All of the things mentioned above will help; however, a recent study with video shows people trained on food borne illness prevention could not follow the rules to prevent infection.
If we really want to prevent infection, we need to prevent pathogenic bacteria from the farm from getting into the kitchen.
The current strategy of eliminating bacteria from the farm and farm animal (chicken and eggs, for example) does not work.
After sterilizing and securing the chicken coop and buying disease free chicks, regulations allowed for reduced testing for bacteria. The problem was chicks need to eat and the feed contained bacteria.
A kill-step, prior to purchase would prevent illness. Many favor thermal treatments or cold pasteurization as a solution and replacement of the human kill-step currently used.
Medical evidence suggests the most likely source of bacterial illness is food. Many chronic illnesses are associated with bacteria such as inflammatory GI diseases,
heart, kidney, and liver disease, psychiatric conditions, among others.
For hamburger, chicken, and ready-to-eat foods, among other things the FDA where appropriate, should require irradiation, if we wish to save $160 billion annually from care and recalls and an unknown but substantial savings from other bacterial related illness.
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Lloyd Parker, M.D. of CA 12:41PM December 16, 2010