Physical Contaminants: A Silent Food Safety Risk?

Abstract

Whereas biological and chemical food safety contaminants have attracted considerable research attention, little is known about physical food safety contaminants. This study will therefore explore consumer knowledge and experiences of physical food contaminants in ready-to-eat-foods sold on the streets in Ghana. A self-administered questionnaire will be used to collect data from 305 consumers and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. It is that physical contaminants were mostly present in street vended foods.  Victims of these did not discard the implicated food but continued eating and subsequently repurchased food from the same vendors citing reasons such as “the food was tasty”. Short term effects reported after accidental consumption included pain in the teeth and bruised gums. Effective food safety training among food handlers focused on the dangers associated with physical contaminants as well as employing more stringent supervision during food preparation processes is imperative.

 Keywords: Food safety knowledge; practices; food safety contaminants; street foods