MIAMI. – June 7 is World Food Safety Day. Foods. The date was agreed in 2019 by the UN, which delegated matters related to this matter to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Food safety involves the set of conditions and measures necessary during production, storage, distribution and preparation to ensure that, once ingested, they do not represent a risk to health.
“It is estimated that each year around 600 million people in the world – almost 1 in 10 inhabitants – become ill from eating contaminated food and that 420,000 die from this same cause, with the consequent loss of 33 million adjusted life years in function of disability”, records the OMS.
Another important fact is that, in low- and middle-income countries, US$110 billion in productivity and medical expenses are lost annually due to unhealthy foods.
Among the basic recommendations to ensure food safety are the following: Maintain cleanliness; separate raw and cooked foods; cook thoroughly; preserve food at appropriate temperatures, and use safe water and raw materials.
Disease risk
On the other hand, the OMS points out that the foods Unhealthy foods cause a vicious cycle of illness and malnutrition, “especially affecting infants, children the little ones, the elderly and the sick.
In this sense, children under 5 years of age bear 40% of the burden attributable to diseases of food transmission, “which cause 125,000 deaths each year in this age group”.
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Source: WHO/International Day Portal
