Health Canada has just issued an advisory that should have
been issued years ago, namely that eating raw sprouts – of any type – can be
dangerous.
Why? Because raw sprouts are one of the main food sources
for salmonella and other bacterial infections.
In fact, if you try to stay on top of these things, every
time there’s a salmonella outbreak in the US (which has way more of them than
Canada does) one of the first potential sources the authorities say they’re
looking at is raw sprouts.
And as always, the people who need to be particularly
cautious about ingesting these potentially infective food ingredients are kids,
older adults, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems.
Well-cooked sprouts, however, such as bean sprouts in
Chinese food dishes are fine.
