A new study estimates that nearly one in five urinary tract infections in Southern California may be caused by E. coli strains transmitted through contaminated meat—and pose a hidden foodborne risk to millions of people not just in California but across the US.
  • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    12 days ago

    Very few serious replies here, so I’ll try one …

    I wonder if wearing gloves during food prep is the answer.

    Stay with me here

    • most infections are caused by by basic hygiene, scratching your hoo haw with hands that have touched other things, including other parts of your body.
    • you touch raw meat as part of food prep (and women do most of the cooking)
    • it’s well known and adopted that you need to wash your hands after touching raw meat, which ought to help prevent
    • fingernails. Slime from raw meat also gets under your fingernails and most of us do not wash that well.

    We have a series of observations leading to germs under fingernails after handling uncooked food as a possible disease vector. If it is a significant vector, how do you prevent it? I doubt people will start washing hands to that level of detail, but you already have a lot of cooks wearing latex gloves during food prep which should prevent it in the first place

    • philpo@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      11 days ago

      Sadly it won’t help much if at all (that is why they are not required in professional kitchens per se)- people still touch things they should not and then touch these things ungloved.

      There sadly are various studies proving this.

      • python@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 days ago

        Unironically, that might be the way. I used to have UTIs like every few months and now that I think about it, I haven’t had one since going vegan in January.