Food Safety Depends On Every Link In The Supply Chain
Colorful fish and vegetables can be purchased at a public market.
For communities to be nourished, their food supply must be safe to eat.
This sounds obvious, but it's worth repeating, because every year, about 1 in 10 people worldwide (or about 600 million people) become sick from contaminated food, and 420,000 lose their lives. About 125,000 of those deaths annually are children under 5 years old—a disproportionate tragedy that comes at the expense of our future.
And in low- and mid-income countries, US$110 billion is lost every year in productivity and medical expenses resulting from unsafe food, per World Health Organization (WHO) data. Addressing food safety is truly crucial not just to our lives but to our livelihoods, our economic success, and the well-being of every aspect of the food system.
World Food Safety Day, on June 7, is a perfect opportunity for everyone around the globe to recommit to ensuring a safe food supply for all.
'Food safety is not just about preventing harm,' says Markus Lipp, Senior Food Safety Officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. 'It is about creating confidence and trust in the food we eat, in the systems that protect us, that protect food safety and in the institutions that serve the public good for safe food.'
So how do we ensure the future of food is safe?
First: Food safety is not isolated—every link along the food chain must prioritize safety. Food safety begins on fields and farms, with healthy soils and positive growing practices, and continues through processing, transportation, cooking, and serving.
This whole-system approach can be truly transformative. In fact, many of the 200+ diseases 'that we know can be carried by food are preventable and sometimes even eradicable,' says Luz María De Regil, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO.
Second: We can't just respond to challenges that currently exist; we have to be prepared to face unprecedented and complex challenges to food safety as the climate crisis worsens. According to the WHO, the changing climate will affect the persistence and occurrence of bacteria, viruses, parasites, harmful algae, and fungi—and the vectors that spread them.
'We're going to have emerging pathogens coming in, especially given that the climate is changing…microbes like hot, humid, wet environments,' said Barbara Kowalcyk, an Associate Professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.
Third: Perhaps most urgently, we need to champion evidence-based policymaking and global cooperation. This year's World Food Safety Day highlights this, focusing particularly on the 'essential role of science in ensuring food safety and enabling informed decision-making.' Now more than ever, we need to devote more resources to scientific progress, international collaboration, and solid regulatory frameworks—not less.
But recent cuts to research funding and staff in the United States by the Trump-Vance Administration, including in food safety inspection labs, are having concerning ripple effects across the globe. Foodborne illness outbreaks could become harder to detect and contain, leading to more people in more widespread areas getting sick, experts warn.
In addition, the dismantling of the U. S. Agency for international Development (USAID) shuttered several Feed the Future Innovation Labs, which brought university research to countries including Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Guatemala to design and implement food safety interventions in poultry production, post-harvest crop storage, farmers markets, households, and more.
So this World Food Safety Day, WHO's calls to action encourage all of us—policymakers, business leaders, and eaters—to step up. Communities can find ways to apply the WHO's Global Strategy for Food Safety 2022-2030, to ensure that all people, everywhere, consume safe and healthy food. And initiatives like the GAIN's EatSafe program and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which aims to standardize evidence-based food safety protocols in ways that respect local culture, offer models to learn from.
I often think of something Abdou Tenkouano told me last year. At that time he was the Executive Director of CORAF, an organization in West and Central Africa that uses agriculture to build community resilience, and now he's Director General at icipe, which uses insect science to tackle food security, health, and environmental challenges in Africa.
'This is a global village,' he said. 'We are all interconnected, interdependent, interlinked.'
And when it comes to food, we all have a responsibility to keep one another safe.
