I wonder how many of us know that all those vegetables and fruits, smartened up with hygienic labels, we buy are dressed with loads of bacteria and viruses, not only externally but from inside too. Food, which was earlier considered quite safe for health has played havoc with thousands of lives in the recent years by giving way to deadly outbreaks like E.coli.
Here I am talking about vegetarian foods. The severity of the problem can be assessed just by having a glance over the figures according to which food-borne microbes have been held responsible for making about 76 million people sick every year, out of which about 3,25,000 find their selves confined to beds in the hospitals and about 5,000 ultimately die.
The root cause
The main reasons that have turned the so-called ‘good food’ into a biohazard:
1. Contaminated water, which sometimes carries several harmful bacteria – the disease mongers.
2. Sometimes, cattle or birds lingering round might also be responsible for spreading out these harmful bacteria or viruses.
3. People working in those fields may also carry these harmful bacteria with them and transfer it along with the food picked.
The solution: Simple but tough
Yes, the solution is quite easy, however, it’s would not be easy to implement and get the desired positive results out of it. As water being used for irrigation should be checked, cattle, stray animals and birds not be allowed to enter these fields and people working in these fields should also be checked.
No doubt, these methods are quite significant and may come out with excellent results on our way to curb the spread of such outbreaks. However, still I feel that these measures are incomplete so long as worldwide strategy is not carved out to tackle such situations, which would require countries round the world to adopt all such preventive methods jointly so that the seeds of such deadly outbreaks may sprout out nowhere in the world.
Via: NY Times