Many raw foods, particularly meats and vegetables, are likely to be contaminated with Clostridium perfringens when they reach food preparation areas. Outbreaks of illness usually involve foods high in protein.
Clostridium has a requirement for 12 to 13 amino acids.) The foods include: meats, poultry, soups, gravies, sauces, stews, and casseroles.
When food is cooked, the vegetative cells are destroyed. However, spores survive if protein-rich foods, such as roast beef, turkey, gravies,, and sauces are allowed to cool slowly and remain at temperatures that allow outgrowth of the surviving spores, vegetative cells will multiply rapidly to large numbers in the food and create a significant hazard.
Foodborne illness
Foodborne illness due to Clostridium perfringens usually occurs to 24 hours after ingestion. The illness is caused by ingestion of a large number of vegetative cells. When the vegetative cells reach the intestine, they form spores and release an enterotoxin that causes diarrhea and severe abdominal pain. Nausea is uncommon; fever and vomiting are unusual.
Fatalities can occur in the very young and elderly. The infective dose is a cell population of 500,000 cells or more per gram of food. This number of cells can form rapidly in foods because Clostridium perfringens has a very rapid generation time and can double ion number every 7 minutes at 42 C. Clostridium perfringes grows at temperatures between 15 C and 53 C.
Foodborne illness bacteria: Clostridium perfringens
