Dangers from foods that we consume everyday
25 January 2023
The news is appalling, to say the least. Half of the kinds of animal sources foods, including meat, egg and milk that we consume everyday are found to have multidrug-resistant bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella, streptococcus, staphylococcus and campylobacter that are responsible for thousands of deaths each year. If this is the condition coupled with poisoned air that we breathe every day, none can hope to live a healthy life.
The study was conducted by the government collecting samples from the country's eight divisions and was published recently in a peer-reviewed open-access Swiss journal of world famous Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, one of the largest of its kind in the world.
When there is a constant threat to public health from foods, the agriculture minister a few days ago claimed that there was no health risk in consuming broiler chicken as levels of antibiotic and heavy metal found in its meat was much lower than the permission limit.
In the research, more than the livestock sources, poultry was found to be serious. According to a report of a national daily yesterday, multidrug-resistant E. coli was found in about 52 per cent of the samples of 880 poultry-derived foods compared to the 38 per cent of the samples of 1,440 livestock-source foods. Moreover, the drug-resistant staphylococcus, the second most common bacteria contaminating foods, was also found to be present more in quantity in poultry foods.
Though bacteria present in foods get killed while cooking because of heat, they can infect humans through physical contact causing diseases that can drain not only money from people but even kill them when the infection turns serious. Animal sources aside, even the foods from plant sources are often reported to have toxicity to such an extent that can cause cancer in the human body.
To save public health from food sources, it is vitally important to minimise the presence of drug resistant bacteria and toxicity in foods. Even more importantly, the government must eliminate the rampant antibiotic misuse in the country. To create an environment for healthy living is one of the most important responsibilities of the government that people want it to deliver successfully.
