If you’ve see a fly land on your food, it’s probably not a good idea to eat it. If you knew exactly what the fly was doing while it was sitting on your food, you wouldn’t want to eat it anyway. The common house fly is the one you’ll most likely see land on your food. These are the ones you’ll see hanging around the trash and in your house. They are a pest and are associated with rotting organic waste that includes feces and dead animals.
Can You Get Diseases from House Flies?
The fly isn’t the only thing you need to worry about. You need to be concerned with the time it spends around garbage and rotting animal waste. Think about the parasites and pathogens that come with that! Flies pass pathogens around on their feet and body and to add insult to injury they also leave poop and vomit behind. More bad news-flies don’t have teeth. This means they can’t bite and instead will spit out an enzyme with their saliva to dissolve the food. This makes it easy for them to suck up what’s left- a mix of regurgitated digestive fluids and dissolved food. Ich. Are you grossed out yet? As disgusting as all this information is, you don’t need to throw your plate of food away most of the time. A couple of landings on your sandwich won’t be enough to make an average healthy person sick. Most healthy people can fight against bacteria but children, the elderly or those with weak immune systems are at risk for getting sick.
Can Bacteria or an infection Be Spread By a House Fly?
Flies carry more than 200 kinds of bacteria and germs-that’s a lot considering how small they are. A study done at the University of Florida found that the house fly can carry bacteria that can cause respiratory infections and food poisoning. The more time a fly spends on your food the higher the chances are that lots of pathogens will be left behind. When they have more time to poop, vomit and suck at your food, the higher the chance of harmful viruses, bacteria and parasites. They only have to touch your food for a second for the transfer to occur. They are capable of transferring serious and contagious diseases that include typhoid, dysentery and cholera. House flies can also carry salmonella, anthrax, tuberculosis and can transmit the eggs of parasitic worms too.
How Can We Prevent the Spread of Diseases By House Flies?
• Keep your kitchen clean
• Don’t let trash, especially organic material, sit around
• Keep food covered
• Keep windows and doors closed and use screens
• Use fans to keep them away, they hate wind
• Use fly traps and sprays
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As far as throwing away your food; it’s always better to be safe than sorry. If you know exactly what part of the food had contact with the fly, then at least throw that part out. As soon as you notice flies around it’s best to get rid of them. House flies are not harmless. If you continue to have issues with house flies despite your best efforts to control them, then give A Five Star Termite & Pest Control a call for help.
