The Importance of High Quality Foods

The Importance of High
Quality Foods
Esor

Quality Foods
Do you remember that one time when you were hungry and dashed into a nearby restaurant to grab
a meal? Upon finishing the meal you went through your day as nothing has happened. Along the
way, your tummy starts to rumble, find yourself rushing to the bathroom and in most extreme cases,
find yourself in the hospital. That is a clear case of food contamination.
The above scenario would have been avoided if high-quality food had been consumed. High-quality
foods consumption is one of the most important links in reducing body and food-borne illnesses.
About Quality Foods
Purchase Now
Quality according to the 1970 Agricultural Yearbook has been defined as, “the measure and
expression of goodness”. Therefore, quality foods are the highest standard of goodness in a food
product that is acceptable to consumers.
There are both external and internal factors when examining for the quality standard of food. For
the external part, emphasis should be placed on shape, size, color, gloss, and consistency of look and
federal grade standards while for the internal part of the quality control process, chemical and
microbial components need to be tested to see if it meets the high-quality standard for
consumption.
There is a need to establish that institutions and food buyers have a relatively different set of
standards when it comes to quality food. As far back as the 13th century, quality foods regulation
were in force e.g. the King of England prohibiting the adulteration of bread and the ban on the
dyeing of butter laid down in Paris in 1396.
GuideLINES AND policies for Quality Foods
Globally, there are various food stakeholders that ensure the maintenance of the high-quality foods
standard across the supply food chain. From the growing, to food service to the retail stores, all
bodies have certain guidelines and policies to ensure they are serving the highest quality of food
products to the end consumers. They include;
Codex Alimentarius - Originally published in 1979. It is also known as the “Food Code”. It is a
collection of guidelines and standard practices globally to harmonize the system and ensure fair

trade practices across all member states of the WHO and United Nations with the target aim of
protecting the health of consumers.
ATP Agreement - This is an agreement adopted by nothing less than 20 countries and establishes a
guide for international transport of perishable foodstuffs on temperature controlled equipment
across Europe. Food covered includes frozen, deep-frozen and non frozen foodstuffs (milk, meat,
dairy products, and fresh vegetables) that need to be transported at refrigerated temperature. As of
2016, 50 countries are guided by this agreement across Europe and Central Asia.
HACCP - This is a management system which ensures food safety through preventive measure
control of biological, chemical and physical hazards through raw materials handling straight to
finished product consumption. This guideline is especially recommended for juice and meat handling
in the US as a form of effective approach to food safety and public health.
To meet these rigorous standards, food manufacturers must ensure that they monitor and use the
best analytical techniques to examine food materials before, during and after the production
process to ensure the finished products meets the appropriate standard.
From the consumer point of view, quality takes on a whole new meaning as they lack the various
tools to do an objective measurement of production, processing, and distribution. The average food
buyer when it comes to quality foods is more concerned about the feel, texture, odor, sound it
makes and written labels. If the opportunity presents itself, the food buyer will go a step further to
taste.
Questions on, how was it grown? Does the food product contain chemicals? Plus concerns of the
nutritional value been lost across the factory processing of the food products are some of the
concerns shared by consumers. Of all the concerns shared, colour and uniformity of size tend to get
most of the focus. Perhaps, consumers give these two factors way too much emphasis than needed
as exterior colour has nothing to do what is inside and uniform colours do not determine how good
the food is.
In 2018, there was an outbreak of E.coli in a farm located in Arizona. It was due to production of
romaine lettuce. Hopefully for the year 2019, the FDA is able to review this farm more often to
ensure that this does not happen again.