At least wash your hands better!

Despite all the technological advances of the past century, there is one basic thing that people have simply not yet managed to learn: to wash their hands. Diseases and germs will not spread so widely if people could only start doing this properly.

This was the message from Prof Stephen Forsythe, a retired professor in microbiology at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, and author of The Microbiology of Safe Food, which is widely prescribed to university students. He was the opening speaker at an afternoon session on the future role of science in maintaining food safety. The event, hosted by the Centre for Food Safety at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Food Science, was widely supported by members of the local food industry.

Forsythe gave an overview of future trends that he thinks will impact on food safety. He mentioned the influence of climate change and a growth in insect farming and related products. He also noted that consumers are increasingly looking for more plant-based protein products, and food lower in additives. Antimicrobial resistance is also a growing source of concern in the food industry.

“We have no other choice than to adapt to these trends, because they are here to stay,” he said.

Forsythe said most of the 8 914 food products that were withdrawn from the world market between 2008 and 2018 were raw fish, prepared food and nuts and fruit. This was mostly due to the occurrence of undeclared ingredients that could cause allergic reactions, and the prevalence of germs such as salmonella.

According to Forsythe, four cases of food poisoning were reported daily in the US. He said that infections were a worry in ageing populations, as older people were more susceptible to infections, and therefore standards around food safety needed to be intensified.

Forsythe said technology to test for incidences of diseasecausing organisms have improved drastically over the past years. He added that many problems related to infections and germs could be curbed if people were just able to follow basic standards of hygiene in homes, factories and on farms. Engela Duvenhage, on behalf of the Faculty of Agrisciences, Stellenbosch University