Former French President Jacques Chirac once joked about the food in the UK, saying, "one cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad". For a time, the cooking incompetencies of the British were merely punchlines, but authorities are now warning that their culinary carelessness can prove deadly. According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the summer BBQ in England is largely to blame for poorly stored and cooked meat, leading to the biggest rise in salmonella and campylobacter cases in six years. The FSA goes on to say, 9 out of 10 Britons don't know how to store raw meat in preparation for cooking, others don't know how to cook it and two-thirds don't wash their hands after handling meat and fish. As a result, the UK has averaged over 120,000 reported cases of food poisoning, 400 of which result in death each year. Yes, death.The ability of the Britons to turn the humble barbecue grill into a killing machine has prompted UK authorities to launch a national awareness campaign. The FSA has launched a 1950s-style horror movie poster campaign featuring killer bugs and a cartoon eyeball. Posters include "It Came From the Chopping Board", "Curse of the Uncooked" and "Terror Stalks the Fridge". Sound a little silly? Consider this. If death by barbecue is not bad enough, another report shows people in the UK were healthier in medieval times than they are today! More Brits are dying today from cholesterol and weight-related diseases than they were a thousand years ago, when they had to deal with the pox, the plague, and the occasional black knight roaming the forest. So perhaps the silly, vintage horror-style awareness campaign will help Britons take more care in handling and preparing their food, and help put an end to the 400 preventable deaths Britons suffer each year from their barbecue blunders.
