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November 28, 12:42 PMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

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Sure, she may look innocent...

Why is salmonella more dangerous from chicken meat than other meats?  Richard, San Francisco.

Richard, with more than 2,000 strains of salmonella floating around, it's only surprising that salmonella infections aren't more common than they are already. Interestingly, too, salmonella is far more common in the industrialized world. Each year, the Centers for Disease Control reports about 40,000 cases of salmonellosis, which probably only represents about 1 percent of infections in the United States.

Salmonella infection occurs when a person consumes enough of the bacteria that the body's self-defense mechanisms are unable to contain it. Stomach acids are usually enough to destroy the bacteria in small amounts, but when the number of bacteria in a person's system surpasses the million mark, that's usually the basis for an all out case of diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, and just general unpleasantness, to put it lightly. The bacteria passes through the stomach and then attaches itself in the gut, where it continues reproducing. If the bacterium makes it into the gall bladder, the person infected then becomes a carrier, passing it on in his or her stool. In its most acute forms, salmonella can kill.

Symptoms arise anywhere from 12 to 72 hours later - which also means if you've just eaten in a restaurant and feel ill only a few hours later, it wasn't that particular restaurant that infected you. You'll need to look a little further back in time to trace the source of contamination.

So where does it come from? While the sheer number of strains of the bacteria may seem overwhelming, many strains are peculiar to differents species of animals and birds, and they don't frequently cross over to other species. The strain that seems to crop up in poultry - and people, as a result - is Salmonella Enteritidis for which chickens are a carrier. The problem arises when uninfected chickens consume infected material such as waste or bugs. Infected birds don't show any symptoms, which means it can be passed on to humans when they eat chicken meat or eggs (Ironically, salmonella in low concentrations can actually stimulate an infected hen's egg production, resulting in more infected eggs).

So, to finally answer your question, it's not that salmonella from poultry is more dangerous, it's just far more accessible to the average consumer.

Current factory farming methods of raising chickens - tens of thousands of birds crammed into a single production house, for example - all but ensure that contaminated birds are mingled closely with non-contaminated birds resulting in even greater numbers of infections. Your best bet is to avoid factory farmed poultry and to follow sensible hygiene standards when you're working with raw poultry. Keep raw poultry away from other foods - raw or cooked - and avoid using tools such as cutting boards or knives that have been in contact with the raw meat without washing them first. Oh, and wash your hands every time you move onto to preparing a different food. Heck, just wash your hands a lot.