Health & Fitness 10 year old girl dies after eating cake ordered online for her Birthday

Some small bakeries in tier 2/3/4 cities or villages use some really sketchy food coloring substances in the cake icing. I've eaten such a cake where the red and blue icing colored my mouth red and blue. Probably if they use toxic industrial chemicals instead of food dye, then it would lead to such toxicity and death.

I don't order online except those packed Britannia small fudge cakes or sliced cakes you get at Dmart. Big ones I go to the brand shop like Monginis.
 
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The article doesn't conclude it was the cake. It's just suspected.
There could be other things they ordered for a 10 year old bought either online or offline.

Nothing is conclusive in the article.
 
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enthusiast29 said:
The article doesn't conclude it was the cake. It's just suspected.
There could be other things they ordered for a 10 year old bought either online or offline.

Nothing is conclusive in the article.
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Exactly. The postmortem will reveal the actual cause.

They could have eaten anything within the same time period (including things prepared at home) that may have caused it.
 
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If eggs were used to make the cake then salmonella could be involved. It would have to be pretty bad to kill someone though.

What can kill people when any food poisoning is involved is dehydration as you throw up and have the runs at the same time. Your stomach won't hold anything long enough as it goes into reject mode.

A few hours of this is enough to weaken even athletic adults if not immediately put on a drip. Going longer without medical attention becomes life threatening.

Chances of salmonella are greatly reduced by storing eggs in a fridge. But we don't get them refrigerated so warmer the weather the faster the salmonella will multiply in a bad egg. The icing for a cake is made from raw eggs IIANM.
 
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blr_p said:
If eggs were used to make the cake then salmonella could be involved. It would have to be pretty bad to kill someone though.
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Salmonella infection and effects isn't immediate. It takes some time to show symptoms like diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps and they last 4-7 days.
It's also not a deadly disease usually. Death from salmonella is a rare occurrence and people usually recover from it on their own without antibiotics. Other cases need hospitalization.

This case seems something else. The whole family had food poisoning they vomited but maybe the child didn't vomit enough and the poisoning got worse.
 
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enthusiast29 said:
Salmonella infection and effects isn't immediate. It takes some time to show symptoms like diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps and they last 4-7 days.
It's also not a deadly disease usually. Death from salmonella is a rare occurrence and people usually recover from it on their own without antibiotics. Other cases need hospitalization.

This case seems something else. The whole family had food poisoning they vomited but maybe the child didn't vomit enough and the poisoning got worse.
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If they all ate the cake then that's how they got it. It seems the only new addition from the family's point of view.

Depending on how bad the salmonella is it can take a few hours to half a day to show up. I had to get a friend hospitalised over this. The guy was a competitive natural bodybuilder who went through five - ten raw eggs a day.
 
blr_p said:
If they all ate the cake then that's how they got it. It seems the only new addition from the family's point of view.
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Again, the news article isn't conclusive. They all ate the cake, agreed but they all could have eaten something else too.
There's just not enough conclusive evidence.
 
blr_p said:
If they all ate the cake then that's how they got it. It seems the only new addition from the family's point of view.

Depending on how bad the salmonella is it can take a few hours to half a day to show up. I had to get a friend hospitalised over this. The guy was a competitive natural bodybuilder who went through five - ten raw eggs a day.
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There are some strains of salmonella which takes affect immediately after consumption
 
That's all it takes if bad eggs were involved :(

Cake icing is made out of raw eggs. Remove the yolk and beat the whites.

You get eggless cakes these days for the vegans but that's an exception to the age old way of making them.

There is one way to eliminate the cake. The bakery likely sold more than one in which case there would be more food poisoning cases in the area. If there aren't any then likely it was something else.
 
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blr_p said:
That's all it takes if bad eggs were involved :(

Cake icing is made out of raw eggs. Remove the yolk and beat the whites.

You get eggless cakes these days for the vegans but that's an exception to the age old way of making them.

There is one way to eliminate the cake. The bakery likely sold more than one in which case there would be more food poisoning cases in the area. If there aren't any then likely it was something else.
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It would be very unlikely for eggs to be the cause.
Most cakes made in India use eggs only as emulsifiers in the batter - the cake itself is cooked as the subequent baking should take care of the salmonella risk.

Egg is only used for meringue type icing - very unusual in India.
Additionally raw egg meringue is even harder to find and are almost always used in paseturized stage - because when you melt the sugar, the resulting temps will kill most if not all bacteria.
 
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rootyme said:
A tragic news this. Do you order cakes online?
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Yes, but only from stores that I have been buying from since I was a child. They also only sell eggless cakes. I have noticed dozens of cake shops on Zomato and Swiggy operating from the same address, kinda like ghost restaurants, they are basically one store. Not sure what that achieves. RIP.
 
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superczar said:
It would be very unlikely for eggs to be the cause.
Most cakes made in India use eggs only as emulsifiers in the batter - the cake itself is cooked as the subequent baking should take care of the salmonella risk.

Egg is only used for meringue type icing - very unusual in India.
Additionally raw egg meringue is even harder to find and are almost always used in paseturized stage - because when you melt the sugar, the resulting temps will kill most if not all bacteria.
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Very good. Can rule out salmonella then as the source for poisoning.

Out of ideas at this point. I don't know what else in the cakes ingredients can take out a family this quickly.
 
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