Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Food Poisoning Sucks!

This is topic Food Poisoning Sucks! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-25-2004, 09:15 PM:

So it was yesterday at 4 in the mornig I awoke with pains in the stomach. I had had diahreea on and off four three days, I thought it would clear itself up as simple food poisioning had alwats done in past years, but not this case! The girlfriend took me to the emergency room at Lakeview three hours later and it was confirmed... and the bacteria had also spread to my urinary tract. Got the usual antibiotics and such and feel about 20% better today but man a bad case of food poisoning sure gets one down! Anyone else ever had a bad case of this stuff? Not sure where I picked it up from either....

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 08-25-2004, 09:19 PM:

Once, a long time ago, in a land far away.. Arizona.. the place.. jack in the box...

hint

NEVER EAT THERE...

Ciao

Dave

Posted by Kyle Watkins (Member # 986) on 08-25-2004, 09:20 PM:

Yes i have, got it form taco bell in 1998. Also turns out severl peole got it form there. Took about 3 days and i was good to go. I have nto ate at a taco bell since.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 08-25-2004, 09:31 PM:

Add a Las Vegas Red Lobster to the list.
Along with the Denny's in Hays, Kansas.
And the Marlboro (Up)Chuck Wagon at the Arizona State Fair.

All of those places were memorable, for all the wrong reasons.
Once I get sick in a place, I never go back. [puke]

[ 09-19-2004, 11:46 PM: Message edited by: Paul Mayer ]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-25-2004, 09:49 PM:

I get sick every time I go to ShoWest. The first year it was the Rio buffet (which I will never patronize again), the second year it was some cafe in the hotel next to Bally's (of which I will also never patronize again, complete with sick waitress sneezing on the food) and last year it wasn't food poisioning...it was just Vegas itself. I have decided Vegas is evil. Yet I will probably end up going again this year, for as Ian put it best, ShoWest isn't about seeing the show after the first year, it's about seeing all of the friends you know in the industry. [Cool]

I have also gotten food poisioning at the Wendy's in Plano on Park Blvd and at the UA Berkeley back when I was managing it. Now food poisioning is bad enough as it is, but the UA one was beyond what words can describe and noone should ever have to go through that kind of pain. Turns out the genuises had built the theater with water lines and sewage lines running alongside each other under the slab. The foundation shifted and cracked the pipes somehow. Ended up that sewage was getting into the water lines. One of my best employees also got very sick from it too. I think I told the story in more detail somewhere in the Yak archives. I'm sure John Pytlak will be along shortly to provide a link. [Wink]

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 08-25-2004, 11:31 PM:

Never had it, don't want it, & if I ever make it to Showest, come lunchtime I will stay far away from Brad as it seems he is the kiss of death.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-26-2004, 07:43 AM:

This is a stupid thread. Food poisening is AWESOME!

Posted by Jason M Miller (Member # 2597) on 08-26-2004, 09:38 AM:

Food Poisoning SUCKS I got it from a piece of beef jerky from a speedway (it was not expired)

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-26-2004, 10:19 AM:

"ShoWest isn't about seeing the show after the first year, it's about seeing all of the friends you know in the industry."
_________________________________________________________________

I've always done some buisness when I've been there and about every five years some manufacturer has something new to show. But I'm glad that at least two others here feel the same way I do about it. I know people that have been going there for years and still have not figured that one out.... or perhaps they just don't have any friends.... Anyway, seeing friends there every year is what has kept me going to Showest all these years, really nothing else.

Luckily, I've never gotten Food Poisioning when I've been in Vegas, about 40 times now. Also never really had any awful food there either.... so I've been lucky I guess in that respect, and I eat seafood alot. I find I can take about 3 days max of Vegas.... ditto for places like L.A. and N.Y.C.

Mark

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 08-26-2004, 11:24 AM:

Don't blame the food service, all it takes is one employee who failed to wash his or her hands thoroughly after defecating and then handling food or dishes.

As my wife says, most common food poisoning comes from eating shit -- other people's or one's own. The bacteria so necessary for digestion work in the digestive tract, but cam be left on the flush handle, stall doorknob, etc. and transferred to an unsuspecting victim.

Best prevention is to wash hands with soap and water after using the bathroom, and before eating or touching food.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 08-26-2004, 11:43 AM:

Food poisoning.....Garlic crabs at a now closed restuarant in Miami....my partner and where sick for a month. We used to register for full convention at ShoWest and the food poisoning and the extra pounds from the banquet food was enoungh for us to stop the practice after two years....the water from the tap in Las Vegas is a little hard to take. I have traveled to 21 countries and I have been damn lucky that my cast iron stomach works well with little problems...my partner gets more "stomach flu" since he is the type to try a food stand in an alley somewhere [puke]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-26-2004, 11:58 AM:

"Don't blame the food service, all it takes is one employee who failed to wash his or her hands thoroughly after defecating and then handling food or dishes."

I will certainly agree with that part but food thats out on a buffett type restaurant also has to be kept hot enough to be able keep bacteria from growing on it. Cold food is a big problem in Vegas at some of the smaller buffets and these are the ones I generally stay away from. Huge turnover buffets are generally the least likely to have this problem since the food is put out and gone in less than 10 min. and then a new tray is brought out again. The food is always hot and fresh this way and less likely to be contaminated.

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-26-2004, 02:46 PM:

Yep, what Gerard said! I was in the men's room of a McDonald's here in Eastern PA once, washing my hands at one of the sinks, amid the smell of whoever was just finishing and pulling up his trousers in the toilet stall. I hear him flush and the door flies open to reveal a McDonalds kid. As I'm drying my hands, I see him in the mirror march right on past me, past the wash basins, and straight out the door! I quickly followed to see him go behind the counter and back to work in the FOOD PREP AREA! I was incredulous. I immediately summoned a manager and said in a voice everyone could hear, "That kid back there just took a dump in the men's room and came straight out to work without washing his hands! That is inexcusable!" Although the manager corrected the situation, you know it wasn't the first time he'd done that, nor probably the last. I never went there again.

I'm in public restrooms a lot since becoming a trucker, and I'm appalled at just how many people literally think their shit doesn't stink! Not enough to wash their hands, anyway. FWIW, I've further noticed white men are the worst offenders, while blacks are the most fastidious at washing up. Just an observation from the field. I was in a truck stop restroom last week, commenting on how they let the soap dispenser run dry, when a black man said, "Well, at least you wash your hands." I agreed there was no other way, and we both knew the score.

I've also noticed Hispanics (or probably more accurately, illegal aliens) seem to grow up using the toilet differently, judging from factory and urban restrooms I have been in (like putting -ahem- used toilet paper in trash cans! That's just NASTY!) Since I've seen this in several different areas, I figured it must be a cultural thing.

Okay, enough of the potty talk! [puke]

Posted by Ben Holley (Member # 2247) on 08-26-2004, 02:59 PM:

I was fly fishing in new mexico with my dad and the both of us got food poisening (from differant sources). He got it from some crappy salsa and I got it two days later after eating a crappy cheeseburger from a mom and pop diner. I will now never eat at one of those old fashion diners, even if its life or death.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-26-2004, 03:09 PM:

quote: Ben Holley
I will now never eat at one of those old fashion diners, even if its life or death.

As others have noted, it's the proper supervision of employees and enforcement of good food handling practice that's most important. The big restaurants and chains can be just as likely to have a problem.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-26-2004, 06:11 PM:

Back when I was a first year undergrad student in 1990, there was a fast food shop called the 'Istanbul Kebab' in the neighbourhood. Given the high local population of students it did a good trade, but many of us who succumbed to the temptation ended up wishing we hadn't within a few hours.

After I'd been living there for a few months, the local paper ran a story about the abnormally high number of dogs and cats which had disappeared without trace from the area. When the council's health and safety people raided the kebab shop a fortnight or so later, it emerged that the two phenomena were very much related... [puke]

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 08-26-2004, 06:15 PM:

I got sick ater eating a go-gurt that someone left out in the sun, and then put back in the freezer. Couldn't keep anything down for about 2-days -- including water. Had to get an iv drip to hydrate.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-26-2004, 09:37 PM:

Oh, no, Leo! And you ate it?! [Eek!]

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 08-27-2004, 12:35 AM:

Don't forget plates & utensils.

Doesn't everyone remember those big mandatory W R S signs over the visible dishwashing sinks at restaurants? Wash, Rinse, Sanitize.

They've changed from English-only abbreviations to universally-inscrutable cryptopictographs

http://www.foodprotection.org/Icons/Wash.htm

But it's still wash in minimum 100 deg. F soapy water, rinse, then sanitze by soaking them in a sink of 170 deg. F water (or water with bleach 200 ppm) for 30 seconds.

For a couple of months while in college, I worked as an assistant cook at a very expensive & respected ribs restaurant. My job was to make various side items, hold the plate while the cook with tongs removed the ribs from the stove, dipped them in the pan of rib sauce & put them on the plate, then I put the various side items I made up on the plate.

If you've never seen the floor of a restaurant kitchen, it's one of the nastiest things in the world. Greasy, unidentifiable chunks of whatever down there, can't be walked on so over it are placed these thick rubber industrial mats of large, open honeycomb to let the larger chunks through, & they still get slippery & grungy. At the end of the evening when the guys come in & pull up the mats to take outside to hose down & also hose down the floor, it's far worse than the floor of the garages & veterinary facilities I've seen.

One night, I held the plate up, the cook sort of skated the ribs off the plate, & they went on this incredibly filthy floor. I gave the cook the "write that one off" look, but the cook smiled, held up a shush finger, picked up the ribs from the floor with the tongs, DIPPED THEM IN THE PAN OF SAUCE AGAIN, & put them on the plate.

Somewhere, a diner probably said, "I don't know what these little crunchy things in the rib sauce are, but they're delicious!"

Later I found out that the bus boys had instructions to remove any bread that hadn't been broken from the plates that came off the tables into a hamper, where someone else later cubed them, put them in the fryer, & made croutons of them.

I didn't eat anything at a restaurant for about three years after that.

"I'm not hungry, thank you."

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 08-27-2004, 03:18 AM:

One of the worst cases of supect additions to a meal was discovered round here when a very dodgey curry house was closed down by the local counci.

It turned out at least one of the people working there had been adding what some refer to as "Man Sauce" to some of the dishes [scream]

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 08-27-2004, 07:05 AM:

When I used to do audio-video set-ups in restaurants for business meetings, I often found that my gaffers tape would not stick to the floor at all due to the amount of grease and goo that was there. Or, even better, after spending time on my hands and knees in the dining areas running wires, I'd stand up and find dark patches on my knees. Once, whatever it was, made a permanant stain that wouldn't come out. Indian restaurants are the worst. The curry smell...

Used to work in a plant that employed a number of persons that refused to speak English. I was amazed at what they could do to a restroom. Disgusting!

When I came to work at my current employment location, I was in charge of restroom maintenance. One day, I looked in there just after a guy came out, and found that he had written on the walls with feces. He was still in the store when I yelled at him, and bolted when he realized that I was referring to him. The next day, he came back and tried to do business with us! I ran him off again! Some people...

One good thing happened. Our store no longer has a public restroom. People seem to think that diapers will just flush away!