Critical Consumer Pat Sidley
REPORTERS from time to time ask local authorities how safe street foods are, and are always assured that there has not been any marked increase in food poisoning since stalls and stands began to crowd on to inner city pavements as well as the beach and informal
But a survey just released by the Department of Health indicates that although consumers are not being subjected to an endless procession of harmful bacteria, the germ of a problem is around and measures need to be taken to deal with it.
The survey results concentrate on the Western Cape. The department, with the help of local authorities, drew their samples from specific types of places: holiday/tourist areas; flea markets; transport terminals; informal settlements; and a category identified as “other” — among them, no doubt, inner- city pavement stands and kiosks.
In over 90 percent of the 248 food samples obtained, the food was acceptable. Western Cape residents may be relieved to know that no shigella or salmonella organisms were found in the samples. And in most categories of sites, those organisms that were found in the food were judged to be at reasonable levels.
However, it appeared that much of the foodstuffs sold in tourist areas, presumably at the beaches, Table Mountain or the like, carried a variety of somewhat troublesome bugs. There was a bit too much coliform growing, as well as too high a concentration of E Coli organisms and some evidence of Stephylococcus Aureus. This means many tourists who believed their upset tummies were due to bugs carried on the breezes blowing around the Cape would have had a better time of it had they packed sandwiches when they set out for the day.
The survey looked as well at the facilities available when rating the standards of hygiene. They looked, for instance, at how food was protected, stored and cooked; what type of clothing was worn by the sellers; whether hands were washed and if a toilet was nearby; whether equipment was clean and water was available, and whether there was a refuse container in the area.
The survey found that although most facilities were available to the tourist-trap street-food sellers, these were deemed to be “ineffective” 30 percent of the time. One way of looking at this is to note that a third of the street-food vendors by the seaside or outside Table Mountain’s cable way do not wash their hands, cover the food, use their refuse facilities,
In informal settlements, quite a lot of bacteria- related bad hygiene practices were found; and 55 percent of the time, facilities the survey team would expect in order to make sure the food was clean were absent at street-food outlets.
Transport terminal areas reflected that 15 percent of the facilities were ineffective — but the situation was better than at tourist areas, and better hygiene standards were reflected in a lower bacteria count. Even flea markets did better than tourist areas, despite lacking some of the facilities which the tourist vendors had.
Among the conclusions drawn by the Department of Health was the fact that although tourist-site vendors had better facilities, the microbiological results showed high counts of harmful bacteria in some samples, reflecting poor personal hygiene and poor handling
This, says the department, could be helped by improving the effectiveness of all available facilities over the entire spectrum of street-food sellers, which would, in turn, reduce the contamination levels of the
The department believes the situation is not helped by the lack of properly organised food hygiene education programmes and cites the views of the World Health Organisation which believes that educating street food sellers is more important than examining them
The reason food-sellers in flea markets fared better than most other areas was because there was more control both privately and by the local authorities
The department recommends that street food traders be given more official recognition and not merely treated as the “informal sector … with no need to exist or of a temporary nature (which will) disappear in due
The Food and Agricultural Organisation has, according to the department, recommended that early steps be taken to officially “recognise the street food industry in order to initiate steps necessary to upgrade the industry through appropriate food control measures, training of handlers, and absorbing them as a vital component within the urban food system”.
Here then are the WHO’s golden rules for safe food preparation. Perhaps consumers should check out fairly carefully the barrows they choose to use according to these rules:
* Choose foods processed for safety, such as pasteurised milk instead of raw milk fresh from the
* Food must be cooked thoroughly: that reddish piece of boerewors will do untold damage to your bowels.
* Eat the cooked food immediately; don’t wait for the temperature in which the bacteria can grow.
* Check that the food is stored carefully.
* Avoid contact between raw and cooked food — the bugs on the raw food may travel to the cooked food, which is cleaner.
* Wash hands repeatedly. Don’t buy from the guy who wipes his nose, cleans the sweat from his face with his hands and never stops to wash.
* All surfaces should be spotlessly clean.
* A large gathering of flies or other insects around the food should ring an alarm bell.
* Check that the water is clean and fresh.
If street food vendors — and those who consume their wares — stuck to these rules, we would be able to help change the fact that between 20 percent and 50 percent of the world’s annual 2 600-million travellers develop some type of food-borne diarrhoea.