Manual of Naval Preventive Medicine
Chapter 1: Food Service Sanitation
X: Foodborne Illnesses

Department of the Navy
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

1. Although food is usually considered in its relation to the preservation of good health, it may at times be injurious to health. Foods of animal origin (meat, eggs milk, etc.) most frequently provide the vehicles for transmission of foodborne illness.

a. Food can affect health as a result of:

(1) Natural poisons in certain varieties of mushrooms and fish;

(2) Animal parasites or their eggs and larvae in, or conveyed by, foods;

(3) Bacteria conveyed by both animal and vegetable foods such as, Salmonella typhi, other Salmonella species, Shigella species, and streptococcus species, etc.;

(4) Toxins which develop in foods as a result of bacterial growth such as staphylococcal enterotoxin and botulinum exotoxin

(5) Viruses contained in food and water including the hepatitis A virus;

(6) Poisons accidentally or intentionally added such as arsenic, lead, or other metals, acids, or insecticides;

(7) Amount, too little or too much;

(8) Composition, an unbalanced diet;

(9) An individual's faulty digestion or disturbances of metabolism;

(10) An individual's allergy to certain foods.

b. Epidemiological investigations have shown that more than one-half of all reported outbreaks of foodborne illnesses are the result of gross carelessness and deficiencies in food service sanitation. Outbreaks can be prevented by rigid adherence to acceptable sanitary standards.