If you're so hungry that you don't have time to wash the strawberries before you eat them, you could end up in the bathroom for a few hours with a pretty awful stomach ache.  More Texans are heading to the toilet this year with a food-related illness called Cyclosporasis, so we're offering up ways to spare you that pain.  

Cyclosporiasis causes bad stomach pain and diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and they admit that they don't fully understand the ways that the contamination spreads, or who starts it.  They do say that "avoiding food or water that may have been contaminated with feces is the best way to prevent cyclosporiasis."  Ok, deal!  But some Texans don't know it's contaminated until after they've eaten it.  Gross.

The illness appears to spread when feces comes into contact with fruits and vegetables, and they make it to the grocery store and purchased, and those foods aren't washed or cooked before consumption.  When the package instructions tell us to wash the food, we should totally wash the food.  They aren't messing around.  The CDC also says the cooking process kills the bacteria.

Fox 26 in Houston says there are more than 250 food-borne illnesses, and cyclosporiasis is one of the most common.  Almost 70 cases have been reported in the past month in Texas, and there might be other people who have cramping, vomiting, and diarrhea that don't go to a doctor and aren't officially tested and they're not in the stats.

Hungry now?

It's a good thing we grill a lot in Texas because that bacteria gets cooked right along with the roasted corn and meets its demise.  Which is also kinda gross, to think that we're eating dead bacteria sometimes, but at least it can't hurt us.

Once again, we're not trying to ruin your fun!  We just want you to be in the know, so you can spare yourself some needless trips to the bathroom.  Wash the fruit, and life will be much better.

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