- Slight fever. Nausea. A rumbling in the stomach. Diarrhea. What you might think is the flu was probably something you ate. Food-borne illness afflicts 81,000,000 Americans each year, killing 9,000 annually, and yet too many people ignore the fatal hazards lurking in our markets, restaurants, and kitchens.

Now food-pathogen expert Nicols Fox offers a useful, informative guide to preventing, diagnosing, and surviving a food-borne illness. Far more serious than a slight discomfort in the abdomen, food-based pathogens can have long-term physical consequences, leaving victims with lifelong impairment of the digestive system and damage to the lungs, ears, kidneys, brain, and heart. Fox surveys the complicated terrain of food-borne disease, profiling common and uncommon pathogens such as Salmonella, hepatitis A, E. coli, Campylobacter, and Cyclospora. She also outlines practical advice for dealing with common symptoms and illness-prevention techniques for the home and restaurants. Combining the real stories of victims of food-borne illness with the most up-to-date information about emerging food-borne pathogens, It Was Probably Something You Ate is a sourcebook you may not be able to live without.

From Library Journal
Illness from foodborne pathogens is common, striking millions of people and killing thousands annually. So argues investigative journalist Fox, whose previous book Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone Haywire (LJ 7/97) looked at ecological reasons for this widespread problem. This new work follows up with practical advice on how to avoid and recover from food poisoning as well as detailed information on specific pathogens. Fox also discusses cultural, technological, and institutional reasons for the recent surge in foodborne illnesses and suggests ways in which consumers might spark institutional change to make our food supply safer. This readable, balanced, and extensively researched work is a distinguished contribution to the small but growing literature of consumer sourcebooks on this issue.