Food Safety Tips

The recent news about food poisoning from Indian Rojak in Singapore has showed that many people are not aware, or simply cannot be bothered about Food Safety?

Thus, there will be a series of Food Safety Tips here to educate consumers, like you and me, on Food Safety!

Did you know that in New Zealand, the rate of gastroenteritis caused by eating unsafe food is unacceptably high with the most recent New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) study putting the economic cost through lost work days alone at $86 million. Around 40% of the problem is estimated to be due to poor food handling in the home.

Some information from The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA):

Delicious, nutritious food is one of the great things in life. There’s nothing better than a fantastic meal with family and friends. But there’s also nothing worse than that same food causing days of misery thanks to it being contaminated by pathogens (bacteria, viruses and other organisms that can cause illness).

Foodborne illness is estimated to strike about 200,000 New Zealanders every year. Nearly half of these (at least 40%) are attributed to food handling, preparation or storage in the home – that’s 80,000 people (about twice the population of Nelson, or four times that of Masterton).

Given those numbers, your chances of eating food that will make you sick seem pretty high. Luckily, you can reduce the risk of you, your family or friends having a nasty foodborne illness by following the food-safe tips and rules in this booklet.

Remembering the 4Cs (Clean, Cook, Cover, Chill) and hand washing rules can help keep those pathogens at bay.