Food Hygiene and Applied Food Microbiology in an Anthropological Cross Cultural Perspective

The book demonstrates that food safety is a multidisciplinary scientific discipline thatis specifically designed to prevent foodborne illness to consumers. It is generally assumedto be an axiom by both nonprofessionals and professionals alike, that the mostdeveloped countries, through their intricate and complex standards, formal trainingsand inspections, are always capable of providing much safer food items and beveragesto consumers as opposed to the lesser developed countries and regions of the world. Clearly, the available data regarding the morbidity and the mortality in different areasof the world confirms that in developing countries, the prevalence and the incidence ofpresumptive foodborne illness is much greater. However, other factors need to be takeninto consideration in this overall picture: First of all, one of the key issues in developingcountries appears to be the availability of safe drinking water, a key element in anyfood safety strategy. Second, the availability of healthcare facilities, care providers, andmedicines in different parts of the world makes the consequences of foodborne illnessmuch more important and life threatening in lesser developed countries than in mostdeveloped countries.  It would be therefore ethnocentric and rather simplistic to statethat the margin of improvement in food safety is only directly proportional to thelevel of development of the society or to the level of complexity of any given nationalor international standard. Besides standards and regulations, humans as a whole haveevolved and adapted different strategies to provide and to ensure food and water safetyaccording to their cultural and historical backgrounds. Our goal is to discuss and tocompare these strategies in a cross-cultural and technical approach, according to the realities of different socio-economic, ethnical and social heritages.