Andy Ricker says don’t blame street food for your food poisoning

Arm-chair epidemiologist and so-called Pok Pok kingpin Andy Ricker, paraphrased in The Braiser, says don’t dismiss  tasty street food in strange and foreign lands just because you’re afraid you might get sick.

His main tip, when traveling and wanting to try out local fare, is to stick to places where there are more locals than tourists, and to look for places that stay busy. “When a spot is busy, the food doesn’t sit around as much,” he told Fodor’s.

Ricker also says it’s just as easy to get sick from eating in sit-down establishments as it is to contract a nasty stomach bug from street food:

“…There is no way to tell how you got food poisoning unless you don’t eat anything for 24 hours and then eat something and then don’t eat anything for another 24 hours and then get a test. Because you can get gastroenteritis (or whatever) by touching something and then touching your upper lip without even knowing about it…and then you blame whatever you ate earlier that day. But you really don’t know. I believe that it is probable that I have gotten as sick from eating in a hotel as I have from eating in the street.”

Arrests over alleged food poisoning scam in NZ

At least five New Zealand cafes have fallen victim to a food poisoning ruse in which an “overweight” woman told the owners she had suffered food poisoning after eating at their premises.

In many cases the woman, who claimed she was pregnant, was given a refund.

Thames Senior Sergeant Graham Shields said Whitianga police arrested two people on Saturday after a cafe reported a woman trying to get money by saying she had become ill after eating there.

“It just so happened that one of the staff had read about the scam in the paper and when this woman came in complaining of food poisoning the staff member went straight to police, Mr Shields told the Times.

A 26-year-old Auckland woman will appear in Thames District Court this week charged with fraud while a 30-year-old Auckland man will also appear charged with assisting her.

Did a salad at a German hotel fell Ukraine players at Euro 2012?

Salad stigma persists in Germany.

A bad salad at a German hotel might have caused the food poisoning that sickened 10 players of European Championship co-host Ukraine before their final warm-up game against Turkey on Tuesday.

Ukraine team doctor Leonid Mironov believes the weakened players suffered from “the bad effects of eating a salad,” the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

Team spokesman Oleksandr Glyvynskiy told The Associated Press there will be no further investigation into the cause of the food poisoning, despite head coach Oleg Blochin suggesting on Ukrainian TV that “it may have been sabotage.”

Over 80 tourists suffer food poisoning in Turkey

Some 83 tourists were hospitalized Wednesday due to an outbreak of food poisoning in the seaside city of Bodrum, about 790 km south of Turkey’s Istanbul.

A provincial health director said that the tourists had been diagnosed with nausea and heavy stomach aches.

Officials from Food, Agriculture and Animal Breeding ministry took samples of the food and drinks that the tourists might have consumed.

Food fells Bryant again, Nuggets beat Lakers

Ten years ago, armchair epidemiologist and fidelity poster boy Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers (apparently a basketball team) came down with food poisoning after eating a room service dinner of a cheeseburger and cheesecake at the Lakers’ Sacramento hotel. The Lakers won.

Last night, Bryant was again suffering from gastro but the Denver Nuggets crushed the Lakers, 113-96, forcing a game 7 in their playoff series.

Bryant was not available for comment before the game, ignoring reporters’ questions as he walked from the bus into the arena and down a corridor to the locker room. He headed directly for the training room.

Jeremy Lin throws up for Facebook, so does Sorenne

Three-year-old Sorenne is doing her best Jeremy Lin.

Started at 9:30 p.m. Brisbane time with explosive vomit involving volume and chunks of undigested and curdled stuff.

Then another.

She’s at about vomit number seven, lying beside me on the couch, sleeping for 15 minutes and then gasping before the next vomit. Little containers don’t work so well with little kids; I have a pail on the floor.

It’s classic foodborne illness, which means I’m wracked with guilt. I buy all the food; I prepare all the food; I make her lunch; I nag at the school about petting zoos and handwashing. Even the French professor chimed in with her diagnosis of norovirus.

That’s how food safety infects and inflects our lives.

