Safety
Zone
To increase shelf life of food, hygiene and adequate safety measures
should be taken into account. MP Pusalkar explains the entire process
“Food
was better when it was produced naturally,” is something consumers
often say. Nevertheless, was food safer, better and not tampered with,
in the past? Certainly not! During the first half of the 20th century
consumers had every reason to fear falling ill from food. A hundred
years ago the flour used in bread was tampered with extensively, as
people used dishonest methods to increase its weight. Similarly, water
was added to milk and chalk and iron in tea. Pathogenic and dangerous
bacterial infections like as tuberculosis in locally produced foods,
was more common then. Today, people have a basic right to food which
is not only nutritious and of good quality but also safe enough to eat.
The consumer must be able to trust that all food and drink is safe and
free from any hazardous substance or dangerous bacteria. This, however,
may not be the case always and we do find a number of people affected
by food contamination. In our country, food borne diseases are common
and have unfortunately been accepted as an everyday occurrence. There
are many underlying reasons for this, like an extended food chain, increased
unorganised production, lack of basic hygiene in manufacturing and storage
and insufficient controls at various levels in the supply chain. While
statutory laws that can help in ensuring safe and hygienic food products
exist, the implementation and enforcement of this is always a matter
of concern. Majority of all food related diseases are caused by consumption
of contaminated food and pathogenic bacteria, fungi, viruses parasites
and toxins. Therefore, it is in the industry’s best interest to
produce safe food and reach it to consumers in a manner where its safety
is not compromised. To ensure this, the following must be known:
• Cause of food borne diseases, (where the risk in the production
chain are the greatest) and the hows of protecting the consumer from
them.
• Production and packaging methods to ensure food safety for longer
periods of time
• Distribution and storage of foods in the supply chain.
All parties in the ‘food chain’ have to ensure that foods
do not carry health risk. The responsibility lies with the primary distributor,
the processing and packaging industry, wholesalers and retailers and
also consumers to some extent. Products can be bacteriologically safe
and of high quality but incorrect storage and handling by the consumer
can turn the food into a health risk. For example, if food needs to
be refrigerated, it must always be kept at low temperature. However
when the consumer takes it from the shop’s shelf to his home refrigerator,
the chain is broken unless a cold bag is used. Similarly a longer and
more complex food chain increases ...
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