Human Nutrition Department at QU marked World Food Safety Day. Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances causes more than 200 disease safe food is key to sustaining life and promoting good health.
The world food safety day 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. In this context, we asked for opinion of several QU Academic members’ about the importance of safe food.
Dr. Tahra ElObeid, Head of Human Nutrition Department, College of Health Sciences, stated that QU is committed in their role in educating the student community about the importance of food safety. She said, “College of Health Sciences has conducted many workshops to raise the awareness inside the University about the importance of healthy food that prevention the diseases that transfer through contaminated food. The Department has worked in new research about food safety that ensures food quality.”
She mentions that improper preparation or storage of food can cause many foodborne illnesses. Animal products one of the sources that cause foodborne. That’s why we should make sure to follow the correct way in cooking and storage temperatures. We must always wash our hands and sterilize the cooking place to avoid the transfer of bacteria to the food.
Dr. Abdelhamid Kerkadi, Associate Professor of Human Nutrition, said, “It’s essential for the food industry to ensure that food is safe for the consumer. And most of the company’s and restaurant goals are to provide high value of nutritional food to protect the consumer from food poisoning and food contaminated with bacteria, leading to a health problem for children and adults.”
“Reducing food poisoning is one of public health priority. Food safety is a profitable priority because any contamination in food will leads to destruction and in some cases, the company of restaurant loses and closed.” He adds.
Prof. Vijay Ganji, Professor of Human Nutrition, talked about the importance of strengthening efforts to ensure that the food we eat is safe and healthy. She said, “When the food is not handled properly its can be unsafe, and it can put you at risk of foodborne illness. The symptoms can range from mild such as diarrhea, vomiting to severe such as sepsis, meningitis. And children and the elderly with the impaired immune function are more susceptible to foodborne illness. That why we must focus our efforts on educating the consumers in an easy, simple way to keep our food safe.”
Prof. Reema Tayyem, Professor of Human Nutrition, commented, “Enacting laws and restrictions that define, legalize the sale of unhealthy food products that may lead to chronic diseases. And in economic incentives, they should put taxes on unhealthy food such as soft drinks and desserts. And limit the marketing of unhealthy foods. Also doing campaigns to promote fruits and vegetable especially in schools and allocate classes on nutrition.”
Prof. Zumin Shi, Professor of Human Nutrition, commented that “Food safety shared responsibility between governments whose control risks in the food supply chain through routine audits. Secondly, our food supply system relies on the food industry to produce food compliance with food safety regulations. And in cases of food poisoning, it must respond efficiently and withdraw products. Also, consumers share the responsibility for maintaining food safety from the way foods are prepared, cooked, and stored.”
Dr. Grace Attieh, Teaching Assistant of Human Nutrition, said, “Foodborne diseases that produce numerous and potentially fatal. Unsafe foods with bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemicals cause more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhea to cancers – and enter the body through contaminated food or water. For example, Foods involved in a salmonella outbreak are eggs and poultry; affected people experience fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Unsafe food poses global health threats, putting everyone at particular risk: infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with an underlying disease”.
Source: QATAR UNIVERSITY