Foods are contaminated by bacteria like E coli, salmonella and staph (staphylococcus aureus).

These bacteria cause food poisoning. Undercooked red meat and undercooked poultry
often contain harmful bacteria. Through cross contamination other foods, such as vegetables,
may also contain these bacteria. Vegetables and foods that will be eaten raw such as lettuce,
tomato and other salad items should be washed well before eating and should be kept away
from raw meats. According to the Texas Agriculture Extension Service Staph is present in many
wounds, and on the skin, and, in the respiratory passages of nearly half the human population.
Hands should be washed before eating. This is one way to prevent accidental contamination of
food while cooking or eating. Food packaging plants must adhere to strict sanitation standards
otherwise; they may become a source of contamination.

There are various sources of bacterial contamination. Some types are in food already (such as
meats); must be cooked thoroughly to be safe. The amount can go way up if there are problems
when the animal is slaughtered, as the meat can easily be contaminated with the animals feces.
Food can also become contaminated during packaging, despite health regulations. Bacteria can
be introduced while being prepared, from dirty hands, utensils, cutting boards and counter tops.
Vegetables can be contaminated by soil or water whether you buy or grow your vegetables

Bacteria ( i/bktri/; singular: bacterium) constitute a

large domainof prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria
have a number of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria were among the
first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil,
water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste,[2] and the deep portions of Earth's crust. Bacteria
also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationships with plants and animals. They are also known
to have flourished in manned spacecraft.[3]
There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a
millilitre of fresh water. There are approximately 51030bacteria on Earth,[4] forming
a biomass which exceeds that of all plants and animals.[5] Bacteria are vital in recycling
nutrients, with many of the stages in nutrient cycles dependent on these organisms, such as
thefixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere and putrefaction. In the biological communities
surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, bacteria provide the nutrients needed to
sustain life by converting dissolved compounds such as hydrogen sulphide and methane to
energy. On 17 March 2013, researchers reported data that suggested bacterial life forms thrive in
the Mariana Trench, which with a depth of up to 11 kilometres is the deepest part of the Earth's
oceans.[6][7] Other researchers reported related studies that microbes thrive inside rocks up to
580 metres below the sea floor under 2.6 kilometres of ocean off the coast of the northwestern

United States.[6][8] According to one of the researchers,"You can find microbes everywhere
they're extremely adaptable to conditions, and survive wherever they are." [6]
Most bacteria have not been characterized, and only about half of thephyla of bacteria have
species that can be grown in the laboratory.[9] The study of bacteria is known as bacteriology, a
branch of microbiology.
There are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells in the human flora as there are human
cells in the body, with the largest number of the human flora being in the gut flora, and a large
number on the skin.[10] The vast majority of the bacteria in the body are rendered harmless by
the protective effects of the immune system, and some are beneficial. However, several species
of bacteria are pathogenic and cause infectious diseases,
including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy, and bubonic plague. The most common fatal
bacterial diseases are respiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million
people a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.[11] In developed countries, antibiotics are used to
treat bacterial infections and are also used in farming, makingantibiotic resistance a growing
problem. In industry, bacteria are important in sewage treatment and the breakdown of oil spills,
the production ofcheese and yogurt through fermentation, and the recovery of gold, palladium,
copper and other metals in the mining sector,[12] as well as inbiotechnology, and the
manufacture of antibiotics and other chemicals.[13]
Once regarded as plants constituting the class Schizomycetes, bacteria are now classified
as prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and othereukaryotes, bacterial cells do not contain
a nucleus and rarely harbour membrane-bound organelles. Although the
termbacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after the
discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotes consist of two very different groups of organisms
that evolved from an ancient common ancestor. Theseevolutionary domains are
called Bacteria and Archaea.