The most common claims were for burns, cuts, foreign bodies in eyes and orifices and dental injuries.
However, some of the more specific injuries appear to show how dangerous food can be.
The activities that led to the injuries, as outlined to ACC by claimants, include:
• Cutting up vegetables for dinner and slicing off fingertip.
• Burned hand on barbecue grill.
• Chicken bone stuck in throat.
• Cutting meat and knife slipped through finger.
• Eating broccoli.
• Suffering small wound to bottom lip while eating toast.
• Gutting a fish and cutting hand.
• Cutting thumb on sharp edge of baked beans tin.
• Lifted pot lid and burned hand on steam.
• Twisted elbow opening multiple cans with can opener. ACC offers plenty of advice to prevent food-related injuries over the silly season.
Always pay attention when cutting with knives or other sharp utensils, and keep your knives sharp so they're less likely to slip and cut you, it says.
"Keep knives in a block or on a magnetised strip, not in a drawer. Use a cutting board and always cut away from yourself.
"Watch out for steam. Unfortunately, steam is invisible when it is at its hottest, so be very careful when reaching across the stove or lifting pot lids."
Stay safe this festive season
• To avoid choking on your Christmas lunch, take small bites and cut food, especially meat, into small pieces. Be careful with especially dry foods, such as chips and nuts.
• When slicing meat and veges, use a sharp knife and make sure your cutting board is stable.
• Keep your fingers out of the way.
• When barbecuing, use tongs and a glove or oven mitt to keep from burning yourself.
Top diagnoses
• Laceration, puncture, sting
• Burns
• Foreign body in orifice/eye
• Dental injury
Food- and drink-related injury claims to the ACC for the 2013 festive season
• Claims from Christmas Day: 79
• Claims from December 2013: 1597
• Claims from January 2014: 1620
