This week, families around Northern Illinois and across the country gathered to celebrate Independence Day. For many people, such celebrations include backyard cookouts with massive spreads of delicious food of all types.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to attend a Fourth of July cookout and then come home feeling a bit unwell. Before long, you might feel quite ill and have symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. You might even recognize the situation as attributable to something you ate, but the term “food poisoning” might feel like a stretch. However, the reality is that if something you ate made you sick and food allergies are not to blame, there is a good chance that you are, in fact, suffering from food poisoning.

Potential Liability for the Host

Over the last few weeks, posts on this blog have offered some summer cookout safety tips so that those who host backyard meals can help prevent their guests from getting sick. However, foodborne illnesses are still possible at summer cookouts. The first potential source of liability for summer cookout food poisoning is the person who hosts the get-together.

Over the last couple of blog posts, we have talked about some of the ways to keep your guests from contracting foodborne illnesses during your summer cookouts. Previously, we have discussed maintaining a clean grill and proper handling procedures for meats, chicken, and seafood. While grilling is a big part of most summer cookouts, there is often a variety of other foods that help to complete a backyard meal. With several months of warm weather — and numerous opportunities for cookouts — still to go this year, it is time to talk about keeping the side dishes safe as well.

Maintaining Safe Temperatures

Most backyard barbecues are more or less buffet-style meals, especially those that involve larger numbers of guests. The most basic food safety rule for buffet-style meals is to keep foods hot if they are supposed to be hot and cold if they are supposed to be cold. Hot means above 140° F, and cold means below 40° F. The “danger zone” for food safety is between these temperatures, and food should not be left in the danger zone for longer than two hours. If the outdoor temperature is above 90° F, food should not be in the danger zone for longer than one hour. Dangerous bacteria can multiply very quickly in the danger zone.

Here are a few tips for keeping food safe:

If you are the type of person who plays “fast and loose” with food safety—maybe, you are willing to eat those deviled eggs that have been sitting on the buffet table all day—there is a good chance you had to deal with food poisoning occasionally. And, you might not have even recognized your issues as food poisoning, as some cases can be much milder than others.

Most of us generally understand that improper food handling and storage temperatures can allow the pathogens that cause foodborne illness to contaminate our food. But what if someone else in your household ate contaminated food and you did not? Is it possible to contract a foodborne illness from another person? The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

How Food Poisoning Can Be Spread

There are two basic ways in which food poisoning spreads from person to person. The first is through direct exposure to the bodily fluids of an infected person. For example, if your spouse is suffering from a foodborne illness caused by norovirus, the virus is likely to be present in his or her vomit or diarrhea. This means you need to be extra careful as you help care for your spouse and to take all proper precautions to avoid exposure to the pathogen.

Just over a week ago, families throughout the country and around the world celebrated the Christian holiday of Easter. Of course, chocolate and candy are big parts of this celebration in many, if not most, households, and many still include hard-boiled eggs as part of their traditions as well. In fact, coloring Easter eggs is a highly anticipated family event in a large number of American homes. These dyed eggs often find their way into Easter baskets and onto the buffet table on Easter Sunday, but waiting too long to eat them can lead to spoiled eggs, bacterial contamination, and foodborne illness.

Refrigeration is Key

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), hard-boiled eggs should not be left at room temperature for more than two hours. Temperatures between 40 and 140°F are considered the “danger zone.” At these temps, dangerous bacteria can grow and reproduce very quickly.

This means that it is not advisable to leave dyed eggs in the kids’ Easter baskets overnight, nor is it a good idea to leave hard-boiled eggs sitting on the food table all day long during the celebration. Once the eggs have been boiled, they should be allowed to come up to room temperature and then promptly refrigerated. If they are put in the refrigerator while they are still hot, the residual heat could result in other items in the fridge spoiling. The best place to store them is in the carton on an internal shelf that is not affected very much by opening and closing the refrigerator door.

We have all been there. In the hours after a good meal—or maybe the next day—you might start feeling a little off. Maybe your stomach begins to bother you, or you are feeling dizzy and cannot explain why. You might wonder if you are coming down with a gastrointestinal bug, and you might even start trying to figure out if anyone around you seemed sick in the last couple of days. At some point, you might start wondering if you are feeling ill because of something you ate.

The reality is that thousands of people are affected by food poisoning or a foodborne illness in the United States each year. The vast majority of victims suffer at home, as their symptoms are not serious enough to warrant a trip to the doctor. However, it is important to recognize when you should seek medical attention to ensure that your health and your right to compensation, in certain cases, are fully protected.

The Most Common Food Poisoning Symptoms

Generally, food poisoning is caused by consuming food that is contaminated with pathogens, such as E. coli, salmonella, and listeria. While the illnesses associated with each pathogen are different, they tend to share many of the same symptoms. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the most common symptoms of food poisoning include: