2. FOOD SANITATION
Food Sanitation means the various ways to manage food including improvement, preservation and enhancement. All these can make the food we eat clean, safe, and appetizing and finally, good for our health.
Food means anything we can eat for supporting life: -
1. Any substances we can eat or drink by mouth or bringing any substance into our body what so ever by any means but not including medicine, psychotropic substances, or drugs.
2. Any substances used in food production including food additives, color, and any flavoring substances.
2.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF FOOD SANITATION
Food is a significant factor for humans because everyone must eat survival. However, only considering the value of nutrition, taste, or filling the stomach then these are not enough. Clean and safe food should also be taken into consideration. If the food we eat is tasty but dirty, it will be harmful to our health. It may cause stomachaches, diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness, faintness, parasitic diseases, paleness or even chronic sickness This is known as ‚disease caused by food carrier‛. The severity of this disease depends on the type and the quantity of the disease, vermin, or toxin we eat. Therefore, we should eat clean food without disease, vermin, and toxin. How to manage and control the quality of clean food is called ‚Food Sanitation‛.
2.2 SIGNIFICANT FACTORS THAT CAUSE FOOD TO BE DIRTY AND CONTAMINATED.
Some factors that cause dirty food. Food becomes dirty because contaminants become mixed up in the food. Some important contaminants are disease, vermin, and toxins. All these can contaminate food during the process of producing, transportation, preparation, storage, distribution, serving, etc. Some contaminants are as follows:
1. Disease, vermin, and toxins.
2. Diseases can be carried by insects, animals, humans, containers, equipment, environment, water, dirt, fertilizer, air, etc.
3. The processes relating to food such as producing, transporting, preparing, cooking, keeping, distributing, serving, etc.
4. Consumers
2.3 BASIC PROBLEMS OF FOOD SANITATION
Food and drink are necessary for human beings. At present, infections of the gastrointestinal tract are a significant cause of illness and death in Thailand. Diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, some types of diarrhea are still common. These illnesses significantly diminish lives and the economic status of the people. The best way to solve this problem is to prevent the disease by controlling food sanitation and the environment to prevent spreading the diseases. We should control and improve the way we clean along with clean drinking water and the elimination of feces to provide hygienic conditions. At present, the Thai population growth rate is rather high especially in the large urban areas such as the Sanitary District and Municipal Areas which are in the developing process. More people are working and eating out. If a food shop or restaurant does not control or caring about cleanliness, it will create illness and death to people. This growing population is the cause of the increase in gastrointestinal tract infections.
2.4 THE DISEASES FROM EATING INCORRECTLY NUTRITION AND FOOD SANITATION.
For safety in choosing an areas product, consumers should study and understand the nature of the products especially about food and can be guided in choosing as follows: -
1. Food impurity. According to the Food Act B.E.2522, food impurity includes
1) Food mixed with any harmful substance.
2) Food mixed with any substance causing its quality to decline except a substance that is essential for the production and is allowed by the official authority.
3) Food mixed or garnished by any methods with the intend to cover defects or poor quality of such food.
4) Food which is produced, packed, stored unhygienically.
5) Food which is produced from poultry contaminated with disease that can be transferred to humans.
6) Food which is packed in any container which may be harmful to health.
2. Adulterated Food. The Food Act defines the characteristic of adulterated food as follows: -
1) Food which lacks standard and quality as required.
2) Food from which some ingredients or valuable materials are extruded and distributed as whole food or under the same brand name.
3) Food which is produced artificially but distributed as genuine.
4) Food which has a fake label or tries to misinform consumers about the quantity, quality, or any other characteristic of the food product, including mislabeling the country of origin.
