News
On Food Safety: Are You Eating Safe Food?
For parents, safety may mean something physical, such as ensuring the family car is in good shape, checking on the locations of the children, educating them about stranger danger, and keeping the entire family from harm during calamities.
By definition, safety means being free from harm or risk. And for parents, this is a huge responsibility, given that it potentially covers all aspects of life, starting with the food that the family eats.
According to the Department of Health (DOH), food safety is the “assurance or guarantee that food will not cause harm to the consumers when it is prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use.” In a Rappler report, the Food and Agriculture Organization mentions that food safety covers the handling, storing, and preparing of food, including the prevention of infection.
At home, you or your parents do this system for your food, which begs the question, “Are you eating safe food?” For us at the National Nutrition Council Region VII, this is an important family matter because unsafe food, which results from its improper handling, preparation and storage, may lead to foodborne and waterborne diseases causes by any infectious (bacteria, viruses and parasites) and non-infectious agents (chemical, animal and plant toxin).
DOH enumerated common causes of foodborne and waterborne diseases. These include unsafe sources of drinking water, improper disposal of human waste, unhygienic practices like spitting anywhere, blowing or picking the nose, and unsafe food handling and preparation practices, such as street-vended food.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that globally “foodborne and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases cause the deaths of about 2.2 million people annually, 1.9 million of them children.”
The issue of food safety is so important such that the Philippine government, through the Department of Agriculture and DOH, set up the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 10611, an act meant to strengthen the food safety regulatory system in the country to protect consumer health and facilitate market access of local food and food products.
What can you do to ensure safer food for yourself and your family? WHO provided these five keys that can be easily followed:
- Keep clean.
- Separate raw and cooked foods.
- Cook food thoroughly.
- Keep food at safe temperatures.
- Use safe water and raw materials.
Your family, just like any other family, wants to keep its members safe and happy, right? This just goes to show that having a nutritious meal is not enough; it has to be safe, too. Nancy Cudis-Ucag
nnc.gov.ph
