Food Poisoning--What food to avoid

[davidishere]

Hey everyone

Has anyone gotten sick at the glasto yet? like from the food you got from the food vendors? If so can you say which ones and which foods are best to avoid?

[Migraine]

Most cases of gastroenteritis are going to be down to personal hygiene rather than food vendor hygeine. Take plenty of hand sanitizer, it's better in the small bottles then you can always have a bottle in your pocket and then just fall into good habits ie. make sure you use it after a visit to the long drops and before you eat. In terms of places to avoid from a food hygeine point of view nowhere has really caught my eye, I used to run a pub which served food so I can be a bit demanding when it comes to food hygeine, all food vendors have running water so they can wash their hands.

After almost being hospitalised due to food poisoning about five years ago (not at Glasto) I have remained a bit sensitive to further bouts. I have never had any issues at Glastonbury.

[Bisque]

I avoid any breaded KFC style generic chicken vendors & the Chinese noodle places.

The food is decent at Glastonbury though, only got the shits at Reading.

[Bubblecup]

You're more likely to poison yourself with not washing your hands properly before handling food than you are to get food poisoning from Glasto, all the stalls are properly checked before allowing to serve food, so the best way to avoid nasties is wetwipes and antibac gel! Otherwise the more popular stalls will have a higher turnover of food so its less likely to have been sat around for a while, check that chicken is cooked and food should be hot. Common sense really

[bexj]

Its worth noting that many of the toilet blocks have hand sanitiser dispensers instead of sinks, although they are often empty. Carry your own around and every so often take the opportunity to wash your hands thoroughly using soap and water.

[frostypaw]

I wouldn't worry too much the food standards are pretty high - but keep an eye on the standard event style catering vendors. There's been some problems before with reheated rice etc, just have a gander at the cooking process before ordering often lets you know what's being made well or just slopped together

[guypjfreak]

it takes the stalls years to get on to glasto the waiting list is some thing silly so when they get on there mostly really good cos if they mad people ill they would lose there pitch .....so dont worry to much about it old son ...one good trick is to look for the queues if one stall has 20 punters and the one next to has none que up with the other 20 people ...

[incident]

one good trick is to look for the queues if one stall has 20 punters and the one next to has none que up with the other 20 people ...

I'd mostly agree, except within eyesight of the Pyramid or Other stages in which case this rule doesn't apply (and possibly, shoudl be reversed). There's some right shit being sold at the Pyramid, massively overpriced as well, yet queues a mile long.

Edited May 25, 2015 by incident

[Bubblecup]

Last year I remember being very disappointed that the little cafe in Toad Hall couldn't sell me my annual piece of moist, sticky wonderful vegan gingercake as they were waiting for their food safety inspection so it's all taken very seriously, this was wednesday afternoon. They were teasing by having all their cakes out on show too! I finally got my cake the following day and will be back for more soon!

[markrkp]

The treehouse café was really good, up near the Park.

Edited May 25, 2015 by markrkp

[MatthewBL]

Most cases of gastroenteritis are going to be down to personal hygiene rather than food vendor hygeine. Take plenty of hand sanitizer, it's better in the small bottles then you can always have a bottle in your pocket and then just fall into good habits ie. make sure you use it after a visit to the long drops and before you eat. In terms of places to avoid from a food hygeine point of view nowhere has really caught my eye, I used to run a pub which served food so I can be a bit demanding when it comes to food hygeine, all food vendors have running water so they can wash their hands.

After almost being hospitalised due to food poisoning about five years ago (not at Glasto) I have remained a bit sensitive to further bouts. I have never had any issues at Glastonbury.

Carry a similar sized bottle of hand soap or a small bar in a bag, washing with soap and then hand sanitiser will help.

Avoid any reheated rice products, most people after a take away will blame the curry or kebab, but never realise rice can be a killer!

[mrpman]

If possible try not to eat using your hands too much.

By that I mean if you're having fish and chips, use a little wooden fork. If you're having a burrito, keep it in the wrapping/bag.

