Safety Quiz: Go with your gut

It could happen to you

The Cobra Patrol’s chicken pot pie, impressively prepared in a Dutch oven and graciously shared with the adult patrol, looked delicious. It tasted pretty good, too. Several hours later, though, it hits you. And by “it,” we mean a food-borne illness that causes vomiting, fever, diarrhea or abdominal cramps.

What went wrong

It’s difficult to know for sure, but perhaps the chicken had spoiled or wasn’t fully cooked. Or maybe someone preparing the food was sick and forgot to wash his or her hands. Perhaps the food was prepared on an unclean surface or with dirty cookware or utensils.

Quick overview

While food-borne illnesses can strike at any time, they’re most common during the summer. When temperatures rise, it becomes tougher to keep fresh food from getting dangerously warm. Encourage your Scouts to keep their meals — and themselves — safe by following the three C’s: keep it Cold, keep it Clean and Cook it thoroughly.

Remember that everyone should wash their hands thoroughly with soap before, during and after preparing food, scrubbing them for at least 20 seconds. You should wash your hands also after using the toilet, blowing your nose and treating a cut.

If food poisoning symptoms progress into signs of dehydration, bloody bodily fluids or extreme pain, seek professional medical help.

Before your next campout, take our quiz to test your food-safety smarts.

Anyone who takes this quiz below will be entered to win a $100 scoutshop.org gift card. (Contest has ended as of May 1, 2018 — but you can still test your knowledge by taking the quiz. Take other quizzes here.) 

Good luck!


8 Comments

  1. I took the quiz on my phone and there was nothing that asked for contact info to enter a contest. Thought this might be a glitch in the mobile site, so I took it on my PC and still didn’t ask for information. Oh well, at least no one will get sick from improperly prepared food on our next camp out.

  2. I found the comment included with the answer to question 3 to be a little confusing when I first read it, since the question asks about hot weather (above 90 degrees), while the comment talks about weather below 90 degrees. While the information regarding sit out time for perishable food in cooler weather is good to have; the way it was stated, since it did not follow the pattern used in comments on the other answers, caused me to do a double take.
    Also, I thought that you should know that the quiz does not work at all in the Firefox internet browser, I had to use Google Chrome to take it on line. I did not try other browsers. It is a good thing that I am prepared with more than one browser on my system.

  3. I’m here on desktop and I don’t see a quiz. There’s a big blank spot on the page.

    I had to use the Chrome dev tools to inspect the page to find the source of the qzzr content you’re trying to put in an iframe. Perhaps just do a regular link to it next time?

  4. The first question is misleading and the answer is not correct as it is shown. The question asked how many get sick, and the answer details how many are hospitalized. Those numbers are NOT the same.

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