HEALTH NOlfcS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 7

HEALTH NOlfcS

FOODSTUFFS

HYGIENIC HANDLING

(Contributed by Department of Health.)

Constant attention is given by officers of the Health Department to food premises and eating houses, to minimise as far as possible the contamination of foods supplied to the public by.vendors.. The risks to health arising from the consumption of contaminated food is a real and 'urgent matter, as is evidenced from time to time by acute food poisoning outbreaks. The various regulations issued by the Health Department are carefully drawn up, and if fully observed will undoubtedly effect that degree of safety which is their object. The majority of serious food poisoning outbreaks are caused by contamination duo to bacteria of human or animal origin. The human being can infect food by bacteria harboured in the bowel or in the respiratory tract. The risk from animal sources is attributable to their intestinal bacteria and organisms present on their feet picked up in walking or running over unwholesome matter and later transferring same to the food of man upon which they feed. Flies, cockroaches, beetles, etc., infect food by filth present upon their legs and bodies after feeding upon excreta of various sorts, and subsequently walking upon our food in their act of further feeding. Let us now consider the individual classes of foodstuffs and their risks.