Many around the world have had suffered food poisoning from eating some bad food, either in the sense of it being prepared improperly or of it being expired. This is a very unpleasant experience as it leaves you feeling very ill for days on end and it leaves you very hungry and thirsty; however, when ingesting these products it goes straight back up. There are many ways to prevent this as it will be explained.
There are four simple steps to making sure the food that is being consumed has not been contaminated. The first way is staying clean by washing your hands, utensils, and surfaces often as germs can spread and survive in many places. Another way is by separating raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs as they can spread germs to premade foods. Cooking foods to the right temperature helps ensure that foods are always cooked properly, to do this it is best to use a food thermometer. Lastly, refrigerating promptly as bacteria that causes food poisoning multiply quickest between 4ºC and 60ºC.
There is an estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – who fall ill after eating contaminated food. Along with this there are 420,000 people who die every year resulting in the loss of 33 million healthy life years. Approximately $110 billion is lost each year in medical expenses and productivity resulting from unsafe food in low, and middle, income countries. Often children under 5 years old carry 40% of the food-borne disease burden with 125,000 deaths every year. These food-borne diseases impede socioeconomic development by straining health care systems and harming national economies, tourism, and trade.
Having proper access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food is the key to sustaining life and promoting good health. The unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances cause more than 200 diseases, ranging form diarrhea to cancers. This also creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, particularly affecting infants, young children, elderly and the sick. There is need for good collaboration between governments, producers, and consumers to help ensure food safety and stronger food systems.
Food poisoning is often caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances entering the body through contaminated food. Chemical contamination can also lead to acute poisoning or long-term diseases such as cancer. These food-borne diseases may lead to long-lasting disability and death.
The burden of these diseases to public health and to economies has often been underestimated due to the underreporting and difficulty to establish a usual relationships between food contamination and resulting illness or death. In 2015 WHO (an organization that aims to strengthen national food control systems to facilitate global prevention, detection, and response to public helath threats associated with unsafe foods) reported on estimates of the global burden of food-borne diseases showed the first-ever estimates of disease burden caused by 31 food-brone agents (bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins, and chemicals) at global and sub-regional levels, highlighting that more than 600 million cases of food-borne illnesses and 420,000 deaths could occur in a year. The burden of food-brone diseases fall disproportionately on groups in vulnerable situations and especially on children under 5, with the highest burden in low and middle income countries. The 2019 World Bank report on the economic burden of the food-borne diseases indicated that the total productivity loss associated with food-brone illnesses is estimated at $15 billion USD.
Safe food supplies support national economies, trade, and tourism, contribute to food and nutrition security, and underpin sustainable development. Urbanization and changes in consumer habits have increased the number of people buying and eating food prepared in public places. Globalization has triggered growing consumer demand for a wider variety of foods, resulting in an increasing complex and longer global food chain. Climate change is also predicted to impact food safety. These challenges put greater responsibility on food producers and handlers to ensure food safety. Local incidents can quickly evolve into international emergencies due to the speed and range of product distribution.
Governments should make food safety a public health priority as they play pivotal role in developing policies and regulatory frameworks and establishing and implementing effective food safety systems. Food handlers and consumers need to understand how to safely handle food and practicing the WHO five keys to safer food at home, or when selling at restaurants or at local markets. Food producers can safely grow fruits and vegetables using the WHO five keys to growing safer fruits and vegetables.
Global Environmental Change 