Food Poisening Anywone?

[EdWort]

So yesterday SWMBO decides to try the new restaurant where my daughter got a job waitressing this summer, so I'm game. "Meet us there at 5:45 PM", she said.

I show up at 5:40 and head to the bar and on tap, they have Bud, & Budlight. Plus Widmer Hefe, W08, Top Drop, and Broken Halo. That will work for me. Anyway, I'm enjoying a Broken Halo, and then the place starts to fill up, so I order a second one and grab a table for 5.

The family shows up and we all order. It's the last table in the back of the restaurant near the kitchen, so the cook, wait staff, & manager come out to greet the family of one of their newest employees. Nice folks.

We order and the food comes. Not bad. My daughter's Grilled Salmon salad looked great. I asked to cut in the middle and see if it's done. As Chef Ramse would say, "It's f*&cking raw, you donkey!". She sends it back and they fix the problem. Overall, it was a pretty OK dining experience.

So now my son want's to watch a movie, so we walk over the Cinema (This is the Galleria in Bee Cave, Texas's biggest Outdoor Mall), and we stop at the outdoor amphitheater where there is live music every Thursday. Nice tunes, then off to the movie. We watch Hancock, which was pretty good.

During the movie, I'm beginning to feel uncomfortable, but I manage. We head home last night and I head to bed around 10 PM feeling like I'm full of gas and about to pop.

The cramps kick in and then around 1:30 AM, the signs of it's going to blow show up, so I bow to the porcelain throne. Ah, much better, life is good after I wash the cold sweat off my face and any splatters. I head back to bed to try to get some sleep. 1 hour later, same story and this continues every hour on the half hour till 5:30 this morning.

I get up at 6:30 cause I have my roofing neighbor coming over so we can finish the roof of the brewhaus today, but now it's coming out the other end (whatever is left in my system).

My neighbor comes over and looks at me and says, You look like Sh!t. I said thanks, excuse me for a minute, you reminded me of something I have to do.

I have no energy, feel like sh!t, so we called if off for today. I then grabbed a bottle of water, added a little bit of powdered gatoraid and have been able to keep it down after napping till 10:30 this morning.

I'm going back to bed now, so no brewhaus pics today.

Fu#%king Coleslaw!!!!!!

 

[the_bird]

Ugh, yeah. Sure sounds like food poisoning. Good news is that it should, uh... "pass" within the day. Pisser!

 

[Buford]

I've had salmonella before, and it's hell for three days, with the rest of the week being just crap.

On the grilled salmon - hell, I'd rather have it raw. Raw salmon as used in sushi/sashimi is tasty, the cooked stuff is just nasty. I can't eat cooked salmon without drowning it in ketchup to cover up the taste.

 

[Nurmey]

Sorry to hear about your gastric distress. I could make a few puns at your expense but since it ruined your holiday weekend, I don't have the heart. I will say that I think you may be blaming the coleslaw unjustly. Anything you've eaten in the past 4 days could have been the culprit but I doubt that will make you feel any better. Drink lots of fluids, keep your electrolytes well supplied, and get better soon.

 

[k1v1116]

This happened to me a few years ago after drinking a peach snapple, it was the worst I have ever felt in my life and the very smell of snapple makes me nauseous. I hope this hasnt ruined any food for you.

 

[Beerrific]

Drink lots of fluids, keep your electrolytes well supplied, and get better soon.

+1 And get the stuff with lots of sugar if you aren't eating anything.

Yeah, something a lot of my family don't understand and I am sure some restaurants don't either: if it has mayonnaise in it, it needs to be refrigerated!

 

[menschmaschine]

Ed, that sucks. I've been there myself with the same type of illness... and having worked in public health for a number of years, I know a little too much about foodborne illness. Your symptoms sound like foodborne intoxication from Staphylococcus aureus.

Here's how it works and it's probably too much information:

A fair percentage of people carry this bacterium on their skin. What typically happens in the restaurant setting is that a food prep. person probably has a cut on their hand or chewed-up fingernails. By not washing their hands and properly covering the wound, they contaminate, say, some cabbage while cutting it. Then after they mix that up into coleslaw, they let it out at more than 42dF in some way... like a broken bain marie or just plain letting it sit out for more than 4 hours. Meanwhile the bacteria are having a blast and producing waste, which is toxic to humans. Then you eat the coleslaw and 4-6 hours later your body is saying, "oh no, we've got to clean house!"... then you're unswallowing everything in your entire intestinal tract. The toxin runs through your system and you feel like sh!t for a day or two along with the obligatory follow-up diahrrea.

This kind of thing really pisses me off. Wash your hands people!... and don't let food stay out of temp! This happened to me while vacationing in Montreal. So I called the local health department and reported the restaurant in my mediocre (at best) French (the health official refused to condescend to speaking English for some reason).

I highly recommend reporting this to your health department. It is highly likely that you weren't the only one to get sick. The restaurant will get a nice little visit from them next week that may help prevent this (or worse things) from happening again. Hope you feel better soon!... don't worry, it will pass.

 

[Arneba28]

Yeah, something a lot of my family don't understand and I am sure some restaurants don't either: if it has mayonnaise in it, it needs to be refrigerated!

We must share a family member. My grandma swears that everything needs to be left on the counter for 4-10 hours to cool down before it goes into the fridge.

 

[EdWort]

Well, I'm on my third pint of diluted gatoraid since this morning and so far it has stayed down, but now the other end is at it again.

I'm feeling better after a couple hours sleep without having to get up and visit the throne. Sheesh I hate this stuff. It's almost 2 PM and no beer yet.

