Many households in Ireland are at risk because of poor food safety knowledge and practices in the home, according to research funded by safefood, the Food Safety Promotion Board.
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The collaborative study, entitled ‘Food practices in the home, what are the risks?’ was conducted by the Department of Food Science at Queen’s University, Belfast and the Department of Agribusiness Extension and Rural Development at University College Dublin.
Dr. David McCleery, chief specialist, microbiology, safefood was involved in the research project. He used an innovative research method to record food safety behaviour in homes throughout the island of Ireland. The researchers scored one thousand consumer responses to a video, which highlighted 17 different food hazards relating to shopping, storage and food preparation. Dr. McCleery found that no one was able to identify all potential food safety hazards. Nine potential hazards relating to specifically to food preparation were shown to consumers and only half were able to identify four or more of the hazards shown.
“These results indicate the real need for education on food safety in the home. Continuously using simple hygienic practices in the kitchen will reduce the risk of transmission of foodborne pathogens, within the home,” said Dr. McCleery.
“In fact, the study reassuringly indicated that food safety education does work because those who had recently been exposed to food safety information, or who had a qualification in food, scored significantly higher, as did women and those who regularly shop and prepare food,” he said.
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By GlobalData“Supporting this on-going project reflects safefood’s commitment to meeting consumer’s needs, in terms of food safety and nutritional information and also how this information can be more easily accessed. The results of this work will be used to help inform safefood’s future consumer education activities,” he said.
The findings of Dr. McCleery’s research were also reflected in the data presented by Dr. Anne Markey from UCD, who conducted a study involving over 3,000 school children in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, this time using a food diary approach.
Dr. Markey discovered that 60% of the children’s households surveyed had at least one risky practice in the kitchen. She found that 1/3 of households stored raw meat above the cooked meat in the fridge, which can allow the cooked food to be more easily contaminated from drips and spills. 12% of people stored food beyond its sell by date.
“A common theme emerging from many food safety studies is that a substantial proportion of foodborne diseases are attributable to improper food safety practices in consumers’ homes. With over 3,000 households involved in this study, it paints a very sizeable picture of the lack of food safety practices in homes. As food safety practices in the home are our last line of defence against foodborne diseases, it is clear that there is a real need to educate consumers and increase their knowledge of food safety,” said Dr. Markey.
The primary objective of this research was to study food safety behaviour in the home. However, the research also provides insights into the dietary habits of 9-11 year olds on the island of Ireland. Preliminary analysis of school lunch boxes and one day food diaries examined by Dr. Roy Nelson of Loughry Campus of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise indicates that children are being given too little fruit, fibre, carbohydrates and dairy foods and relatively too much energy dense – nutrient poor foods, such as sweets, crisps and sugary drinks.
