Just how hygienic is the city’s street food?

No matter what time it is, whether day or night, somewhere on the streets of Dar es Salaam there is a plate of fried cassava being served with kachumbari (a popular side dish made from a combination of tomatoes, onions, salt and lemon), or a glass of fruit salad made from the tropical fruits the city avails to quench thirst and energise the passersby.

I myself am partial to the fresh fruits and juices the streets have to offer – it’s just irresistibly mouthwatering that we often ignore questions like what conditions have these been placed in, the hygiene of the food preparer or whether they wear gloves.

50-year-old Rashid Mohammed, has been vending fresh juices for almost twelve years now around the streets of the Kariakoo neighbourhoods.

“No,”, was Rashid’s first response when Your Health asked if he boils the water used to prepare the juice or whether he washes the used bottles used to package the juice that he says he collects from the streets.

Rashid justifies by saying, “For all that period of time, I have neither received complaints from my regular customers nor warning from the municipal,” adding that he even distributes the juice to municipal officers.

Rashid is one among the thousands street food vendors undertaking their activities across the country.

Dr Simon Mamuya, a Senior Lecturer at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) defines street food as ready-to-eat foods and beverages prepared and/or sold by hawkers and vendors especially in the streets and other similar public places.

“The central characteristic of street foods is that their retail location is on the street,” says Dr Mamuya in an interview with Your Health, who is also the Head of Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at MUHAS.

Responding to Rashid’s situation, Dr Mamuya warns that it is very dangerous to the health of a consumer. He says, “If the packaging bottles are not sterilised, it is as good as making people consume poison since you never know how they were initially used.”

The burden of unhygienic street food practice

The street food business has in recent years grown steadfastly in many big cities in the country including the country’s business capital, Dar es Salaam.

The food products vended range from fresh juice and fresh salads to raw milk and raw fish to name a few.

So many factors have been associated with the popularities of these street foods. “One being the increasing urbanisation and second is their affordability in terms of prices as many people in these cities live below USD1,” says Dr Mamuya who was once a regular street food junkie during his time at the university as a student.

Researchers on environmental health have found that such food products have been associated with foodborne diseases leading to several health problems to consumers.

Such is a study titled ‘Survey of physicochemical characteristics and microbial contamination in selected food locally vended in Morogoro Municipality’, which found out that the physicochemical characteristics of food vended in Morogoro Municipality were of poor quality. The food had high bacterial contaminations.

The study, which was published in BMC Research Notes in 2015, notes that raw fruit juice was stored in dirty containers and sold under unhygienic environment.

Another study titled ‘Assessment of physicochemical characteristics and hygienic practices along the value chain of raw fruit juice vended in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania’ published in Tanzania Journal of Health Research in 2014 came up with similar findings.

The study concluded that the general hygiene of vendors, premises and handling practices with regards to juice preparation, extraction methods and washing of utensils in Dar es Salaam are very poor.

Dr Mamuya, adding to the study, says that for tropical countries like Tanzania, common pathogens associated with a variety of foods, particularly street food like raw vegetables and fruits, raw milk and fresh juice can range from bacteria, virus, protozoa and even helminths.

“This can lead to a feeling of overeating, vomiting, diarrhoea, tiredness, losing appetite, or nauseating,” says Dr Mamuya adding that these can be just symptoms to other bigger health problems that can lead to a person being hospitalised.

When do you associate ‘hygiene’ with street food?

In a similar business like that of Rashid’s, one of the street vendors stationed at one of the busy streets in the city of Dar es Salaam, was surrounded by eight to nine people, hustling to pack fruits in a take-away container for his customers.

“Sh2000, sir,” he hails as soon as someone approaches his territory. He had various cut fruits such as bananas, pineapples, avocado, watermelon, oranges and others neatly arranged on a wooden cart inside a small glass case.

Below the cart was a dustbin where all wastes were kept along with used containers. “I live through this business, my bosses are my customers, I thus must strive to offer them with best services including caring about their health safety,” says the 25-year-old street vendor, Steven Gerald.

Unlike Rashid whom municipal officers do not pay attention to, Gerald, who is based in city centre says that they are monitored by the officers from the municipal. He says, “One thing we are constantly reminded is about the preservation of the fruits so that they can be safe for consumer’s health.”

In ensuring that, all fruits vendors have been asked to have a glass case where they preserve the foods.

“After chopping the fruits into pieces, I package them in the containers and I place the containers in the glass case,” says the Temeke resident Gerald while showing me his small sized glass case of about 32 inches.

John Kijumbe, the acting Health Officer at the Kinondoni Municipal Council cautions on buying and using food that are informally vended in the street adding that they can have severe health consequences including contact of food-borne disease like diarrhoea and cholera.

“It is risky to consume food products that you do not know the environment where they are prepared and how they were prepared,” he says.

Kijumbe adds that inspection of restaurants is different from that of street vendors, because vendors are often not reached since they do not have a proper address putting the safety of their products under uncertainty.

Such uncertainty is shared by one of the residents of Magomeni, 32-year-old Sabrina Ligomba. “I once drank a glass of fresh juice from the street and I ended up having diarrhoea. I have witnessed unhygeinic surrounding the vendors, which anyone would be put off by,” she says.

Ms Ligomba says that she often prefers the juice and fruits that she herself sees prepared and in that case, sugarcane juice is her choice.

Another similar concern is expressed by Waziri Kingalu, 35, a taxi driver based in Manzese who says that he stopped consuming the juice after seeing his friend suffer from diarrhoea which was associated with the juice he took from the street.

“Most of the people who make these juices pack them in used bottles, which they just collect from the streets and no one is aware whether they treat them for safety,” says Waziri, a Makumbusho resident and a father of three.

The street food is here to stay

World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2015 reports showed that there was an estimated 582 million cases of 22 different foodborne enteric diseases and 351000 associated deaths with the African region recording the highest burden for the diseases.

WHO reported that over 40 per cent of people suffering from enteric diseases caused by contaminated food were children aged under 5 years.

The study also said that Tanzania is one among the countries in danger of being attacked by the foodborne diseases unless urgent measures are taken to control the existing situation.

Despite the health risks associated with these fresh juices and salads, they are here to stay.

Some of the citizens who spoke to Your Health revealed how the consumption of the food products has connection with people’s economic ability.

“The consumption of these foods is our life. Because of our low income, consumption of cheap street food is inevitable,” says Khamis Fingo, 45, a Kinondoni resident.

It’s up to the regulating authorities, according to Khamis, to make sure that the vendors are watched constantly to make sure their products are safe for human consumption and free from any associated food-borne diseases for the health of consumers.

However, controlling and regulating the vendors is not as easy as one may think.

According to Mr Kijumbe it is problematic to control the vendors since they are different to those who conduct their business in a particular business premise, who are licensed and are inspected regularly.

“Our laws demand us to arrest the vendors and take them to court,” he says.

Interestingly, according to Mr Kijumbe that is not been normally done since the vendors are also entrepreneurs who try to make a living, saying that arresting them is like dragging them in poverty holes.