Be careful when eating raw food in hot weather

The peak heat in Ho Chi Minh City poses a high risk of food poisoning. What should restaurants and diners do to ensure food safety and the health of themselves and those around them these days?

Storing food in the refrigerator is not necessarily absolutely safe.

* Thank you, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan, for taking the time to speak with Thanh Nien Newspaper. Madam, why does hot weather easily cause food safety incidents?

Hot weather and high temperatures are favorable conditions for bacteria and microorganisms to grow. This is also the reason why food is easily spoiled and spoiled, causing a high risk of food safety. On the contrary, when the temperature is low, bacteria grow less. That is why people often store food in refrigerators and freezers.

Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan, Director of the Department of Food Safety of Ho Chi Minh City

* What recommendations does the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety have for people during the hot weather in Ho Chi Minh City in particular and the whole country in general at the present time?

The first thing to note is that in any situation, you must eat cooked food and drink boiled water. I do not recommend eating raw or undercooked dishes at this time. Because in hot weather, bacteria grow extremely quickly. We should not be subjective that we have enough resistance. Sometimes, even the strongest people can still get food poisoning.

Dishes such as raw fish salad, rare beef, etc. are not recommended at this time. For drinking, everyone should use boiled water or bottled spring water, soft drinks of guaranteed quality. However, you should also pay attention to the quality of the ice you drink with it.

Besides eating style, each housewife needs to take responsibility for each family kitchen. Food should be purchased from legal establishments, not floating. Buying standard food is one thing, but then preserving, processing properly, eating immediately and not leaving it in the refrigerator for too long is also an important factor. In this hot weather, many foods can spoil after just one day, let alone overnight. In particular, it is necessary to be selective when buying and consuming any type of food.

Food spoils easily in hot weather.

* Do you have any recommendations for shop owners in Ho Chi Minh City during hot weather?

In hot weather, restaurant owners need to pay attention to food preservation. Many restaurants sell all day, even overnight, ensuring the quality of ingredients is extremely important because this hot weather can easily affect the quality of the dishes.

If the restaurant owner does not preserve food properly, causing customers to have stomach aches, the restaurant will have a significant impact on its business. Currently, many restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City are having difficulty doing business because during the assessment and inspection process in the past time, we have recorded many places closing down and not operating anymore.

For restaurants with air conditioning, food stored in refrigerators and freezers will maintain its quality longer, but you should not be subjective. Storing food in the refrigerator does not mean absolute safety because it still has many potential risks of cross-contamination, causing food safety problems. Restaurant owners also need to pay attention to the expiration date and quality of their ingredients.

What's special about "Food Safety Action Month" 2024?

* Street food sold in front of schools has recently caused many cases of food poisoning among students in another province and city, which is attracting public attention. How does the Department of Food Safety control this situation in Ho Chi Minh City?

Street food vendors in front of school gates are usually mobile stalls, with limited means of food preservation and difficulty in cleaning dishes. Not to mention, they move around a lot, which increases the risk of bacteria contaminating food, making it unsafe.

Things to note in processing and preserving food in hot weather

What is more worrying is that the target customers of these shops are children. We are still focusing on strictly controlling the issue of selling street food in front of schools in particular and street food in Ho Chi Minh City in general.

With 15,400 street food vendors in Ho Chi Minh City, we focus on raising awareness for them such as training, equipping them with hygienic cooking utensils. In addition, we also regularly check food supplies, invoices and documents to see where they buy meat, fish, vegetables and fruits for processing. They are also among the subjects that regularly take food samples for testing.

During the inspection, if we discover any violations that cause food safety problems, we will take immediate action. There are sushi sellers who cook rice the day before and roll it the next morning before selling it to students, which poses a huge risk to food safety.

However, the most important thing is public awareness. Parents should encourage their children to eat in the school canteen or kitchen, because the origin of food is controlled here and if there is a problem, someone will be responsible.

* On April 17, the Ho Chi Minh City Inter-sectoral Steering Committee on Food Safety held a launching ceremony for the 2024 Food Safety Action Month with the theme: "Continuing to ensure food security and safety in the new situation". What are the outstanding activities of this Action Month, Madam?

Strengthening inspection and examination is one of the main activities of this year's Food Safety Action Month, in the context of many challenges and risks like this.

The launching ceremony of the Month of Action for Food Safety 2024 took place on the morning of April 17.

We have had plans for inspections by food safety management teams in 21 districts and Thu Duc City, as well as the deployment of interdisciplinary inspection teams from districts, market management in coordination with economic police forces, environmental police...

We focus more on surprise inspections and pay special attention to food safety in schools because I assess that this month is hot, and potential risks in school canteens and outside schools still exist.

Although we have conducted many activities in the past year to review, monitor and inspect, the risk is still there. Up to this point, no unfortunate incident has occurred, but we cannot let our guard down because the risk of food safety loss can occur at any time.

On April 17, the Ho Chi Minh City Inter-sectoral Steering Committee on Food Safety held a launching ceremony for the "Month of Action for Food Safety 2024" with the theme: "Continuing to ensure food security and safety in the new situation". The month of action takes place from April 15 to May 15, 2024.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/giam-doc-so-an-toan-thuc-pham-tphcm-pham-khanh-phong-lan-can-than-khi-an-mon-tai-song-mua-nang-nong-185240417141331297.htm