Food Safety

Recently I had the disadvantage of eating some food that was too long in the danger zone. As a former manager of a food service company I should have been aware of the hazard. As one of my jobs was to monitor and maintain food safety standards throughout the organizations and to perform food safety inspections. 

So after all what is food poisoning and what does it have to do with Brazil.  I live in Manaus although they have standards on the books so to speak rarely if ever are they enforced. Coming from the US we take for granted that food safety standards are enforced.  The biggest problem I have seen in my 3 years here has been the lack of adherence to time and temperature standards. Foods are kept at room temperature for over 4 hours. This could lead to the rapid growth of bacteria at the end of 4 hours at room temperature there could be millions  of live bacteria in your food.  Bacteria is alive it eats sugars and proteins and excretes waste into the food (this is what causes food poisoning).

So why is it a big deal. Many Brazilians I know talk about getting the flu quite often here when in fact I believe the culprit is food poisoning to various degrees.  The lack of adherence to food safety standards is the cause.  Food poisoning CAN KILL YOU remember you are not in the US or any other 1st world country they have a very lax attitude about food safety when it comes to this.  To many Brazilians it is OK to eat food that has sat out all day at room temperature (growing bacteria). But to me I find it disturbing that this area of public safety is ignored in Brazil.