Your hands may look clean, they are probably not though! It's easily done, my wife had to leave Leeds one year after having severe food poisoning, they even gave her a morphine injection in her thigh!

[fifilamore]

I got food poisoning last year and it was horrendous! All I had consumed was cider and a salad wrap so probably came from the toilets :-( - taking a job lot of hand sanitiser this year

[frostypaw]

If possible try not to eat using your hands too much.

By that I mean if you're having fish and chips, use a little wooden fork. If you're having a burrito, keep it in the wrapping/bag.

Your hands may look clean, they are probably not though! It's easily done, my wife had to leave Leeds one year after having severe food poisoning, they even gave her a morphine injection in her thigh!

Excellent advice - almost all Glasto food comes wrapped in something or in a tray with something to eat it with - use those things! You can get away with barely touching your food which vastly minimises the chance of you transferring anything bad over

I got food poisoning last year and it was horrendous! All I had consumed was cider and a salad wrap so probably came from the toilets :-( - taking a job lot of hand sanitiser this year

Hand sanitiser is fairly useless unless you wash your hands first and follow the instructions which usually means hands should be wet with it for 30 seconds or more, don't think it's a magic bullet Edited May 26, 2015 by frostypaw

[Funkyfairy!]

Always carry a small hand sanitiser and use it

I stick mainly to vegetarian food at Glasto - always do at festivals. Not sure it would help the food poisoning question though :-) Manic organic curries are my favourite and I'll maybe have one Goan seafood curry - but usually steer well away from any chicken, beef etc

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

http://www.poundland.co.uk/hand-sanitizer-2-pack

[rivalschools.price]

Keep away from Pringles.

One year in Reading I ate a large pot of Pringles and 15 pints of lager.

Spewed twice, worse case of food poisoning ever.

Haven't touched Pringles at a festival since

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

One year in Reading I ate a large pot of Pringles and 15 pints of lager.

You ate 15 pints of lager? And I thought I was a demon for the drink.

[musky]

Like everyone is saying, it's personal hygiene that's really the issue. The reheating rice thing is a bit of a red herring too - it's a well know food safety issue and MDC would be all over any trader trying to cut corners like this. The main concern of MDC is the suitability of some of the stalls to handle the extremes of weather and the consequences that can arise from this.

From the 2014 annual report:

GFL once again recruited their own Food Safety Team of 20 officers who worked throughout the week alongside the Commercial and Market Managers to check that the terms and conditions for trading at the festival were met and that the 502 booked food traders and key crew caterers were complaint with the food hygiene legislation. Their work was once again audited by MDC throughout the week and weekend. Mendip’s officers also conducted inspections of traders registered as Mendip food businesses.

....

Generally the standards of compliance observed were typical of previous years. Some examples of extremely good practice can always be seen at the Festival, both experienced professional field caterers and also voluntary organisations who only trade once a year at this festival. It is heartening to see some of the regular festival traders, who have caused real concern in the past, now implementing their own continuous improvement plans and really recognising the rewards that planning good stall infrastructure and layout can bring. With this in place, they can concentrate on safe food preparation practices rather than battling the elements and we have seen huge improvements in these practices too.

Unfortunately there will always be some poor stalls. Even experienced traders can get caught out by the Pilton weather. With such a large site the challenge is to be able to seek these out early in the week to ensure that remedial action is taken to prevent any potential harm. This is not an easy task and even with a large team the GFL resources are stretched. However the GFL Food Safety Team and Mendip’s officers once again enjoyed a good working relationship. Mendip officers found two stalls where it was necessary to ask them to stop trading temporarily to resolve hygiene issues. With assistance from the GFL Food safety Team these traders were able to resume trading with some restrictions.

No formal intervention by MDC where permanent closure of stalls or seizure/disposal of food was required.

[Bloodbuzz]

If I remember rightly the toilets behind the food stalls/market area are cleaned every hour, so (usually) they're sparkly clean..

Hope this helps