Preventing Yersiniosis
You can prevent yersiniosis by:
- washing hands carefully
- keeping your food preparation areas clean
- cooking and storing your food at the appropriate temperatures
Minimizing Your Risk
- After handling raw chitterlings, clean hands and fingernails scrupulously
with soap and water.
- Especially before touching infants or their toys, bottles, or pacifiers.
- Someone other than the foodhandler should care for children while
chitterlings are being prepared.
- Wash hands after using the bathroom and changing diapers, and before
handling or eating any food.
- Make sure that persons with diarrhea, especially children, wash their
hands carefully and frequently with soap to reduce the risk of spreading
the infection.
- Always wash hands after contact with farm animals, pets, animal feces,
and animal environments.
- Hand
Hygiene
Wash Your Hands!
Keep your food preparation areas clean
- Keep raw pork and other meat separate from produce and other foods
when shopping for and storing groceries.
- Wash hands, cutting boards, countertops, cutlery, and
utensils after handling uncooked pork.
- Wash raw fruits and vegetables before eating.
- Someone other than the foodhandler should care for children
while chitterlings are being prepared.
- Cross-Contamination
Food and kitchen tools and surfaces may become contaminated from raw pork products.
Cook and store your food at the appropriate temperatures
- Avoid eating raw or undercooked pork.
- Thoroughly cook raw meat and poultry to destroy the bacteria.
- Meat, poultry, pork, and hamburgers should be cooked until they are
no longer pink in the middle.
- Storage
and Cooking Temperatures
Learn more about storage and cooking temperatures
- Defrost food in the refrigerator, in cold water, or in the microwave.
Food should be stored in a refrigerator that is 40°F or cooler or
a freezer that is 0°F or cooler.
Be careful when dealing with animals
- Always wash hands after contact with farm animals, pets, animal feces,
and animal environments.
- Yersinia
enterocolitica and Pigs
CDC fact sheet answers some commons questions about Yersinia and pigs.
Do you suspect that you have a foodborne illness? Visit reporting suspected foodborne illnesses.
