How did I get infected with E. coli?

How did I get infected with E. coli?

You come into contact and swallow E. coli by eating contaminated food, drinking contaminated water or by touching your mouth with your hands that are contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

Contaminated foods

• Meats: Meats become contaminated with E. coli during the slaughtering process, when E. coli in animal intestines gets onto cuts of meat and especially when meat from more than one animal is ground together. If you eat undercooked meat (E. coli is killed when meat is thoroughly cooked), you can become infected with E. coli.
• Unpasteurized (raw) milk: E. coli on a cow’s udder and/or the milking equipment can get into the milk. Drinking contaminated raw milk can lead to an E. coli infection because it hasn’t been heated to kill the bacteria.
• Unpasteurized apple cider and other unpasteurized juices.
• Soft cheeses made from raw milk.
• Fruits and veggies: Crops growing near animal farms can become contaminated when E. coli-containing animal poop combines with rainwater and the runoff enters produce fields and lands on the produce. If you don’t thoroughly wash off the produce, E. coli enters your body when you eat these foods.

Contaminated water

• E. coli in poop from both animals and humans can end up in all types of water sources including ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, wells, swimming pools/kiddie pools and even in local city water supplies that have not been disinfected. If you swallow contaminated water, you could get sick.

Contaminated hands

• You can swallow E. coli when it transfers from your hands directly to your mouth or onto the food you are eating. E. coli gets on your hands from touching poop (an invisible amount can be on your hands). You can get poop on your hands after changing your baby’s diapers, after having a bowel movement and not washing your hands completely, petting zoo or farm animals (many animals roll in or otherwise get E. coli from poop on their fur) or from poop on the hands of other people infected with disease-causing E. coli.