
Ask HN: Did I catch a cold from eating unwashed fruit? - jonashoechst
Recently I caught a cold in presumably an amazingly short period of time (~6h). From prior infections I had the experience to have 24 to 48 hours &quot;left&quot; being a bit ill, before being forced to stay in bed. Observing my disease I asked myself what went different this time. In general I don&#x27;t get ill too easy.<p><pre><code>  Morning: got to work as usual feeling reasonably well
  12pm: ate some sushi bought from a supermarket
  ~3 pm: ate a bowl of strawberries - unwashed
  6pm: already felt a scratchy throat
  9pm: having a Skype call planning some event, starting to have a headache
  11pm: falling to bed really exhausted
  I did not have contact with visibly ill people during that day.
</code></pre>
My theory now is, that the unwashed strawberries carried the pathogen. Here are some thoughts that might support this:<p>1. Since I got hit so fast I&#x27;m assuming being exposed to a high number of bacteria.<p>2. The pathogens where possibly passed by an ill harvester.<p>3. Strawberries being sweet, moist and un-chilled seem to be the perfect fertile ground for reproduction.<p>4. The incubation period of colds is usually a lot longer (2-5 days). Does a higher number of bacteria result in a shorter incubation period?<p>5. Washing the strawberries would have helped. The bacteria was just on the surface area, since the vessels of the strawberries of course where not alive anymore.<p>Am I right with my assumptions or did I miss something? I&#x27;d like you to confirm or debunk my theory of getting ill.<p>Thank you!
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eesmith
3 hours is unbelievably fast. The incubation period for flu, cold is at least
1 day. Norovirus (which isn't what you had) can be as quick as 12 hours, but
still normally 1-2 days.

(Eg, see the list at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubation_period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubation_period)
).

It's more likely that you were infected a day or two previous, with nothing to
do with your strawberries.

FWIW,
[http://fsi.colostate.edu/strawberries/](http://fsi.colostate.edu/strawberries/)
points out other infection routes through strawberries than just the
harvester, including "contamination by sewage", and "Deer feces were
implicated as the source of the strawberry contamination".

