IMHO the gas and nausea are the precursive symptoms of gastric problems. If you believe it was food poisoning you should start looking back further then the frozen fettuccine alfredo.
Since I brought up MSG I thought I should comment.
Never meaning to hi-jack, maybe I did.
I do, totally believe some people have sensitivities to MSG.
I was trying to give the OP another thing to look at.
I’m T1 diabetic. I’ve been reading labels my whole life. MSG is in a great quantity of processed and frozen food stuffs.
It’s something to consider if you’re having digestive or other issues with a particular item.
Just to be thorough.
IMHO
This is hard to show unless many get sick. Just too many other things that can cause common symptoms. Although your doctor could take blood or stool cultures if your symptoms are severe, even this probably would not prove it.
A few years ago I went to an oyster festival in Homestead, near Pittsburgh. I ate oysters all day long, mostly raw.
The next day I had horrendous diarrhea. I knew the oysters had to be responsible. I called the Health Department out of curiosity and the person answered the phone, “Allegheny County Health Department, are you calling about problems following yesterday’s oyster festival?”
ETA: I went the following year and the year after that, ate oysters all day and was fine. Eat Moar Oysters!
something else too have a doctor do a gastric check … because what mine thought was a food allergies was a slowly leaking gallbladder that ended up needing rather dramatic removal a few years later …
Please read the harder at the top of this board. SD is here to fight ignorance NOT promote it. The OP didn’t ask people to speculate on what might be the cause of their discomfort, they asked for specific advice regarding possible food poisoning.
Your anecdotal stories about MSG derail this and are no more helpful to the OP than speculating about aspartame or gluten or suggesting they’re maybe being abducted at night and experimented on by aliens.
And sadly, the fight is taking way longer that we thought.
Moderator Note
GMANCANADA, please leave the moderating to the moderators. If you feel something is inappropriate, report it. Don’t junior mod.
Moderator Note
While the subject of certain substances triggering responses in someone is on-topic for this thread, the MSG issue has proven to be too much of a hijack. If you want to discuss MSG, feel free to do so, just not in this thread. Start a new thread, or search to see if there is an existing thread that is already suited to the topic.
For a classic tale, don’t miss Berton Roueche’s “Eleven Blue Men”, about a WWII-era episode of food poisoning that struck down elderly patrons of a N.Y.C. restaurant.
Their symptoms hit within minutes, which eliminated the usual causes including bacterial food poisoning. Weirdly, they all shared a dietary quirk that made them uniquely susceptible.
Great read.
Just to let y’all know, I have been reading your responses.
This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve had gastrointestinal problems for year, and I’ve been scoped twice to see if anything is wrong. Except for an incipient duodenal* ulcer seen the first time, they’ve never seen anything wrong.
The first time around, the Dr. put me on Nexium, which helped quite a bit, so some of it was excess stomach acid.
After the last time it got really bad, I decided to see if it might be food allergies. That’s how I found out that I’m allergic to cashew and peanuts. Eliminating those from my diet completely got it back down to occasional outbreaks.
So, yeah, every time I get gassy/nauseous, it’s a game of allergy, food poisoning or my body being annoying again. My usual methodology - what did I have in the last couple of hours, and what did I eat yesterday. Then, eliminate the one that I can more easily live without, and see if that helps.
I eliminated the Stouffers entrees, and after 3 or so days, I felt back to normal. I thought I got all of the entrees out of the main freezer, but I had left one in there - it was in a different package, so I didn’t register it as Stouffers. So I ate it last week, and about 24 hours later started having nausea and gas again. That’s why I think it was food poisoning.
Also, the only thing in common with the entrees was that they were all chicken (may have been a turkey one in there, but I don’t remember, otherwise it was chicken) And while most of them were the meat/cream sauce/starch that I usually get, the last one was a teriyaki, so I seriously doubt there were any spices in common.
Interesting the stories about almost instantaneous food poisoning here - I had read here on the boards that food poisoning always took 24-48 hours to cause problems. Any doctors have an insight on the discrepancy here?
*because having a stomach ulcer is too common.
Also, the takeaway I’ve gotten from this thread is that there is no way to respond to possible food poisoning unless it’s to local health authorities (which is not going to help because this is a national brand) or it puts me in the hospital. And I probably wouldn’t be taken that seriously if I reported it without going to a hospital.
IMO, there should be a national web site to record such problems, so that they might get identified before a factory problem puts people in the hospital.
If you test positive, it doesn’t matter if they determine it’s from Kraft foods or your local sandwich shop. It all gets taken seriously. They’ll make a log of everything you’ve consumed in the past few days or week and watch for patterns. If 3 other people report similar sicknesses and they only thing they have in common is the same brand of applesauce, the state heath dept and the CDC will get reports about it.
Fwiw, I have a friend who suffered from symptoms much like yours, and eventually they worked out that she was sensitive to chicken (including chicken eggs, but not turkey or duck) and corn, including corn syrup and corn starch. She removed those from her diet and recovered.
Weirdest food sensitivities I have personally come across.
Well, I’ve had a few other dishes with chicken in them, with no problems, so I don’t think it’s chicken in general.
Joey_P, can I get that test at a quack shack, or do I need to go to the emergency room?
I‘m sorry you’ve had gastrointestinal troubles-they are horrid. First, food poisoning needs to be confirmed by a doctor and lab tests. Genuine food poisoning is less common than people believe. It will be taken seriously by your health dept once lab confirmed no matter the source.
A national web site would be a bad idea-thousands of reports when very few were confirmed food-based poisoning. It would a nightmare maligning food manufacturers. You can always find contact information for whoever made the food you feel was the problem and report it to them.
If a minimal number of lab confirmed food poisonings were reported, even spread out over the whole nation related to a factory frozen food, there would be instant national warnings and widely broadcast recalls. Those types of food poisonings are incredibly rare.
One thing not mentioned here is that if they are a national brand, they probably have a customer service line. Call and report it. Don’t threaten legal action or anything, just say “Hey, I think I got food poisoning from your chicken pot pie.” They’ll be categorizing and logging these calls and they’ll spring into action if they actually start getting a number of complaints about the same thing.
Food poisoning causes diarrhea, often explosive, sometimes bloody; often accompanied by fever, chills, etc. Look up salmonella, listeria, and others. Gas and nausea on their own are not typically food poisoning.
What you are describing sounds like a classic food sensitivity. There are all sorts of minor ingredients you could be sensitive to. How many ingredients are listed on the label?
There are also food components that aren’t listed on the labels, as they’re considered “processing aids”. For example, a food company I worked for had manufactured for us vegetable dyes made of spirulina, which is dried by laying it on cornstarch. But cornstarch isn’t considered to be an ingredient, so is not listed as one - though it’s very likely someone with a severe corn allergy could well be affected.
You’re looking for zebras when horses are all around you.
There is no single test for food poisoning. There are certain GI pathogens that can be transmitted as a foodbourne illness. If you go the Emergency Department they will assess you for a medical emergency: history, physical exam and any diagnostics or treatment they feel are a warranted to assess and stabilize you. They will not conduct an investigation of the food product you are suspicious of causing your symptoms. So if you are concerned that you personally are having an emergency you could go the ED to be assessed. If you’re not having an emergency then going to the ED is a waste of your time, their time, and you will get a bill for it as well.
So sorry @Engineer_comp_geek and OP.
More specifically, they were accidentally poisoned, and their alcoholism made them far more susceptible to the poison. Fascinating story, and Roueche was a great writer.