TRUTH ABOUT STREET FOODS

Street foods are ready to eat foods bought from hawkers or outside vendors, food carts and fast foods. According to a 2007 study from the Food and Agriculture organization, 2.5 billion people eat street foods everyday. Street foods are very common all over the world, there's literally no region you'll go to without seeing a restaurant or food cart nearby. People usually purchase food for a number of reasons such as convenience, to get flavorful food for a reasonable price, a bachelor who is lazy to cook a meal or even  family just wanting to hang out and eat out. 

Rising concerns of street foods includes health hazards and sanitation issues, illegal usage of public or private areas, social and ethical problems and traffic congestion. In 2002, a sampling of 511 street foods in Ghana by the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that most had microbial counts within the accepted limits and a different sampling of 15 street foods in Calcutta showed that they were not nutritionally well balanced, providing roughly 200 kcal of energy per rupee of cost. When I was in school, I would always want to purchase food from outside the school premises because of the different flavorful taste it usually gives me when consuming. The area around where I bought the food was always usually dirty and the gutter was very much exposed, flies and all sort of flying insects would be all around but i would not even care I just want to buy my food and get back into the campus and consume it with a matter of urgency. As I studied further and grew in knowledge about this subject matter, I realized I should stop eating from places with unsanitary practices as it can seriously affect my health unknowingly in a certain way. It can even lead to food poisoning probably unknown to the food sellers around that area. Most times these food vendors don't actually care about where they stay to sell their food as long as they sell and people struggle for their food. Meat sellers, fish sellers, market place in general, although people will say this is Nigeria and whatever you see take am like that, lol, but the truth of the mater is that our health should be our priority because it determines your life or death. Market places are usually always very unsanitary especially even when rain falls. It's even in market places that you see people touching food items before they buy it and some people might not even end up buying it but they still touched it and that can spread microorganism probably even unknown to the seller or the buyer. It is very essential to be mindful where you purchase your food items from. In the UK, the food standards Agency has provided comprehensive guidance of food safety for the vendors, traders and retailers of the street food sector since 2000. Other effective ways of enhancing the safety of street foods includes mystery shopping programs, training, rewarding programs to vendors, regulatory governing and membership management programs and technical testing programs. 

Let's be wise when consuming street foods.