Jan 28, 2016

Food Handlers and Hygiene: How much do we know


To FEED must be a SACRED act, as what we eat eventually mingles with the GODLY soul in us all.
There were times when the kitchens were temples and cooking food was a form of offering to God. The guest was a welcome angel (Atithi Devo bhava) and not a client as of now.
Practicing and looking for FOOD HYGIENE is becoming very important as more and more of us are shifting from essentially ‘home-cooked-family-meals’ to ‘street food-kitty-restaurant-tiffin meals’.


We need to look at the condition of kitchen, the hygiene of the food-maker (most are self-trained cooks) and the choice and cleanliness of ingredients used.
According to the Public Health Association, only 53% of Indians wash their hands with soap after defecating and only 30% before preparing food. Nobody has any figure of the boil/skin-infection, cough-sneezing-tuberculosis-jaundice-history and smoking and alcohol habits or vaccination status of the cooks preparing food on the street, in banquet halls, marriage palaces, restaurants, or even the five-star kitchens.
Coliform bacteria, entamoeba, salmonella, shigella, staphylococcus, hepatitis A-E and many of the poorly handled viral and protozoal infections can EASILY enter from the food if prepared with SULLIED hands of infected cook. Some studies have documented Enterobacteriaceae (Salmonella, Shigela etc) and Staphlococci to be in as much as 44 and 80 percent of food handlers respectively.
A cross-sectional study on food handlers in Central India reported that the frequency of pathogenic organisms on the hands was 56.87%. The different degrees of hand contamination between studies could be explained by the degree of adherence of food handlers to food safety measures and hand washing in different geographic regions and the class of the recruits.
The FOOD-HANDLERS, increasingly, are being recruited from poor, deprived backward sections of society on paltry salaries. Their family backgrounds, education, health and hygiene standards are abysmally low and the GUEST for them is just a client and not GOD as envisioned by Gandhi and our Indian ethos.
Most of the domestic help and cooks in the modern households are no better and there is hardly an effort to improve their hygiene and cleanliness standards.
Mary Mallon, now known as Typhoid Mary, was a healthy woman when she was discovered and quarantined to be the cause of a typhoid epidemic in 1907. The public health concerns are not as robust now. The street-food vendors and the food handlers in banquet halls, marriage palaces and 3-5 star hotels need regulatory health practices.
The municipal bodies or state health bodies can have modular courses and mandatory certifications. Informally, the food handlers and the cooks can be supervised at home and at ‘managed hotels’ for hand-hygiene, infective illness, skin integrity and possibly be convinced of presumptive treatment with anti-helminthic (deworming Albendazole )and anti-protozoal medicines (Metronidazole) periodically along with vaccination for the water –borne diseases like typhoid and hepatitis A.
Till we have MORE hygiene education and prophylactic-preventive care of food-handlers, some tips may be handy.
  • Check for a rapid-turnover place. Observe hand-hygiene of self and the cook.
  • Try eating Tandoori Roti/foods directly from Tandoor. A hot fried food (coming from a deep fryer) is also less likely to be infective.
  • Avoid raw foods, salads, curd, raw cheese and frozen foods when you eat in open ambiance parties. Also, avoid ‘milk-creamy-cheesy’ curries and opt for ‘onion-coriander-condiments’ curries instead.
  • Have natural beverages like coconut water or steaming hot tea-coffee etc.
  • And do pay attention and possibly talk about in the places you frequent and eat. A
  • And have more of get-togethers and parties where the POOLED-HOME COOKED food is a trend and a fashion statement!
Dr J.K. Bhutani, MD is a protagonist of preventive and promotive health care based on austere biology and facilitating self-healing powers of human organism. Twitter: @drjkbhutani

WHO, INDIA CONCERNED OVER RISING OBESITY

Two different surveys released back to back by India and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently have underlined common concern: Obesity is on the rise at an alarming level among adults as well as children. 
While the WHO report has attributed marketing of unhealthy foods and non-alcoholic beverages besides declining physical activity as a major factor in the increase in numbers of children being overweight and obese, particularly in the developing world including India, the recent survey by the Union Health Ministry, which covered all age groups, shows sedentary lifestyle as well as unhealthy diets reason for the dangerous trend.
As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), released last week by the Union Health Ministry, in the past 10 years, the number of obese people has doubled in the country with most of the States experiencing the dangerous trend.
As per the survey conducted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), released last week, people having Body Mass Index (BMI) over 25 kg per metre square have been considered as obese.
The first phase of the survey says that Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar and Sikkim have more than 30 per cent of their populations falling under the “obese” category while in Bihar, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and West Bengal, more than 10 per cent population is obese. This is double compared to the last NFHS, which was conducted in 2005-06.
Health condition of children globally too is dismal. As per a WHO commission report, released on Tuesday, childhood obesity has reached alarming rates globally in the developing world, including Asia and Africa where the number of obese and overweight children under five has nearly doubled since 1990.
Overall, the number of obese and overweight children under five rose from 31 million to 41 million between 1990 and 2014. Asia currently accounts for nearly half (48 per cent) of young children categorised as overweight or obese.
The Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO) presented the final report to the WHO, culminating a two-year process in 100 countries to address the alarming levels of childhood obesity and overweight globally.
“What’s the big message? It’s not the kid’s fault,” said Peter Gluckman, Commision’s co-chair. Biological factors, inadequate access to healthy foods, a decline in physical activity in schools and the unregulated marketing of fattening foods are among the drivers of a worsening epidemic that requires a coordinated global response, the report said.
“Dieting and exercise alone are not the solution,” Gluckman said. In Indian context, Gluckman’s concerns highlight the urgency to enforce the draft guidelines prepared by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on availability of wholesome and nutritious food in schools to control junk food consumption among children.
The draft guidelines propose to restrict sale or availability of food which are high in fat, salt or sugar content within 50 metres of schools’ premises. This includes chips, ready-to-eat noodles, pizzas, burgers, sugar-sweetened carbonated and non-carbonated drinks, potato fries (commonly called French fries) and confectionery items.
However, the FSSAI is yet to notify the guidelines to ensure better health of the schoolkids