Occasionally, an episode of food poisoning occurs which centers around processed ham, sausage, or salted pork. These episodes are almost always assumed to be due to ingestion of Staphylococcus aureus unless other evidence proves differently. This is because

Explanation:

Staphylococcus aureus is a bacteria that causes food poisoning and a range of other diseases. Staphylococcal food poisoning is due to the consumption of a toxin produced by S. aureus. The toxin is usually preformed in the food, which means, one need not ingest the bacteria before developing food poisoning.

An important characteristic of the toxin is that it is heat stable. Although the bacteria itself is not heat stable, once it grows in the food and produces the toxin, heat treatment is no longer effective, because even though the bacteria will be killed off, the toxin will remain.

Another characteristic of S. aureus is that it can tolerate high amounts of salt.

S. aureus is also a normal flora of the skin, so it is almost always present on the skin of animals used as meat.

Because the bacteria is salt tolerant, and its toxin is heat stable, it is often the culprit in foods that have been processed with heat and/or by curing (salting), as is the case with processed ham, sausage and salted pork.