Consumer concern about the safety of our food supply seems to be increasing on a daily basis. Americans watch in horror as some of the world's leading food companies have become entangled in a growing food-safety scandal traced back to milk ingredients from China. Concerns over imported ingredients surfaced again, when the Chinese government acknowledged widespread melamine contamination of infant formula for sale in China, resulting in four deaths and tens of thousands of very sick babies. It has become apparent that the problem included finished products containing milk-derived ingredients from China for sale in Asia and the South Pacific. Consumers are now asking questions about where companies buy the hundreds of ingredients in food products for sale in North America.



As well as concerns about food sources and problems arising from questionable ingredients, this past year has seen numerous recalls of food products due to bacterial contamination. Items such as ground beef, spinach, lettuce, frozen pizza, to name just a few, had to be pulled from the shelves and destroyed because they posed a serious public health risk. Recent outbreaks of salmonella in the food supply have brought the restaurant and foodservice industry into the news of late. Thousands of people have been sickened by consuming products that had been infected with dangerous bacteria such as e-coli and Listeria monocytogenes.

There are many ways that food can be contaminated with dangerous bacteria. Inadequate hygiene, cross-contamination, improper storage, and contamination of food by animal waste are some of the factors that can contribute to food borne illness. The common housefly is a particularly dangerous carrier of bacteria and other harmful micro-organisms. Flies can carry over 1 million bacteria on their legs and in their saliva. The pathogens that they carry can cause disease in animals and humans, such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis, and a host of food-borne diseases.

Flies are not only a nuisance pest but they are a carrier of disease and can harbor any one of over 100 different pathogenic organisms, including salmonella, staphylococcus and e-coli. Thankfully, some companies have begun offering fly control and fly extermination products to combat the problems associated with flies passing on illnesses and bacteria through food.

A fly can infect food merely by landing on it. The house fly and the horse fly are dangerous insects because they carry bacteria and disease from the most disgusting places onto food. They have the filthy habit of regurgitating food from their gut as they feed, and excreting faecal pellets onto food and onto food preparation surfaces. They are attracted by the odour of decaying organic matter where they breed and feed. An effective insect control system can drastically reduce the chance of food contamination by bacteria carrying houseflies. This is extremely important for restaurants, food manufacturers, livestock processors, grocery stores, and for anyone in the foodservices industry who is concerned about the health and safety of the products they sell.

While recent events have proven it is often difficult to know whether the food that we purchase is safe, consumers should know that the American food supply is the safest in the world. By reading product labels and practicing safe food handling techniques and proper sanitation, consumers can significantly decrease the chance of becoming sick from the food they eat.