Danger on the Streets

An informative article about street vendors and food safety from the World Health Organization (WHO). The article, "Street food boom in Ghana spurs calls for better hygiene," could be about food vendors and fool safety anywhere in the world. But one cannot help but notice that the rules in Ghana make more sense than they do in Chicago.

Street food vendors provide cheap meals for thousands of Accra’s citizens but concerns over foodborne diseases have led to efforts by the Ghanaian authorities to improve food safety and encourage vendors to adopt more hygienic practices.

Street vendors like Tawiah in Accra say they were unaware of the dangers until they attended the workshops and could unintentionally have been poisoning some of their customers. “Vendors were horrified when we told them that their food was potentially hazardous,” said Keith Tomlins, a food safety and quality scientist at the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom. At the moment, the city authorities grant permits and health certificates to vendors after medical screening of vendors and testing of their knowledge about food hygiene. FULL ARTICLE...