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AN award-winning Sydney restaurant is being prosecuted after a diner died from eating an asparagus sauce found to be contaminated.
The New South Wales Food Authority has laid five charges against Tables restaurant at Pymble on Sydney's North Shore after Bill Hodgkins died after eating the toxic sauce in January 2007, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Mr Hodgkins, 81, ordered fish of the day - a snapper fillet with an asparagus sauce - but 10 minutes later he went home feeling ill and vomiting.

His wife, Audrey, found his body on the bathroom floor of their Pymble home when she awoke at 6.30am the next day.

An inquest into Mr Hodgkins' death heard tests on the sauce found there was a presence of bacillus cereus at 9.8 million per 10 million parts. Levels of 1.0 million parts per 10 million is toxic.
The build-up of bacteria could have been caused by the sauce being left out on the bench in a 30C kitchen for up to seven hours and possibly reheated and re-refrigerated a number of times over a 48-hour period, the inquest heard.

http://www.news.com.au/story//0,23599,25036136.1702,00.html?from=public_rss


People are always wary of getting food-poisoning from chicken (which can be really nasty) but so many other forms of food poisoning can be far worse. The bacteria that caused this death is one that is also commonly found in rice and other starches. But because they are seen as 'low risk' they are not given the same care and consideration as meat & poultry.