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I Was Today Years Old When I Learned That These 23 Things Can Kill You
Listen — we all know the internet can be a horrific, dark place, but it can also be an incredible resource that teaches you things you're shocked you had no idea about. You know — those things that you feel like there should've been a high school "how to be an adult" class on? Well, this post is exactly what I'm talking about here. Both Redditors and members of the BuzzFeed Community shared the simple — and sometimes seemingly harmless things — that, believe it or not, can actually kill you. I'll be honest, I had no idea about half of these, and these people have probably saved my butt a time or two. Here are 23 unexpectedly deadly things they shared: 1."Leaving food out on the counter." —u/Ok_Application7142 "I made garlic-infused olive oil once. Left it out because that's how I always saw it on people's counters. Used it a few weeks later. I got botulism. I was out for four whole days, writhing in pain with nothing left to expel. 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Go to a doctor to get an animal bite cleaned." —sdk "Cat scratches, too, especially for people with compromised immune systems." —jcorey1513 Contrary to the name, both cat scratches and bites can lead to Cat Scratch Fever — a bacterial infection your cat can give you if they've been bitten by a flea. 4."Giving infants water to drink. It doesn't have to be much; water intoxication can kill them very easily." —u/19Thanatos83 5."For adults: Drinking lots of water while also trying to be 'healthy' by going low-sodium can mess you up badly if your potassium levels go too low. I did that and spent a week in a coma." "Now I have to take supplements, drink lots of Gatorade, and put lots of salt in/on my foods, or my blood pressure plunges, and I have to worry about falling in the shower because my compression socks are off." —shelleye "Water toxicity isn't limited to babies, BTW. Once I got a migraine on a hot day. I called the doctor, and he told me to drink more water. So I did. It got worse, and I started to get nauseated. He said, again, to drink more water. So I did. He failed to ask, at the beginning, how much water I had already been drinking. Which was A LOT. More than most people. Cut to later that day. I came to in my sister's living room. I had made it there on the bus, but I didn't remember how. I was confused and acting really weird. I had thrown up several times, then I fell asleep. She thought I was just really sick. I realized later that I had water toxicity. I could've died, all because the doctor didn't bother to ask how much water I was drinking and assumed my migraine (which I got ALL the time) had been from dehydration. There is too much of a good thing." —pandamama710 When things like overconsuming water affect the sodium levels in your blood (like the latter story), it's called hyponatremia. When this, like in the former case, affects your potassium levels specifically (as potassium is an electrolyte), it's called hypokalemia. 6."Rags covered in linseed oil can spontaneously combust when left in a pile. I randomly discovered this fact in a Reddit post titled, "The new guy burned down our workshop." A carpenter I know confirmed that this is a real thing. I've been getting into refinishing old furniture, so I'm glad I learned this now. You'd think it'd be more common knowledge!" —u/doctor_x "I'm sure most people know this, but it doesn't have to be linseed oil; basically any type of combustible liquid can have the same reaction. Oil, gasoline, kerosene, paint thinner, etc. Always store your dirty rags in a metal, fireproof canister designed for that purpose. Bonus items that can, under the right circumstances, burst into flames: grains, animal manure, hay, woodchips. While some people just want to see the world burn, some seemingly benign items do, too." —srandlett25 "My cousin nearly died in a house fire from this. My aunt's dog saved his life. And yes, they both survived." —kelseyc48a791d61 According to NASA, this is a reaction known as auto-oxidation. Essentially, linseed oil — which is a "self-ignition combustible" — reacts with the oxygen in the air and can spontaneously heat, thus causing a fire. 7."A dental infection. I went to grief support meetings, and a woman there lost her son to an impacted tooth that spread infection to his brain." —u/jefuchs "I worked in a dental office for a good while, and we had a patient with chronic periodontal disease and a small tooth abscess that wasn't coming in for treatments as directed, and wasn't taking prescribed antibiotics as directed. Next thing we heard, she was in the ICU with endocarditis, among other things that they linked directly to the infection in her mouth. She survived and got some of it treated in the hospital, but as soon as she could, she was in our office like clockwork for the rest of her treatments." —s45b9ebeb9 8."If potatoes are not stored properly and become rotten, they produce a toxic gas called solanine and can make a person unconscious if they've inhaled enough, and result in death in some cases. There was a news article back in 2013 of an entire family in Russia that was killed by it." —u/Moon_Jewel90 "I about died from this as a