A food hygeine specialist has warned the public off a vegetable that’s a popular staple in health food cafes due to alarming food poisoning risk.
Raw sprouts — tiny cress-like greens that are added to salads, soups and sandwiches — may be full of vitamin C and magnesium, but they’re also a hotbed for dangerous bacteria.
That’s according to a US-based food scientist who goes by the name of @hydroxide on social media, and attracts millions of users to her food safety videos.
In a recent clip psoted to her TikTok channel, the expert described raw sprouts as a ‘very very very high risk food’, and said they’re the one food she’ll always avoid.
Sprouts are seeds that have germinated and become very young and small plants.
Nuts, seeds, beans and leafy green vegetables can all be eaten as sprouts.
However, the environment they are grown in is also the perfect environment for bacteria to thrive.
The food scientist said: ‘Bacteria is like your besties on spring break they want to go somewhere hot and moist and they are thirsty.
Often regarded as nutritional powerhouses full of vitamin C and proteins and fibre, raw sprouts are sprinkled on salads and added to tacos, sandwiches and Buddha Bowls
‘So, sprouts are basically grown in the warmest, most moist humid, wet environment that you can imagine, and guess what bacteria love it.’
Unless you are blanching them or ‘cooking them into submission’ there is a food poisoning risk, she added.
One study reported that the number of microorganisms on a sprouting seed can reach up to 1 billion within three days of the sprouting process, according to a report by Clemson University in North Carolina, the US.
What’s more, American food safety authorites reported more than 2,000 cases of illness related to raw sprouts between 1996 and 2010, including 123 hospitalisations and one death.
The social media scientists also warned her 106K social media followers that the tiny vegetables can spread bacteria all over your kitchen.
‘You have to think too when you are handling high risk food that is carrying all that moisture, it could get on all your kitchen supplies as well and your counters and your sink and lots of other things,’ she said.
Raw sprouts can be contaminated with harmful bacteria like E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella, which can lead to food poisoning.
Experts have said that leftovers should be stored in the top section of the fridge away from the fresh meat. Food safety authorities also warn not to leave leftovers in the fridge any longer than two days before eating them
Diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps and a high temperature are all symptoms of food poisoning according to the NHS.
It can also cause you to feel generally unwell and feel tired and experience aches and chills.
The symptoms of food poisoning usually start within a few days or hour of eating the food that caused the infection, but it can in some cases take a week for symptoms to show.
The number of people in the UK suffering bad bouts of food poisoning is on the rise, recent figures show.
Between 2013 and 2023, hospital admissions for salmonella — the potentially deadly bug that’s often found in undercooked meat — jumped by 79 per cent in England.
Meanwhile, e-coli and campylobacter reached record highs in 2023, with hospital admissions for the latter reaching nine in 100,000 people in 2023, up from three in 100,000 in 2000.
It appears the US is witnessing a similar pattern.
The number of Americans killed by food poisoning has surged by 50 percent in four years, according to an official report published in July.
The US has also seen a 20 percent rise in the number of people hospitalised after eating bad food, and the same increase in potentially lethal cases.