NAFDAC says cooked food in fridge beyond three days harmful

• Alerts Nigeria to looming food safety emergency

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has cautioned Nigerians not to store cooked food in a refrigerator for more than three days, saying it is harmful to human health.
 
The Director General of NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, also called on stakeholders in the food supply chain to take deliberate actions to institute a food safety culture in their operations to mitigate risks that could compromise food safety.
 
In a statement sequel to the commemoration of World Food Safety Day (WFSD) with the theme ‘Food Safety: Prepare for the Unexpected’, she said cooked food stored in the refrigerator for days is susceptible to contamination by disease-causing pathogens, key agents of food-borne diseases that could lead to death.
 
WFSD was established in 2018 by the United Nations General Assembly after it was suggested by the Codex Alimentarius Commission as a way of raising food safety awareness and promoting collaboration across sectors.
 
Citing the World Health Organisation (WHO), she said an estimated 10 per cent of the population falls ill and 420,000 die yearly from contaminated food.
 
In developing countries, about $110 billion is lost every year on medical expenses due to unsafe food. According to Adeyeye, food safety is not only important for public health but a sine qua non for economic development and food security.  She emphasised everybody’s role, from the farm to the table, to ensure that the food is safe and will not cause damage to health.
 
For WFSD 2024, she asserted, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are asking stakeholders along the food supply chain if they are prepared to address unexpected threats to food safety in an increasingly interconnected and interlinked global food supply.

The NAFDAC DG noted food safety as a collective responsibility, adding that everyone, from producers to consumers, needed to play their part to ensure safe food.
 
Speaking on ‘Developing a Food Safety Emergency Response Plan: Implementation of the National Guidelines for Food-borne Disease Surveillance and Response’, the Director of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (FSAN), Mrs Eva Edwards, alerted that food-borne diseases were expensive, yet preventable.