A dangerous passion
Street Food
UNB
Street food, which is very popular to the people living in urban areas like Dhaka due to its cheap price and sharp taste, is harmful to human health as it fails to ensure sufficient safety standards, say experts, reports UNB.
They said the street food are being produced in unhygienic conditions in the capital and vendors serve the food to consumers in unhealthy manner forcing them to be affected in various diseases.
Over 100 varieties of street food are being sold in the capital Dhaka. Among them, Phucka, Chotpoti, Velpuri, Samucha, Daal Puri, Lassi, Pakora, Hallim are most popular.
Many winter pithas (cakes) like vapa pitha and chitoy pitha are also very popular among the city dwellers, but all those food are being prepared and served in unhygienic conditions at makeshifts installed on footpaths.
Abdul Kalam, a rickshawpuller, was eating chitoy pitha from a makeshift shop at Mouchak intersection, which is highly dust-prone area. Sewerage pile repair continue due to ongoing Malibagh-Maghbazar flyover construction work, making those food vulnerable to health.
Sometimes I feel sick by eating street food. But I often eat the food due to its cheap priceI want to eat safe food but where will I find safe food on streets, he said.
Hafizur Rahman, a resident of Maghbazar, said he loves to eat vapa pitha during winter and frequently eat pitha from makeshift pitha shops. I do not know whether it is safe or not. But I am eating the pitha because everyone is eating it, he said. Like Kalam and Rahman, thousands of people are eating unsafe street food in the capital everyday. The consumers of the street food are mainly rickshaw puller, students, children, laborers from informal sectors. They ranged from students to businessmen, to laburers. Most of the consumers come from the lower-classed society.
A research paper shows that consumers of street food are rickshaw puller, labourers, informal sectors (43 per cent), white-collar workers (19 per cent) and students and children (12 per cent). Dr Mahfuzur Rahman Bhuiyan, a former national consultant of World Health Organization (WHO), said the street food are being contaminated in various ways. The food are being prepared with unhygienic handling. And those food are being sold in open air in a dirty city, which carry many germs, he said.
He said the vendors are using unsafe water in preparing street food and they are also reusing unsafe water in serving food to consumers, forcing them to be affected in many diseases.
A 2010 FAO study shows that 100 per cent of street food vendors have no training on food safety and food serving or handling. About 58 per cent of the vendors do not cover their food while selling.
About 63 per cent of them use supply water for drinking purposes for the consumers and almost 100 per cent of the vendors did not use hand gloves while preparing and serving food, the study says.
An icddr,b study released in February 2015 found that about 50 per cent of the street food tested was contaminated with various diarrhoea-causing bacteria, and over 40 per cent contained traces of the faecal pathogen. Bacteria can cause bloody diarrhea and, in extreme cases, kidney failure or death, it says.
Noor-E-Alam, registrar of the Liver Gastroenterology Department at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, said the street food, which are being produced in unhygienic state in the city, may increase risk of typhoid, hepatitis A and E and other waterborne diseases like cholera and diarrhea to city dwellers. Observing that patients of hepatitis A and E are on the rise in the capital due to eating unsafe street food, he said called upon the authorities concerned seal off all unregistered makeshift food shops to protect public health.
