Food poisoning

[raweater]

I had posted a message a few days ago about making food for a few days. Well I had made a butterscotch pudding recipe, double it, 8 portions, and still had some left after the 4th day. I know you guys said 3 days for this sort of thing but it was under vacuum which normally at least triples storage time (anyone know if this applies to raw?).

That night as I went to bed I had the chills (feeling very cold even though temp was high), I knew I had contracted a virus or something my system was beating, I thought "I'm sure my immune system will have killed it by the time I wake up". Well as I got up I was still sick and vomited, I then thought "finally, it's over" as whenever I vomit had always been the end of similar illnesses in the past. Surprisingly, I vomited again at least 2-4 more times and had diarhea. I started feeling ok yesterday evening (normally food poisoning makes me sick for no more than an hour, this time I think it was at least 12, if I count starting from the chills I had the night before).

Yesterday night (the day I vomitted) I felt fine, but got the chills again before falling asleep, I was worried I was going to loose another day like this. Luckily I'm fine since.

Isn't raw food and a healthy lifestyle supposed to immunize you again viruses, bacteria, etc? Why did it get me so sick and for so long (12 hours sick is extreme for me, as I said I normally get over food poisoning in 30-60 minutes)? Could it have to do with the quantity of the expired food I ate? I must say I had gotten non organic dried apricots for the pudding which made it taste and look horrible (the sulfites made it bright yellow, like hilighter ink), so this may be why I didn't detect it was expired, it was horrible to start with, I'm never getting non organic dried apricots ever again.

I'm also not 100% sure it was my butterscotch pudding, but don't really see what else it could have been.

What can I do to prevent having to go through this nightmare? I guess I'll limit my food storage to 3 days, even when vacuum sealed. But I still don't understand why I wasn't able to beat the infection or whatever it was without getting so sick.

Thanks

[shooting star]

Ooh that sounds nasty. Not sure why it was for so long, you poor thing.

I got food poisoning from raw food. I think it was a lasagne that I ate on the 4th day too. It had nuts in it so I assumed that the nuts had gone rancid and because of all the flavourings I couldn't detect them.

I only eat things now the day I make them or the next day.

[SuzyQ]

I'm not sure any of us can tell you exactly why you got so sick. If anything smells, looks or tastes the least bit funky, I throw it out. It's not worth it to me and I would feel horrible if I made my family sick. Having said that, I did read an article last year (don't remember what publication it was) that said a lot of people aren't as careful with raw produce as they should be (not saying you weren't careful!). We just don't realize that just because produce looks clean, it might not be as clean as we think. It really taught me that we could get e-coli and other nasty bugs if I am remiss about washing food. I learned at a food certification class that it is not commonly known that cutting through a melon can give you e-coli. If it is on the mellon, it is on the rind and when we cut through the rind and through the melon, we drag the bacteria onto the melon with the knife we use. I really didn't know that! So now I wash off the melon before I take the knife to it. I have also heard about the 3 day throw away rule in general regarding raw items but gosh, you wouldn't think one more day would make that much difference, especially if it didn't smell bad.
I don't know how long you have been eating raw, but if it is recent, you might not have built up your immunity enough to keep the bad bugs away.
You probably did everything right. Hope you feel much better very soon.

[raweater]

I have been 90% raw for over 2 years. I think the reason I didn't detect it was due to the non organic apricots which tasted horrible to start with, so I had assumed it was just the non organic apricots.

Thanks

[Revvell]

Google sulfites

Revvell

[raweater]

Google sulfites

Revvell
Can you please be more specific? By the way, I had eaten some of the pudding at least 3 times before without getting sick, that's why I thought it was because it was expired rather than sulfites, do sulfites really cause these symptomes? I thought they only caused long term harm like cancer (I normally never buy sulfite containing food, this was an extreme case).

[Hygeia]

Revvell is telling you to go to google and do a search on "sulfites". You will find all sorts of information to read there about it.

And sorry to hear you got so sick. I'm definately going to stick with what I make gets eaten today or tomorrow only.

:o

[Revvell]

... do sulfites really cause these symptoms? .

Sulfites can kill a person in less then an hour. They are extremely dangerous. All drugs accumulate in one's system. It may have been food poisoning, then again...

[JEN]

Could just be a virus. My little one has had the same symptoms for 3 days. She is finally a bit better today. Best of luck.

[raweater]

I knew he meant to google sulfites, but this will find all sorts of results. I wanted to know if he was saying sulfites could have caused my symptoms or if he just wanted to inform me on them, I know how toxic and dangerous they are, I would never normally put that in my body, but several situations caused me to buy non organic apricots because I had ran out and didn't want to go to the health food store. The taste of them alone is enough to make me neverever buy them again, regardless if it was the cause of my illness or not.

And I don't think it's a virus, I think my immune system is strong enough to beat them all (as is the case in all healthy people).

[Eilene]

I don't know how long you have been raw...but after I had been raw for about 6 months, I got really sick a day after Christmas. I could not figure out what it was (I kept thinking it was the Raw Eggplant Parmesan that I had eaten). Then 2 weeks later, all of a sudden I felt sick, vomited once and felt fine a few hours later. I kept thinking it was a bad detox moment. I have been great since then & it's been like about a year & 3 months. Hopefully that is it for you. Hope you feel much better soon!!!