HOW SAFE IS OUR FOOD IN SD?

Sir,

Food safety refers to the condition and practices that preserve the quality of food to prevent contamination and food-borne illnesses. The World Health Organization educates consumers about the importance of safe food handling and how to reduce the risks associated with food-borne illnesses.

A great majority of people will experience foodborne diseases at some point in their lives. This highlights the importance of making sure the food we eat is not contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria, parasites, viruses, toxins and chemicals. Food can become contaminated at any point during production, distribution and preparation.

Everyone along the production chain, from producer to consumer, has a role to play to ensure the food we eat does not cause diseases. Food safety is about handling, storing and preparing it to prevent infection and help in making sure that our food keeps enough nutrients for us to have a healthy diet.

We need to establish ourselves in terms of food safety and quality. There are a number of products brought into the country which do not meet food safety standards, yet they are allowed to enter the country. How safe is the Swazi consumer? How are we going to reach First World status when such is happening? We also produce products that do not meet quality standards as a country. All this happens because we have no foundation for quality and food safety that is functioning.

The sad part this is that there are many regulations that govern different fields in Swaziland except for food; one perfect example is the protection of the environment by construction companies. Every company has to conduct an environmental impact assessment before actual construction begins as required by the Environment Act.

Why is the case different for food producing companies in the country? We need to have laboratories conducting tests for different products, including new products, before they can be sold. These tests would lead to the determination of food expiry and best before dates. Expiry dates mean that your food has gone spoilt from that date and you should never consume it because it could lead to illnesses and in extreme cases, death.

Best before dates on the other hand tell you that the food is no longer in its perfect shape from that date. It may just lose its freshness, taste aroma or nutrients. It does not necessarily mean that the food is no longer safe to eat. An expiry date is not something we see on every food product and we need to know why certain foods cannot have best before dates.

We also need to know how to determine best before dates because certain shops have longer shelf lives than other shops for the very same product. Consumers need to have some sense of assurance that the food we consume is safe. We need to know if foods with no shelf life are even supposed to be in shops. What happens to those shops that are found to have food with elapsed shelf life or have foods with tempered shelf life dates, we need to know these things.

We need to know how safe the food we eat is; after all we are what we eat! The reason I am asking this question is because I haven’t seen one organisation fighting for food safety and quality in the country and we are not enforcing enough laws to protect Swazis.

Kwanele Magagula

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