Food poisoning from the school fete?!

[loislaine]

I gave my son half a burger at the school fete (he has allergies - most seriously to dairy) I checked the ingredients on the box with the kitchen staff and there didn't seem to be any milk so I went with it. (he was complaining of being really hungry and it was literally the ONLY thing he could have - we usually take snacks with us but I didn't think we'd be there so long)

Anyway - digress! He ate the half burger, OH and myself shared the other half. DS has been vomiting since we left :( I'm pretty sure it's food poisoning not an allergic reaction. (we are fine though so far).

Can I give him juice to drink instead of water? he is asking for juice and refusing water and I'm concerned he's not rehydrating enough for the amount he's been sick.

Thanks in advance

give him juice if he wants it, maybe diluted with water though

but its probably not food poisoning if you are both fine, seeing as you ate the other half of the burger!

what was it being cooked with? could there have been dairy in the bun?

Did you check the bun ingredients? Lots of bread has milk in it.

Ice lollies can help with hydration if he doesn't want to sip water and stop you consuming the fluid too fast, which can make you sick!

Is there a problem with week juice?

Thanks :) Will give him some watered down juice.

It was being served from the kitchen at the hotplate thingum.... I checked the buns box too, and I'm pretty sure no dairy. I thought perhaps we're ok and he's not because we each only ate half the amount he did / relative to size of us size of him etc....

did the bun have sesame seeds? they're a common allergen (sorry if i'm stating the obvious here )

maybe the knife used to cut them had dairy on.

or, were they doing cheeseburgers - some cheese traces could have got onto it?

I wondered about ice lolly too - was just unsure about acidity of juice etc making him sick... he has been looking so pale / green! poor thing :( An ice lolly would certainly cheer him up so might try that in a bit thanks :)

I didn't notice any cheese, but that is possibilty.... he's fine with sesame seeds (i think!) but the bun was floury anyway. It's a bit of a mystery. Maybe it's a bug and just a coincidence about the food? :/

If you are still worried about dehydration you may want to get some dioralyte (supermarkets usually sell it too, it is non-prescription, so you may still be able to get it tonight). Follow instructions on box, prepare accurate dilution and if it does not say how much to give, then give him 10 ml every 20 minutes (if there are instructions follow these on the pack). A baby bottle without teat is good for measuring that he drinks the right amount.
Hope he feels better soon.

Thanks dikkertjedap will see how he goes - he managed to keep juice and a icelolly down earlier, then begged for something to eat around sixish. Gave him some clear soup and dry bread but up it came :S

Will ask a pharmacist tomorrow if he's no better.

A LOT of processed meat has lactose in it; it's used as a binding agent (cheap ham, for example), as does bread. If it's just him that's ill then I would be more likely to point the finger at that. Or something else he's eaten - food poisoning can start up to 48hrs after the event. It's unlikely to be the burger as you both ate it and I suspect you'd have heard if other people were sick too...

grandpoohbah - It will be interesting to know when we get to school tomorrow. I really don't think it has been a bug as he was absolutely fine beforehand, and hasn't been unwell today (although he is still recovering from all the sickness). I'll ask if I can look at the ingredients on the box again.... hopefully they won't mind me asking to do that?

Can you remember what brand they were? Google may have the answer :-)

oh god - unfortunately yes, and I did google it, but they don't specify all the details. Called the company, but they have limited access to their system at the weekend or something and couldn't find the info. The limited info I did see though was that they were 60% meat, beef, pork, and chicken heaves NEVER AGAIN.

yikes - sorry about the terrible punctuation there! :)

Update:

Well! Asked at school today could I possibly look at the packaging for the burgers and buns again to check I hadn't made a mistake, so the secretary kindly took me to see the cook.....

The good news is, there wasn't any milk in either the burger or bun (or any of his other known triggers).

The bad news is, the cook said to me 'Well, I must tell you - I was not well!' She said she felt rough that morning when she got up, and by the evening she was really ill (although she didn't vomit) She said she didn't eat anything from the fete.

!!! She seemed to have NO idea of the Food Hygeine issues with preparing food when you have a bug. She seemed to think that because she didn't eat anything from the fete and yet she was ill, it wasn't the food that made DS ill. I think they will probably be hearing from a few more people who became ill :/

Food poisoning onset is 6-48 hours, and I should imagine an infection takes about that long too.

My guess would be that he'd had something brewing in his system, and then eating (could have been anything) triggered the symptoms.

Have other children (who may have been, in the previous couple of days, also eating food prepared by the cook who has admitted working when unwell) come down with anything?

I haven't had chance to ask any other parents tbh - apart from one who ate hotdogs and they were fine. I read somewhere that in young children onset is rapid (ie an hour) and it literally was about an hour / 40 mins after.

You know when something like that happens and you think back to before and realise that actually, they didn't seem themselves, a bug might have been brewing etc - it just wasn't like that. He was absolutely fine. I really think that the way it all came about it was totally to do with what he'd eaten.

Maybe it just didn't agree with him? He also had a large cup of ribena / cordial, and there were a few staff working behind the counter. Sometimes when people handle cups - pass them to you by holding them around the rim - things can be passed on that way....

The cook and the secretary both said that 20 children were off sick on the Friday though. So entirely possible a bug going round, and DS caught it at school.

even if no milk products where in the burger or buns, if he is not used to eating burgers in his diet this may have upset his stomach, my dd sometimes get a sensitive tummy and the runs after eating sausages, as we tend not have proccessed foods or suasages very often and any burgers etc I make myself.

LemarchandsBox - yes he did have ketchup! And it wasn't Heinz it was a catering type....... will check this afternoon! Thanks x

dangerous - he isn't really used to them, so I do wonder if there is an element of that. The only thing he can have in mcdonalds is the fishfingers (deep fried - bleurgh) and the chips. Ergo, he's been twice in his life. The first time he said he felt sick in the night too so maybe it's the greasiness of stuff like that.... Definitely going to check out the ketchup though - I never knew that.

I've always eaten healthily, and fatty stuff like burgers (and, bizarrely, the rich food served at a local 5* hotel has also done it) can make me feel really poorly. My mum's the same, and dp won't touch our local chippy for the same reason! I don't remember actually vomiting, but then I'm an adult with a strong constitution. A child with an allergy may not have such a strong digestive system and struggle to process the overload of fat. Especially if he's used to fresh, healthy, home cooked, grilled not fried, minimal oil, high quality aka the best you can give him!

He's 5 :) I asked to see the ketchup when I picked him up, but they'd ditched the bottle. It's good to know that for the future though- All these things we find out by trial and error! ( I knew there would be milk in flavoured crisps, but once in France we gave him ready salted thinking there wouldn't be milk in them and he started wheezing) Sometimes painstakingly scouring every ingredient in a product can really put you off certain foods can't it! :)

Purple Up until recently, we rarely ordered off menu for him, we've always made everything from scratch at home so perhaps he is just a bit intolerant to the rubbish :)

His teacher was really concerned to know what was going on at the end of the day, as 11 kids out of 30 are off today! I said to DH well it must be bugs going around then - and he said, or had they all been at the fete? Haha! Who knows!