With eating out growing increasingly popular in urban centres across Guyana, local public health officials are paying increasing attention to the health risks associated with the practice. Officials of the Municipal Public Health Department are talking about the ‘shortcuts’ adopted by some vendors of both raw and cooked food which, they say, pose potentially serious health risks to consumers. Visits by municipal Meat and Food inspectors to supermarkets, restaurants, butcher shops, beer gardens and the numerous food stalls in Georgetown and its environs reveal irregularities in food storage and preparation that are disturbing.
Chief Meat and Food Inspector, Jackdeep Singh says that while as many as 98 per cent of registered food handlers voluntarily procure their annual compliance certificates from City Hall, his inspectors “on the ground” have discovered that many retailers fail to adhere to the stated requirements especially regarding food temperatures. “Hot food must be kept hot and cold food should be kept cold,” he says; and that includes the salads and custards which are sometimes served to customers at room temperature. Chilled foods really ought to be kept at temperatures between o and 4 degrees centigrade;
Concern is also being expressed over what has now become the commonplace practice among both restaurants of
