Is your food safe?

 

Nearly 2,000 children in the Caraga region of the Philippines fell ill after eating durian candies, while about a dozen others got sick and vomited after consuming siopao sold in a school.

On Monday, proof was presented before a Senate hearing that the “fake rice” found proliferating in some markets was indeed “fake” and could prove harmful to people’s health when consumed.

The Department of Health (DOH) has already gathered samples of the durian candies to test for microbial contamination, while the company that produced the candies has been shut down. End of story?

Meanwhile, the school whose canteen sold the siopao promised to no longer outsource the food sold to its students. All’s well that ends well?

A senator, on the other hand, warned the public  that it’s hard to distinguish the fake rice from real rice when both have just been cooked – steaming hot. Forewarned is forearmed?

Not quite. It cannot be business as usual on the food home front because lives are being put in danger with the clear non-implementation of the Food Security Act of 2013 or Republic Act No. 10611.

The law laid down a comprehensive framework that sets the benchmark for food safety in the various stages of its production from harvest to manufacture, processing, handling, packaging, distribution, marketing, food preparation and consumption.

The legislation is supposed to protect the public from food-borne and water-borne illnesses by checking the proliferation of unsanitary, misbranded, unwholesome and adulterated foods. And that’s the operative word in all of this – SUPPOSED. Because if the government has been seriously implementing the Food Security Act of 2013, would we have these massive cases of food poisoning? Of course not. –end-      

Image by The Daily Meal