Food Poisoning : Stop blaming beans!

Why is Grace looking so serious in class today? Everyone was wondering why Grace has been sitting up straight in her chair, face set and her pores pouring out sweat.

Grace knew people were noticing her weird behavior but nobody knew the battle she was fighting to keep her butthole shut till the class ended.

Nobody knew this, not even the class clown who decided that it was the best time to be funny. When He started to ask the stupid question that would later make the whole class burst into laughter, Grace knew she was in trouble.

“Please don’t be funny, please don’t be funny” she chanted. Well I’d like to tell you it wasn’t funny, but It was. Long story short, she laughed and Kasala burst (more like her butthole, but you get the gist)

The class heard it first before they smelt it. Naturally they thought it was a fart but Grace knew better or worse actually. The whole thing was a mess and very embarrassing for her. Thankfully she had supportive friends and her classmates were mature about it. The situation was taken care of, and She was able to get home without any further incident.

Grace would later go on to share this story when asked about her most embarrassing experience. She will tell everybody who asks that she was purging and they’ll sympathize in understanding, because who hasn’t purged, right?🤷

Now, this isn’t about Grace’s diarrhoea explosion or purging experience. Although most of you can relate to her story, even if you didn’t land in the same embarrassing situation she did.

So what is this about?

What food Poisoning really is.
Why you should stop blaming beans.

What food poisoning really is.

First, you need to know that purging is not the right word to use when you have diarrhoea.

So what is purging?

It’s an eating disorder. Yes, you read that right. Purging is a deliberate act of emptying one’s bowels either through forced vomiting or the use of laxatives. You can read more about it here. https://www.healthline.com/health/eating-disorders/purging-disorder#:~:text=Purging%20disorder%20is%20an%20eating,excessive%20exercise

Do you now get why the word is being misused? I hope you do😩

Food poisoning.

Simply put, food poisoning is what happens when you consume contaminated food.

The common symptoms are usually:

Cramping (stomach aches)
Vomiting
Nausea
Diarrhoea
Headache
Weakness

There are other symptoms, and in severe cases, it can lead to death.

Many people tend to mix up the words diarrhoea, dysentery and purging. Diarrhoea is what you experience when you say you’re purging. I’d like to say it’s diarrhoea and not dysentery if it’s just watery stool with no mucus or blood. Dysentery is severe diarrhoea and it’s a food borne disease. Let’s just say Dysentery is advanced diarrhoea. I hope that clears that 🙂

Image credit: google

What a way to be optimistic 😅. Food poisoning does lead to weight loss, because you lose your appetite and everything you eat ends up in the toilet. If you see it as a weight loss regime, you might need help🌚, because it’s not worth it at all.

What does food poisoning look like?

Now believe it or not, this is what food poisoning looks like.

Image credit: google

Yes, like your yummy, delicious food.

It’s probably not what you thought, but food poisoning is different from food spoilage. You’ll always know when food is spoiled and somehow you’ll still find a way to make it edible, because food must not be wasted right? 🌚

But you’ll almost never know when a food is poisoned. Just like when poison is deliberately added to food, the food doesn’t look different from when it wasn’t poisoned.

That makes the poison hard to detect. It’s just the same with Food poisoning, but the difference it has from the wicked act of poisoning someone’s food is that, it is caused by microorganisms.

Although you can hardly know if a food will cause food poisoning, there are things to look out for.

Causes of food poisoning

Undercooked food (e.g meat, eggs).
Unpasteurized milk.
Unhygienic food preparation environment.
Not properly reheating cooked meals.
Not separating raw food from cooked food.
Using the same kitchen equipment for both raw and cooked food.
Unclean water source.

Image credit: google

There are many causes of food poisoning, and some of them are caused by you. This is because you can also contaminate the food you eat. Wash your hands guys!

This will lead me to:

why you should stop blaming beans.

Image credit: google

Eating beans does not give you food poisoning, eating improperly cooked beans or any other food gives you food poisoning. Grace probably didn’t get it from the beans she ate. It could have been the rice she ate at a restaurant, the milk she drank, the salad she ate or the suya she bought from aboki.