How your Christmas turkey leaves the kitchen smeared with food poisoning bugs: Grim photos reveal exactly where bacteria spreads - and will make you think twice about scoffing mince pies

Not to put a dampener on it, but the festive season is a peak time to get food poisoning. As Dr Kevin Hargin, former head of foodborne disease control at the Food Standards Agency, said: ‘People buy a lot more food than usual, they’re catering for bigger numbers, their fridges are over-stuffed and not working efficiently, and food gets left out for longer than it would otherwise — all these things contribute to the increase in food poisoning cases just after Christmas.’ What’s more, a new survey commissioned by the Food Standards Agency this year revealed that 33 per cent of people don’t always wash their hands before cooking or preparing food at home. A potentially greater risk than under-cooking is cross-contamination — spreading bugs, particularly campylobacter, from raw poultry to kitchen surfaces, hands and even cooked food ‘So, every time you go to get something out of a cupboard or the fridge you’ll spread bacteria around the kitchen,’ says Dr Ackerley. Bacteria could survive for about four hours on the rim of the dish as well as on the salt itself Bacteria were also transferred to the pepper grinder — a worry, as its next stop would be the dining table, along with the cooked Christmas dinner... That’s not icing sugar — the blue-white patches are where bacteria has been splashed from the sink when the turkey was washed.. FRIDGE DOOR AND BASTING BUTTER Grabbing butter to add to the roasting tin at the last minute left a smear of bacteria from my hands on the fridge door handle — the same happens on the oven door, not shown. ‘I’d recommend putting the apron straight in a hot wash as soon as the raw turkey is in the oven,’ says Dr Ackerley MINCE PIES The blue/white patches are where bacteria has been splashed from the sink when the turkey was washed That’s not icing sugar — the blue-white patches are where bacteria has been splashed from the sink when the turkey was washed..