Health Hygiene & Sanitation

Lesson 20 : Food Hygiene

Meat & Fish Hygiene

• It is important to note that the animal being slaughtered for consumption is healthy and clean.
• Both ante-mortem and post-mortem examination of the animal has to be done before accepting it at slaughter house.
• Examination should be done by qualified veterinarian
• Causes for rejection of animal
• Ante mortem – emaciation, exhaustion, pregnancy, sheep pox, feet rot, brucellosis, diarrhea etc.
• Post mortem – liver fluke, abscesses, tuberculosis, tape worm infections, parasitic and nodular infections of liver and lungs

How to identify good quality meat?

• Meat should be neither pale-pink nor purple hued.
• It should be firm and elastic to touch
• Meat should not be slimy.
• Odor of the meat should be agreeable.

How to identify good quality fish?

• Before consumption fish should be stiff, with bright red gills.
• It’s eyes should be clear and prominent.
• If fish is tinned, then the tin must be new and clean with no leakages nor rusting.
• There should not be tampering of the tin before consumption.
• If on opening the tin, the contents blow off, it indicates decomposition and such fish should be not consumed.

Hygiene of slaughter house

• Slaughter houses are the places where animals (whose flesh in intended for human consumptions) are killed.
• Model Public Health Act (1955) set guidelines as following:
• Location: away from residential areas
• The floor and walls (not less than 3 feet) should be impervious and easy to clean.
• Water supply should be continuous, adequate, and independent.
• Meat collected should be stored in fly/ vermin proof rooms.
• Meat should be transported in fly proof van
• Animals other than those which are to be slaughtered should not be allowed in the shed.

Diseases transmitted from unhygienic meat/ fish?

• Tape worm infestations
• Tape worm
• Trichinella spiralis
• Fish tape worm
• Bacterial infections
• Anthrax
• TB
• Food poisoning
• fish poisoning
• Cholera
• Hepatitis A etc.