Yesterday was the Easter celebration at school, so lots of chocolate was involved, but that’s not what’s involved here. Just a feeling of helplessness, self-doubt and concern. It happened with all my other kids growing up, it’ll probably happen again, but it sucks.

And then there’s the laundry.

Famed basketball star Jeremy Lin tried to run an online Facebook Q&A yesterday just hours after undergoing knee surgery.

Until he threw up.

As reported by Mashable, the numbers and demographics of the Facebook chat are pretty astounding. According to The Wall Street Journal, 90% of participants were Asian and 50% were evangelical Christian. The average age of the chatters was 15, with males and females equally represented. And the thousands of participants asked more than 8,000 questions — a rate of about two per second.

Lin answered a range of questions including his biggest pet peeves, the video games he plays, how he stays humble and plans for rehabilitation.

With the sheer volume of participants and the rate of participation, the session turned out to be a “tremendously disorienting experience,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

And it wasn’t just that way for the viewers. Lin, still reeling after his surgery, had to interrupt his own chat for some post-surgery puking — which he announced on Facebook as well:

“WOW just threw up in the middle of the Q&A lol. time to get some rest but before i go just wanna say much love to all you fans! thanks to you guys who make MSG the best arena and thanks to all the NY media/beat writers for all your hard work in getting information to the fans. goodnight!”

More than 43,000 people liked his vomiting update alone.

We’re not famous. Explosive diarrhea three just accompanied vomit eight.

Shakespeare in Sydney cancelled due to a lot of barf

It’s not often the New South Wales Food Authority is mentioned along with Shakespeare.

But the health types have been brought in after the Opening Night performance of Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth was cancelled due to severe illness amongst the company.

Bell have been forced to recategorise the performance on Wednesday 4 April as a preview performance for family and friends after cast members Dan Spielman (Macbeth), Ivan Donato (Macduff) and Robert Jago (Malcolm) as well as Assistant Director John Kachoyan all contracted severe food poisoning. Two of the group had to be admitted to hospital as a result of their illness, with the other two members bed-ridden for several days.

Other opening night guests will be contacted and moved to another performance next week, with the season set to commence as planned on Thursday 5 April.

The downgrading of the show’s Opening Night follows the cancellation of the first three previews of the production, that had been scheduled for Friday 30 March, Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April.

Bell Shakespeare General Manager, Christopher Tooher said in a statement that “the condition of the four affected Company members is being constantly monitored. All are now showing significant signs of improvement and we aim to go ahead with a preview tomorrow night, with a second preview now scheduled for Wednesday 4 April.

"We are currently working with the NSW Food Authority regarding the source of the food poisoning."

William Shatner’s Broadway opening marred by food poisoning

Captain Kirk told the ladies of The View on Monday that his one-man Broadway show, Move out of your parent’s basement and get a life Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It, was spoiled by food poisoning.

The armchair epidemiologist figured it was a Klingon hamburger.

The veteran’s one-man show was met with a standing ovation and rave reviews but his night of celebrations were cut short after he fell ill.

Shatner previously appeared on U.S. breakfast show Good Morning America Friday to recount his magical evening, saying, “Opening night on Broadway… Well I’d love to say I absorbed every second of it but I got food poisoning. So the lack of absorption was really good.”

Thai PM Yingluck hospitalized with food poisoning

 Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was admitted to hospital Tuesday morning due to diarrhea caused by food poisoning, the Thai government said.

Yingluck now stays in Rama 9 hospital in downtown Bangkok and she has not canceled any schedule yet, an official at the Government House told Xinhua.

Food poisoning forces withdrawal at US Open

The first Irishman to play at the U.S. Open, Conor Niland, withdrew during his first-round match against Novak Djokovic after suffering food poisoning following a meal of pork and salad at a fancy Manhattan restaurant.

"I got sick everywhere after my 30-minute warm-up. I thought I could bluff my way through but you can’t do that against the number one in the world, I just found out. I thought I was going to vomit after long points. I just felt really, really rotten out there."