Public Health Basics: Food Safety
When we think of food safety, we often picture restaurant inspections, but many of the rules that keep our food safe today were shaped by history, tragedy, and scientific discovery. Food safety standards have increased greatly since the early 1900s in America. Some of these standards are often enforced by the local health department. The guidance and regulations provided to restaurants and kitchens are also recommended when cooking at home. This includes things like cooking meat to a specified temperature and keeping items like those in a salad bar or dairy case from overheating. While strict standards can contribute to some food waste or be hard to remember, they are in place to minimize bacteria and viral spread. Cooking and refrigeration temperatures are provided by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prevent bacteria like Salmonella or Escherichia coli (commonly called E. coli) from spreading and causing illness. Both Salmonella and E coli are bacteria that can infect people through contaminated food or drinking water. While rare, these infections can lead to severe complications, even including death.
You can take actions in your own home to reduce foodborne illness, such as keeping food out of the “danger zone” of 40°F to 140°F. Heating and reheating foods to the minimum temperature can also help prevent illness. You can find a list of recommended temperatures for different types of food on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) website. In addition to temperature guidelines and requirements, other food safety measures have been implemented during the last century. Perhaps you have seen the signs that read “All employees must wash hands before returning to work” or have heard that employees cannot work when sick. These increased hygiene requirements came after incidents such as Mary Mallon’s asymptomatic cases of Typhoid Fever.
Working as a cook in the early 1900s, Mary unknowingly spread Typhoid Fever to dozens of people. Once contact tracing identified her as “patient zero”, or the start of the outbreak, she was ordered to stop cooking for others. She eventually began cooking again under a new name, and was re-discovered after she spread Typhoid Fever to more restaurant patrons. She became known as “Typhoid Mary.” Her story demonstrates how disease pathogens are invisible, people can be asymptomatic, and spread these pathogens through food preparation. Other bugs can be passed through the “fecal-oral route.” This is how many parasitic diseases spread in the wild, and can be how diseases like Hepatitis A or parasitic infections spread person-to-person. This is why washing hands for 20 seconds, including under the finger nails and between fingers is especially important after using the restroom.
Food processing facilities also have rigorous standards that are set in place by the FDA and USDA. Rigorous standards for meat-packing facilities were placed after the conditions of plants were shared widely in 1905 and 1906 in a work of fiction curated by documents of real life accounts. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair documented the dangerous conditions that men working in the meat-packing industry faced, along with the spread of disease. These regulations addressed the dangerous conditions in plants exploiting workers, and disease spread through the animals that were likely not properly inspected or waste not properly disposed of. The modern day FDA also ensures that food does not have high amounts of other harmful ingredients such as lead, mercury, or other contaminants.
The inspections and regulations that increased during the 1900s depend on vigilance by regulators, businesses, and home cooks. Learn more about restaurant inspections in Cortland County and New York State requirements by visiting the County’s webpage.
Many of the topics in the “Public Health Basics” series are expanded from information provided in the book A History of Public Health: from Past to Present.
