World Health Day 2015: How safe is your food?

The slogan for World Health Day, being celebrated on 7 April, is, ‘From farm to plate, make food safe’. The World Health Organization (WHO) will be highlighting the challenges and opportunities associated with food safety that arise from a global, industrialised food system.

Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said the changes to the food system, "introduce new multiple opportunities for food to become contaminated with harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemicals."

Unsafe food can contain harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances, and cause more than 200 diseases - ranging from diarrhoea to cancers. Examples of unsafe food include under-cooked foods of animal origin, fruits and vegetables contaminated with faeces, and shellfish containing marine biotoxins. In 2010, the WHO estimated 582 million cases of 22 different foodborne gastrointestinal diseases and 351,000 associated deaths.

Amanda Long, Director-General of Consumers International highlighted the importantant role consumer groups play in improving food safety:

"Addressing food safety concerns is a fundamental part of the work of consumer rights groups. Our Members are the leading food safety campaigners in many countries, working to protect and promote safe food for consumers through, product testing, lobbying governments and consumer education and awareness raising."

CI Member VOICE, for example, has been running a major education campaign to draw the attention of Indian consumers to unsafe and unethical practices adopted by food producers, such as: excess use of pesticides; the artificial ripening of fruit using acetylene gas; misuse of oxytocin injections in order to increase milk production in cows and buffaloes; and inappropriate storage temperature of milk during distribution and retail. Ms Rinki Sharma, Deputy at VOICE, India, said:

"Food safety is a prime concern today as healthy citizens can make a healthy nation.  All consumers should fight for the right for healthy food."

In the US, last month Consumer Reports published a guide to the risks of pesticide exposure from eating 48 types of fruit and vegetables, based on analysis of government pesticide data. Conventionally grown (not organic) produce was awarded low, medium or high risk status according to its country of origin. Consumers were warned to beware of green beans from Mexico, US or Guatemala, or nectarines from US or Chile. 

Product testing is a key part of consumer groups’ food safety work, often revealing information not available elsewhere. Last year ASPEC in Peru commissioned an analysis of pesticide residues in tomatoes that are available in two renowned Peruvian supermarket chains. In all cases, the tests showed levels of pesticides that were acceptable under Peruvian law but would have been too high for European standards. ASPEC followed the testing with a campaign for a change in the law.

Consumer groups are sometimes involved in revealing high profile food frauds which, while they may not pose an immediate threat to consumers, suggest a lack of transparency in the food chain with food safety implications for consumers. In 2013, testing by the Namibia Consumer Trust (NCT) revealed traces of kangaroo meat found in a beef product.

Long added: “Food safety is a concern in all countries, which is why the theme of this year’s World Health Day is so important. Consumers International and its Members will continue to work on this to protect consumers from the impacts of unsafe food.”

For more information on World Health Day see: http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2015/en/