Freaked out by last week's E. coli scare? You should be.

Tracy McArdle: I don't know if the "stomach bug" has made it to your house yet this season, but it hit us over the holidays. At first we chalked it up to holiday binging (i.e., party junk food, candy, and cookies), but now that I realize "there's a bug going around," I'm not laughing, and I wonder what I could have done to prevent my poor little guys' pain.

Luckily, they're on the mend, but the whole episode got me thinking about food safety and our kids. What if it hadn't been a "bug," but something far more dangerous? How much did I really know about what was in the food we were serving our kids, and how safe it was? Were there steps I could be taking to ensure better food safety?

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 76 million Americans -- that's one in every four -- are sickened by food-borne illnesses each year. Of those, the CDC estimates that 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die.

A few weeks ago, I saw the documentary "FOOD, INC.," and was introduced to Barbara Kowalcyk, who in 2001 lost her 2 ½-year-old son, Kevin, to E. coli 0157:H7 poisoning from a hamburger. Neither she nor her husband had any idea the meat wasn't safe.

This led Barbara on an unexpected journey as a food safety activist. She and her family started asking questions and looking for answers to Kevin's tragic death. They were startled by what they discovered.

Did you know that the food safety system in the U.S. is based on how we produced food 150 years ago? Can you imagine if traffic regulations or labor laws hadn't changed in 150 years?

The Kowalcyks made numerous visits to Washington, D.C., lobbied their representatives, and began speaking out nationally. Barbara started petitions to support the Meat and Poultry Pathogen Reduction and Enforcement Act -- which eventually became known as Kevin's Law. The basic principles contained in Kevin's Law have now been incorporated into other pieces of food safety legislation. Barbara also focused on increasing education and awareness by participating in health fairs and giving presentations and interviews.

In 2006, Barbara and her mother, Pat Buck, co-founded the Center for Foodborne Illness & Prevention (CFI), a national nonprofit organization committed to improving public health by preventing food-borne illness through research, education, advocacy, and service. You can read more about Barbara's journey at takepart.com.

What You Need to Know

I had a chance to talk with Barbara recently, and I asked her what time-pressed moms should be concerned about, and how they can best protect their families when it comes to food safety and food-borne illness. Here's what I learned.

Organic and local doesn't necessarily mean safe. One of the advantages of organic produce is that "natural" fertilizer is used. However, in many cases, that fertilizer is cow manure, which can be a source of E. coli 0157: H7. So food safety rules about proper washing, handling, and cooking still apply whether your food is organic, local, or supermarket-purchased.

By the way, it should be noted that E. coli, in and of itself, is not a deadly pathogen. E. coli is a "good" bacteria that lives in our digestive system -- it is the mutated strain (like 0157: H7) that can become deadly, particularly for children, the elderly, and pregnant and postpartum women.

And it's not just meat that's at risk. The 2006 spinach E. coli outbreak was traced to irrigation water used to grow the spinach that the FDA speculated had been contaminated by a nearby cattle ranch, and possibly also by wild pigs living on the spinach farm. In the case of the contaminated spinach plants, merely washing the leaves does not get rid of the bacteria because it is systemic -- meaning it was absorbed through the roots and is now inside the plant itself. Even cooking the food will not necessarily kill the bacteria.

Worse, you can't always be sure of the distribution routes of contaminated food. (Would you believe that the distribution routes of major food manufacturers is considered "proprietary information," and is therefore not accessible by the public?) The best defense is one Barbara advocates: When in doubt, throw it out. If there is a food safety recall, why take chances? Just because the food establishment or farm where the bacteria originated is not in your town or even your state does NOT mean your food wasn't part of the recall.

OK, if you're like me, by now you are sufficiently freaked out. Now for the good news. There are good sources for food safety recalls and alerts, and some steps you can take to avoid food-borne illness.

Here are three important websites to check for updates and information if a food safety issue or recall occurs:

1. Barbara's site, the Center for Foodborne Illness & Prevention

2. Food safety advocate Bill Marler's blog, foodsafetynews.com

3. foodsafety.gov, a joint venture between the FDA and the USDA

Here are some steps you can take to avoid food-borne illness:

Tracy McArdle is a published author (Confessions of a Nervous Shiksa; Real Women Eat Beef), blogger, mom, wife, horsewoman and Communications professional in the Boston area. She is also a former Hollywood publicity executive who has worked very closely with numerous huge movie stars she never met. You can read more of her writing at www.tracymcardle.net.