Street brain food, anyone?

With the initial reports based from the study of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) on food safety, contaminants were found on street foods which posed some risks to the consumers’ health. DOST found traces of pathogens like salmonella and e-coli  in the food samples. Now, you as consumer can be sick with street food and what should the government do about it? It is that simple question. But the report which landed in the dailies is like scaring the public and driving them away from poor street vendors.

Truth is, DOST’s statement landed in the pages of our national newspapers. Street vending is older than the oldest of us. It was already there since time immemorial. But why does it achieve prominence or oddity, a very important element for news value, so that it has to be known nationwide? People of Davao reading that piece of news were not born yesterday. Roam around highly urbanized cities like Metro Manila and you will see the worst kind, unimaginable, and unthinkable food handling and preparation down the streets. Bucha! as you may think.

Pathogen is taken from the Greek word “patho” which means disease. It also sounds like our own “patu” or duck. Balut is one of the street foods singled out under the study to have contained some form of a bacteria. During a not-so-long-ago TV episode of the American version of Fear Factor, participants were to hurdle the stunt to eat balut eggs within 3 minutes. ”Ew”! one readily reacted seeing the weird looking 19 days embryo of the poor duck. Almost all of them failed the challenge and instead unleashed the fury through vomiting in front of the camera. Ergo, ”ew”! and “yuck”! are literally urban buzz words of eaters pretending to be strong in stomach.

Filipinos are not weak in stomach. Some may enjoy the balut, known for its high protein contents than junk foods as a snack. In the province, folks will enjoy crunching the exotic coconut crawlers like the “batud” and we do not know for sure how people around the world would react if they see it. One thing, everybody must give a hand to poor vendors who provided the stop-gaps of hunger to the poor, not pin them down. It’s the poor selling to another poor. They make clean living only that some proved to be unhygienic. Nonetheless, being poor is not also an excuse in order not to practice hygiene.

Food may not be a problem here but as pointed out by Honorable Councilor Bernard Al-ag in his privilege speech in the previous session, it lies more on food handling and preparation. There’s the rub. The problem lies on food handlers. Councilor Al-ag knows the plight of these vendors because he came from their ranks and he will rise to defend them before the halls of the august body.

Food handling may therefore be subject to regulation to arrive at the hygienic state for the gastronomers. With the cursory reading of City Ordinance No. 078, known as the Health and Sanitation Ordinance of Davao City, since these food handlers in carts engage into business, then they should secure a Sanitary Permit with the City Health Office, aside from the Health Certificate which it would appear in the law to be mandatory for ambulant food vendors, whether itinerant or non-itinerant. 

Health officials or sanitary inspectors should be particularly curious about where do these vendors source out the water they are using. How clean are the containers and utensils? E-coli in news reports can also be derived from public pools and other contaminated water sources (not only on food) which would make everybody practically be vulnerable to it. To tilt the balance between the cry of poor street vendors and clamor to public health, the former prevails consistent with the General Welfare Clause of the Local Government Code.

If the food is no longer fit for human consumption then by all means government must intervene. Even if the statement of DOST, though it will not shake up the whole population of Davao, is sweeping it is better to heed at warnings because of the presumption of regularity of another government institution competent enough to determine the safety level of consumables.

In the final analysis, what bolts in struggle is not actually the infighting of bad and good bacteria in the stomach. As they say, be cautious or exercise “caveat emptor” or let the buyer beware. But what if the buyer cannot exercise good judgment like a child? Children are the potential targets of bacteria-containing cheap foods in the streets.