Busy are the city dwellers, busier are the road side fast food. At the current over crowding industrial age people seldom find time to cook healthy food. They opt for the road side restaurants. People pay for the under cooked food and eat it with standing ovation
Now the big question is “How safe are these road side food courts?”
Awareness about the threats posed by unsafe food is an essential prerequisite to healthy food habits. Unsafe food harbors harmful pathogens which can cause infection in our digestive system and lead to a minor enteric infection to fatal food poisoning. Let us go ahead and see in detail about the ill effects caused by unsafe and unhygienic food material.
To start with let us get to know about the enteric pathogens and enteric fever. Enteric pathogens are bacteria and protozoa like salmonella and amoeba which cause enteric fever when ingested through these unsafe foods. The notorious enteric diseases are typhoid and amoebiasis.
When we ingest under cooked and unsafe foods these pathogens enter our system and cause initial symptoms like:
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- Diarrhea
- Dizziness
- Fever
When food is cooked properly with quality ingredients, these pathogens are totally killed. But most of the road side food stalls use degraded and low quality ingredients. At these road side food shops, the cooking methods are also unsafe. Moreover there are fecal contaminations in the food which could probably be the most dangerous factor accompanying unsafe food.
Due to improper sanitation and unclean cooking habits, there is a high risk of fecal contamination in these unsafe food materials. Consequently, the individual who intakes the food becomes an easy victim of enteric infection in case his immune apparatus is considerably weak.
Another common occurrence associated with the road side food intake is food poisoning. This is an impact of the toxic substance generated by the pathogenic bacteria dwelling in the unsafe food.
Considering these lurking dangers associated with unsafe and unhygienic foods supplied at road side food stalls, it is highly advisable that we avoid eating food material prepared by these sub standard stalls.
There goes an adage “Prevention is better than cure”. Let’s follow healthy food habits and protect our gut and digestive system from harmful effects of enteric pathogens.
To view a complete list of toxic pathogens refer to the website www.microbexpert.com. This site offers a comprehensive A-Z list of microorganisms. There are additional details about the theoretical facts and characteristics of microorganisms like bacteria, algae, virus, fungi, and protozoa.