Potluck fear and loathing

The holiday potluck may seem like an innocent, inexpensive way to throw a party, where friends and colleagues can share favorite recipes, savor an unusual dish or indulge a sweet tooth. But for some people, it's a minefield of food-poisoning bacteria waiting to wreak havoc. Los Angeles publicist Nilou Salimpour-Davidov sums up her feelings about potlucks this way: "I think they're good for one thing -- to minimize your calorie intake. They make me lose my appetite."

Instead of blithely helping themselves to mounds of casserole and slices of meatloaf, potluck haters head straight for the store-bought cookies, breads and beverages. They insist their aversion to homemade food isn't capricious. Eating turkey and stuffing made by the co-worker who doesn't wash his hands after using the bathroom or the gingerbread trifle created by the friend whose clothes are perpetually covered in pet hair is asking for trouble, they say. Even if the preparers seem clean enough, hardly anyone is as scrupulous as they should be in the kitchen, washing pots and utensils improperly and failing to keep foods at the right temperatures. And who knows what their rules are about tasting the dish while cooking?

One woman tells of listening to a hostess boast about how her 3-year-old triplets helped make the dish. Another recalls the horror of seeing the dirt-encrusted kitchen of a former co-worker -- one who loved to entertain.

Dr. Roshan Reporter, a medical epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, acknowledges that potlucks can be risky. Although the department gets far fewer reports of food poisoning from potlucks than it does from restaurants, she says, those numbers ratchet up a bit around the holidays, when potlucks are in full swing.

And many illnesses may go unreported. People can be reluctant to squeal on a friend, family member or co-worker, usually putting the blame instead on something store-bought.

"Most of the time they don't want to get someone in trouble," she says.

The department will investigate potluck food poisoning incidents if they believe there's enough evidence to pin it on food (sometimes it's just a sick partygoer spreading germs). "If we had a whole group of people who were sick, we might do an outbreak investigation and look at the whole menu."

So, just what diseases can you get from tainted food? The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list the following as the top three most common types of food-borne illnesses: