of the many codes found on food packages. Although coding information on a product does not guarantee quality or safety, it does help to track down other containers that could have the same problem.
Health Events
Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a food and nutrition consultant
and owner of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.
She is also responsible for the nutritional analyses
indicated by an asterisk in this section.Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a sports nutritionist in the
Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Science,
University of Hawaii-Manoa.