kid. My grandma had a potato box in her kitchen, which is exactly what it sounds like. It was a wooden box about the size of a trash can and had a lid on top that she stored potatoes in. When I was 10 or so, I was playing in the kitchen, and I got curious about it. I was never especially interested because, like, it was a potato box. What do I wanna look at some potatoes for? But for whatever reason, I got curious, opened the lid, and woke up on the floor sometime later with my chest burning so badly that I could barely draw breath to cry for what felt like ages. I didn't find out why exactly that happened until I was an adult and saw a comment like this on Reddit, but I was scared to even go NEAR that damn potato box for the rest of my childhood." —u/Zazulio 9."Flowing water that is only inches deep can still have the strength to sweep you away if you're not careful." —u/akumamatata8080 "When I was a kid, one of my friends died this way. The family was crossing a shallow river in a Landcruiser Troopcarrier with lifted suspension, and the undercurrent swept the car away immediately. The mom, dad, and sister escaped in time, but my mate (around 7 years old) couldn't undo his seatbelt fast enough and drowned." —u/Mike9601 and u/commiecomrade 10."Mixing bleach and ammonia when you clean produces a toxic gas that will make you REALLY sick. " —u/Any_Assumption_2023 "This is why you don't use bleach to clean litter boxes!" —j458091739 Bleach + ammonia = chloramine gas, which — when inhaled — can cause coughing, nausea, shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, pneumonia, and fluid in the lungs. 11."Pressure washers are quite lethal." —u/floydie1962 "Can confirm: pressure washers are dangerous. Mine stripped a layer of my sandal sole off when I accidentally blasted my foot with it, and it stung for about a day. It wasn't a super duper ultra-powerful pressure washer, either." —u/swithinboy59 "I was just using one about a month ago, and like a dummy, I stuck my hand out and it sliced my finger wide open. It was just like getting cut with a dull knife, it hurt like a MF." —zmyersmyers" 12."Going to sleep while drunk and choking on your own vomit. Always lay your drunk friends on their side and lift their chin to open their airways. DO NOT lay them on their backs. 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Now I know, but people think I am nuts when I tell them to put their kids in the house when cutting the grass." —luckyangel30 20."Playing in a deep hole at the beach. Everyone forgets how heavy dirt actually is." —u/GuiltyLawyer and u/Is_Unable "When I was a little kid, there was a construction project at my school, and there were trenches. They did a demonstration where they took the strongest kid in the school of 1,000 students and had him lie down on the stage. Someone placed a bucket of soil on his chest, and then he tried to stand up. He couldn't move it. They even supported the bucket to make sure he wouldn't get hurt from it being too much weight. That was educational." —u/St_Kevin_ 21."Hitting your head. r/TBI is full of stories about simple slips and falls that resulted in death and lasting effects. I simply fell on ice at work once. Bam! Unconscious. I woke up saying I was OK but got talked into getting in an ambulance. I started dying in the ambulance from a severe brain bleed. I was in a coma and was expected to die, but I survived. I lost most of my memory, emotional stability, the ability to easily make new memories, and a ton of IQ. Still…in all, I'm not dead!" —u/cbelt3 "Always protect your head! I worked in a mental hospital with a Neurology Department. We had SO MANY kids and grown folks who had serious brain damage from a head blow that didn't seem that serious at first. In particular, I remember a little boy who was climbing a fence and fell, hitting the concrete below. He ended up in a wheelchair with a mental age of 2-3 years for life. In addition, you would be shocked at how many women ended up having seizures and brain damage from being whacked in the head by their men." —luckyangel30 22."A grape. My wife had a friend/coworker whose young daughter choked to death in front of her and her mother. They tried to dislodge the grape, but nothing worked. By the time an ambulance got there, the girl was brain dead. It's about the worst thing I can imagine as a parent. We were cutting our kids' grapes in half until they were 10 after that happened." —u/jpiro finally, "Confined spaces. If it only has one way in and out, especially if it is below ground, there is a very real possibility that there isn't enough oxygen in there to support life. Even something as simple as rusting metal can remove the oxygen from the air, and if there isn't airflow going through the space, the oxygen-depleted air won't be replaced. Other processes can remove oxygen or produce actively toxic gases. This sort of thing often kills more than one person, as the first person to find the victim goes in to rescue them and becomes the second victim." —u/SuspiciouslyMoist Do you know of a simple thing like these that can accidentally kill people? If so, tell us about it in the comments below. Note: Submissions have been edited for length, clarity, and factual accuracy.
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