 

[eschatz]

Brutal. I've had that before and it's no fun. It made me sceptical of resturants for a little while. Rest it up Ed.

 

[McKBrew]

That's crappy. It's the 4th of July, I wouldn't want the "fireworks" to be coming out of my body. Get well Ed!

 

[EdWort]

I'm up and around. On the fouth bottle of diluted gatoraid and I'm managed to consume almost a whole pack of Saltines over the course of the day. So far, so good.

SWMBO is dragging me to a party. whoo hoo (note my deflated enthusiasm). I'm crampy & my joints ache. I wonder if this is what it is like when Aunt Flo visits every month.

 

[Bobby_M]

I've had salmonilla poisoning once. Holy hell, it's easily the worst thing that ever happened to me. I'm pretty sure I puked out the lining of my stomach for 3 days straight and I couldn't get back to work for nearly 2 weeks.

 

[RichBrewer]

Man! Sorry to hear that Ed. I hope you are feeling better tonight.

 

[stever]

"Meet us there at 5:45 PM", she said.

I show up at 5:40 and head to the bar and on tap, I'm enjoying a Broken Halo, and then the place starts to fill up, so I order a second one and grab a table for 5.

You are on your second beer less than 5 minutes after you show? Whew.. I thought I was the only one that finds that first beer goes down really, really fast.

Sorry about your food poisoning, that sucks.

 

[jds]

Sorry to hear about it, Ed.
SWMBO's upstairs suffering from her own case of foodborne blech right now. I can't think what it might have been, because we went to a family picnic yesterday, and SWMBO, the little one, and myself ate mostly the same stuff. I've narrowed it down to a couple of pasta salads, or maybe the milkshake (strawberry cream frapp) she had from *$ on the way up.

Poor thing, she was up and down all night. Mostly up.

 

[Tenchiro]

Salmonella poisoning takes a lot longer than a couple of hours to affect people usually, think of the bacteria building up in your body like yeast would in a fermentor. Basically it has to build up a large enough population to really get you that bad. Although it sure sounds like food poisoning, but probably something you had way earlier in the day or even the day before. Sometimes it can take a few days to build up.

Also raw salmon, like tuna is safe to eat.

 

[EdWort]

I'm alive this morning. Much better. Whew! The whole weekend won't be a waste.

 

[david_42]

Sounds good! I haven't had a bout since I ate some bad crabcakes in Guam (about 30 years ago).

I'm suffering from a severe allergic reaction to all of the fireworks last night. I flat do not believe what people can buy here and how few people get injured. The town fireworks were over at the high school & I suspect there was more tonnage set off by the spectators than the official show. One guy must have gotten some professional aerials, but he wasn't using a mortar and they kept running along the ground.

 

[the_bird]

Reminds me of something Chad said in his book (the one on knives). Words to the effect of "There ain't no such thing as a 24-hour flu! You've probably gotten food poisoning more often than you realized!"






Incidentally, I'm really disappointed that Chad never mentioned Star San when talking about food prep safety

 

[EdWort]

Incidentally, I'm really disappointed that Chad never mentioned Star San when talking about food prep safety

Yeah, I use Starsan to prep my stainless sink or cutting board. At BBQ cookoffs, I keep a spray bottle handy for it too. Good stuff, Starsan.

 

[CodeRage]

Good to see you are feeling better Ed. Food poisoning sucks! I had a bout of it 2 months ago and it was no fun. Bad seafood had me out of work for 2 weeks one time. I was afraid to fart for a month!

 

[Orfy]

Glad to hear you've come through the other end.

If people don't have the skill and experience to cook properly they should use a probe thermometer.

If I'm catering for public then I use one to cover liability.

 

[EdWort]

Drinking a Paulener Hefe right now. I figure I'll toss some good German Yeast back in my system to stir things up a bit. So far, so good.

Thanks for the good vibes!

 

[PeteOz77]

Now that you are feeling better, I'll give you my favourite euphamism for the squirts.

"I could have sh!t through a screen door and never hit a wire."

 

[niquejim]

Drinking a Paulener Hefe right now. I figure I'll toss some good German Yeast back in my system to stir things up a bit. So far, so good.

Thanks for the good vibes!

At least I know it wasn't one of my beers. I've been drinking them for weeks

 

[Dr Vorlauf]

I had food poisoning about 10 years ago, I feel your pain! I find that now if I keep my Blood Alcohol Content ( BAC ) above 0.10 it keeps my system sanitized as a vodka filled airlock.:cross:

 

[TxBrew]

I got poised after eating a Chili's last year.

A friend of mine told me that someone working for the catering company at his wedding Rehearsal diner didn't wash their hands with feces on it so everyone got sick after the Rehearsal. I asked him how in the hell he knew it was feces and he said someone bagged their poo for the health services to analyze because they were going to sue and try to get them fined/shut down. Came back as something caused by feces.

 

[eriktlupus]

We must share a family member. My grandma swears that everything needs to be left on the counter for 4-10 hours to cool down before it goes into the fridge.

this is from the era when fridges didn't work very well and the thermal load from a warm meal could cause the whole system to warm up over safe temps.

 

[skier!]

Most likely it is the salmon and someone in the kitchen played around with it. I know people who used to work at restaurants and when someone sends something back it's very possible they will screw with it. Throw it on the floor, toilet, etc. Other possibilities I am not going to mention at the risk of making you sicker.

Sorry.

**Edit** Your daughter had the salmon but FYI be careful when you send something back at a restaurant