American Medical Association Family Medical Guide - American Medical Association [513]
• Contamination of food by other foods (for example, when raw meat, poultry, or eggs touch cooked foods)
• Not cooking meat, poultry, or eggs sufficiently
• Insufficient hand washing
• Leaving foods out at room temperature when they should be refrigerated, frozen, or kept hot
You can protect your family’s health at mealtimes by following these simple guidelines:
• Always wash your hands thoroughly before handling food and after handling raw meat, poultry, or eggs.
• Wash the knives and cutting boards you use for meat or poultry in hot, soapy water.
• Never reuse a plate or cutting board that held raw meat or poultry for cooked foods or for preparing other foods.
• Rinse meat, fish, and poultry before cooking.
• Never eat raw or undercooked beef, poultry, fish, or eggs. Cook these foods at a temperature above 140ºF to kill infectious microorganisms.
• Use or freeze raw meat within 3 days, and poultry within 2 days. Separate raw meat and poultry from other foods when storing them in the refrigerator.
• Always defrost food in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours (not at room temperature) or in the microwave.
• Never refreeze foods that you have thawed (bread is an exception).
• Don’t leave cooked or raw foods at room temperature for more than 2 hours.
• Make sure the temperature in your refrigerator is below 40ºF and your freezer is set at 0º or lower.
• Refrigerate leftovers right away. You don’t have to wait for hot foods to cool down first.
• Eat leftovers within 2 or 3 days or freeze them.
• Throw away a can or jar if it hisses or food spurts out when you open it—the food may contain the bacterium that causes botulism, a life-threatening form of food poisoning. (Some vacuum-packed cans do hiss slightly when opened, which is normal.) Avoid buying dented or swollen cans of food.
Disorders of the Liver, Gallbladder, and Pancreas
The liver, gallbladder, and pancreas are not actually part of the digestive system, but they play a vital role in digestion and the body’s use of nutrients from food. The liver is the heaviest organ in the body, spreading across the upper right part of the abdomen behind the lower ribs. The liver is the body’s chemical factory, performing vital functions such as converting food into nutrients the body can use; storing nutrients including fats, vitamins, sugars, and iron until the body needs them; producing proteins necessary for blood clotting; and removing or neutralizing potentially harmful substances such as alcohol. Most of the cholesterol in your body is made by your liver from saturated fats in foods that you eat (such as whole-milk dairy products and red meat).
To aid digestion, the liver secretes a fluid called bile, which helps neutralize stomach acid and break down fat. Bile trickles through tiny tubes (called bile ducts) into the gallbladder, a baglike collecting organ that rests against the lower back of the liver to absorb water and store bile. During digestion, the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine, from the stomach) releases a hormone that stimulates the gallbladder to contract and release bile into the duodenum through the common bile duct.
The pancreas lies just behind the lower part of the stomach. The pancreas makes insulin, a hormone that controls the body’s use of sugar for energy and regulates the body’s use of fat and amino acids, which are essential for storing energy and building proteins. The pancreas also makes enzymes, digestive juices that flow down the pancreatic duct into the duodenum, where they break food down into particles small enough to be absorbed and used by the body.
Liver, gallbladder, and pancreas Although the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas are not actually considered organs of the digestive system, each plays an important role in digestion and in enabling the body to use nutrients for energy. The liver spreads across the upper right abdomen behind the lower ribs. The gallbladder rests against the lower back of the liver. The pancreas lies