At present, Thailand produces more and more ready-made food. Some distributors purposefully induce impurities into the food products. To deceive consumers, they mix chemicals into the food to get better profits and take advantage of the consumers. The Office of Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Public Health tries hard to control food quality by sending Food and Drug Commissioners to inspect the sources of the food production. They also collect samples of the food from the markets and send them to be analyzed whether or not their quality is in accordance with the Food Act. Still, a lot of food mixed with chemicals and impurities is sold in the markets as mentioned below:
1) Colored Food. Colored food well known to consumers includes roasted red pork, sour pork, Thai sausage, fish balls, dried shrimps, prawn crackers, and red sauce. The Department of Medical Science, Ministry of Public Health inspects the food colors which might be harmful to health. They found that 90% of the food colors contain lead and copper.
2) Pepper. Flour is mixed into the ground pepper to increase the volume. The best way is to buy pepper seeds and grind them to get real pepper.
3) Saltpeter. This makes beef look reddish, soft and appetizing. It is often used to improve fish, bacon, and beef. Saltpeter can be harmful if we eat too much of these products because the saltpeter they put in, can cause cancer.
4) Ketchup. Potato puree is artificially reddened and sold as ketchup. If we want natural ketchup, we should boil fresh tomatoes. This will also provide the nutrients we need.
5) Artificial vinegar. Acetic acid diluted with water or concentrated orange juice is often sold as vinegar.
6) Fish sauce. Producers boil pork skin or bone, cow or water buffalo bone, add salt, coloring, and flavors to the brew and then sell it as fish sauce.
7) Coffee and tea. Producers make instant coffee from roasted tamarind or corn seeds or roasted rice. Instant tea is made from tea leaves mixed with wasted tea leaves and color.
8) Meatball. Borax is mixed into the meat to make it crispy. The Medical Science Department collected samples of meatball from 8 distributers and found that 7 of them mixed borax into the meatballs which causes food adulteration and is unsafe for consumers.
9) Cooking oil. Most of it is extracted from rubber seeds and mixed with bean oil or coconut oil. These oils are not safe to consume because they contain dangerous substances.
10) Preserved food. Many kinds of food such as chili paste, sauce, golden ball cake, jackfruit seed cake, including instant food in boxes are treated with preservatives like salicylic acid which is harmful for health. The Ministry of Public Health permitted Sodium Benzoate in concentrations of not more than 0.1% by weight as preservative.
11) Food with pesticides. Some kind of famous food is treated with pesticides like DDT mixed with salt water to destroy worm infection and to better preserve salted fish. These pesticides are harmful for health.
THE HARMFULNESS FROM ADULTERATION AND CONTAMINATION
Although some food contaminant may not be harmful, it is still considered to be cheating the consumer. Some contaminants are less harmful while others are more harmful depending on the quantity and attributes of the contaminant in food. The Public Health Department manages to control such food and informs the public of the harmfulness of the adulteration and contaminated food which is:
1) Harmfulness of borax in food. Some kinds of food such as meatballs and pork sausage usually contain borax. If we consume these foods in large quantities, we accumulate too much borax in our body which may cause death.
2) Harmfulness of sodium cyclamate. Sodium cyclamate used in food or drink for sweetness may cause cancer to the consumers.
3) Harmfulness of toxic pesticides residua. Most of the residua are found in vegetables, fruits and meat. Since usually only small amounts of the residua pesticides are in the vegetables, fruits, and meat we consume each time, they will not immediately affect our body. But if we continually consume them for an extended time, they will become harmful and even paralyze the consumer or lead to death.
4) Harmfulness of Sodium carbonate in food. Sodium carbonate or washing soda, if mixed into fresh meat to soften it before cooking, may be harmful for our body. This substance is able to erode the soft tissue of the gastro intestine. It can make us feel queasy, get severe diarrhea and may cause death if consumed in quantities exceeding 30 grams.
CONCLUSION
Food sanitation is any procedure during developing, maintaining or adjusting food concerned with consumer’s health because food is essential for life, helps to build up body energy and strength With energy and strength people can resist diseases and live a happy life.
Food is utterly useful for our body, but if it is dirty and contaminated with diseases or toxins, it is harmful to our body. Microorganisms found in food are helminths, but also contaminants from toxins or chemical substances are found in food.