Food safety is everyone’s business
Food plays a major role in our everyday life while healthy nutritious food helps promote overall wellbeing unhealthy ones lead to several illness. To mark the importance of healthy food practices, World Food Safety Day is observed on 7th of June every year. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) this day is marked to draw attention and mobilize action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food safety and improve human health.
The theme for this year’s World Food Safety Day is, “Safer food, better health”, which stresses on the need for as holistic approach towards food system for better health in a sustainable manner to prevent food borne diseases. It focuses on the access of safe food which is essential for the health and well-being of people, animals and the environment. Only when food is safe, we can benefit from its nutritional value and the mental and social benefits of sharing a safe meal.
Safe food is one of the most critical guarantors for good health. Unsafe foods are the cause of many diseases and contribute to other poor health conditions, such as impaired growth and development, micronutrient deficiencies, non-communicable or communicable diseases and mental illness. Globally, one in ten people are affected by foodborne illnesses annually. With an estimated 600 million cases of foodborne illnesses annually, unsafe food is a threat to human health and economies, disproportionally affecting vulnerable and marginalized people, especially women and children,
Foodborne illnesses are usually infectious or toxic in nature and often invisible to the plain eye, caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances entering the body through contaminated food or water.
Food safety has a critical role in assuring that food stays safe at every stage of the food chain – from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, all the way to preparation and consumption.
Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers. Everybody has a role to play from farm to table to ensure the food we consume is safe and will not damage our health. Through World Food Safety Day, WHO and Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) pursue efforts to mainstream food safety in the public agenda and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally.
“Food safety is everyone’s business” is the slogan for World Food Safety Day and urges that we all play a role in maintaining food safety throughout the entire supply chain, from farm to table.
Food Safety Authority, Directorate of Health & Family Welfare, Nagaland, Kohima
Safe food for better health
Food is one of the basic needs for any living being. Food is must for all of us and it is good to get safe and hygienic food as unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances causes more than 200 diseases. Recent estimates indicate that the impact of unsafe food costs low- and middle-income economies around US$ 95 billion in lost productivity each year. There is no doubt that good hygiene practices in the food and agricultural sectors help to reduce the emergence and spread of foodborne diseases.
Access to sufficient amounts of safe food is key to sustaining life and promoting good health. After decades of steady decline, world hunger has slowly been on the rise since 2015. An estimated 821 million people in the world suffered from hunger in 2018. If nothing changes, the immense challenge of achieving the Zero Hunger Target by 2030 will not be achieved.
At the same time, overweight and obesity continue to increase in all regions of the world, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019.
Food safety has a critical role in assuring that food stays safe at every stage of the food chain – from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, all the way to preparation and consumption. The way in which food is produced, stored, handled and consumed affects the safety of our food.
World Food Safety Day (WFSD) which is observed on 7 June aims to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) jointly facilitate the observance of World Food Safety Day, in collaboration with Member States and other relevant organizations.
On 3 August 2020, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution WHA73.5 to recognize WFSD as an important milestone and a platform for raising awareness at all levels about the importance of food safety, and for promoting and facilitating actions to prevent foodborne diseases at local, national, regional and global levels; to strengthen global efforts for food safety to reduce the burden of foodborne disease. On 20 December 2018 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 73/250 proclaiming the day. As of 2019, every 7 June is a time to celebrate the myriad benefits of safe food.
The day is an important way of making people aware of food safety issues, demonstrating how to prevent illness through food safety, discussing collaborative approaches to improved food safety across sectors, promoting solutions and ways of being more food safe, etc.
Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers. Everybody has a role to play from farm to table to ensure the food we consume is safe and will not damage our health. Through WFSD, WHO and FAO pursue efforts to mainstream food safety in the public agenda and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally.
It is important to ensure food safety and we need to transform food systems to deliver better health, and we need to do so in a sustainable manner. Food systems policy-makers, practitioners and investors should reorient their activities to increase the sustainable production and consumption of safe foods in order to improve health outcomes.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been established under Food Safety and Standards, 2006 which consolidates various acts & orders that have hitherto handled food related issues in various Ministries and Departments. FSSAI has been created for laying down science based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption. Together we can ensure safe food for all of us and let us do it for our better health.
Ranjan K Baruah,
Ganeshguri, Guwahati, bkranjan@gmail.com
(With inputs from UN publication)