Safe Food: From farm to
plate
Prof Dr A Marthanda
Pillai
Access
to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food is key to sustaining life and
promoting good health. Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses,
parasites or chemical substances causes more than 200 diseases, ranging from
diarrhea to cancers.Foodborne and waterborne diarrheal diseases kill an
estimated 2 million people annually, including many children. Diarrhea is the acute, most common symptom of foodborne
illness, but other serious consequences include kidney and liver failure, brain
and neural disorders, reactive arthritis, cancer and death.
Food
safety is about preparing, handling, transporting and storing food to prevent
infection and help to make sure that our food keeps enough nutrients for us to
have a healthy diet. Unsafe food can lead to poor nutrition as well as
illnesses including infections. At one side, a significant proportion of people
are still facing scarcity of food while some countries have surplus food, which
are being wasted. Foodborne diseases impede
socioeconomic development by straining health care systems, and harming
national economies, tourism and trade. Food now crosses multiple national
borders from where it is produced to where it is consumed. Good collaboration
between governments, producers and consumers helps ensure food safety.
Food can become contaminated at any point during slaughtering or
harvesting, processing, storage, distribution, transportation and preparation.
Lack of adequate food hygiene can lead to foodborne diseases and death. The
contamination of food by microbes is a worldwide public health concern. Most
countries have documented significant increase over the past few decades in the
incidence of diseases caused by microorganisms in food, including pathogens
such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli, and parasites such as cryptosporidium.
Chemicals can end up in food either intentionally added for a
technological purpose (e.g. food additives), or through environmental pollution
of the air, water and soil. Chemicals in food are a worldwide health concern
and are a leading cause of trade obstacles.Toxic compounds like lectins are
naturally present in some vegetables like potatoes and legumes. Many marine
toxins in molluscs and mussels can lead to food poisoning in humans. Other
toxic compounds like pesticides, heavy metals and toxins of fungal or bacterial
origin could also contaminate food during manufacture, storage or
transportation. India’s production of pesticides was 85,000 metric tonnes in
2004, and rampant use of these chemicals has lead to several short-term and
long-term effects. The first report of pesticide poisoning in India was from
Kerala in 1958, where over 100 people
died after consuming food made from wheat flour contaminated
with parathion. Fungal toxins like aflatoxins in food have been related to rise
in liver cancers in the country. Inorganic forms of Arsenic predominate in rice
and spices, and are a real threat to human health. Remember the outbreak of
food poisoning due to epidemic dropsy (mustard oil contaminated with argemone
oil) reported from Delhi in 1998 in which 60 persons lost their lives and more
than 3000 cases were hospitalized.
Food safety and Nutrition are inextricably linked, particularly
in places where food supplies are insecure. When food becomes scarce, hygiene,
safety and nutrition are often ignored as people shift to less nutritious diets
and consume more 'unsafe foods'-in which chemical, microbiological, zoonotic
and other hazards pose a health risk. Under the Integrated Disease Surveillance
Project (IDSP) in India, food poisoning outbreaks reported from all over India
in 2009 increased to more than double as compared to the previous year (120
outbreaks in 2009, as compared to 50 in the year 2008). This could be due to
improved reporting, however the fact that etiological diagnosis was not made in
any outbreak, though appropriate samples (food and/or stool) reached to the lab
in 18 outbreaks points to the huge gap in our scientific approach to diagnosing
and preventing food borne infections
Time
is ripethat we change the way our kids eat in schools. Banning junk food and carbonated
drinks in schools will set new standards for healthy foods that will make our
kids feel better, grow better and learn better and it will improve the
nutrition quality of school meals.This is about making sure children have
nutritious school lunches and breakfasts every day.
Frying
produce a chemical called acrylamide, which has been shown to produce cancer.
With increased urbanization and resultant increase in the trend on consuming
fried food items almost on a regular basis, especially by our young generation
is a matter of grave concern.
Food
label literacy is the need of the hour. As consumers, everyone has the right to
know the contents of any packaged food item. Biscuits, packed items like bread
and breakfast cereals contain hidden salt and sugar, which can produce
Hypertension, Diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney stones etc.Encourage locally
available fruits and vegetables.We should make it a habit to read and
understand the salt and sugar content in any packaged food item before we
purchase.
It
is in this context that World Health Organization’s theme for this year’s World
Health Day, which falls on 7th April -‘food safety’-, assumes importance. Let
the message of this year motivate governments to improve food safety through
public awareness campaigns and highlight their ongoing actions in this area and
encourage consumers to ensure the food on their plate is safe, all the way from
the farms
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