Food Safety issues and Related Standards: Awareness and Knowledge of Home Food Makers in Ludhiana

摘要

The results revealed that the mean awareness mean awareness score of all the respondents came out to be 9.25 out of a maximum of 15, indicating that the respondents were considerably aware (61.7%) about the food safety issues. The High mean awarenessscores were in respondents >45 years, post graduates, respondents with annual family income of more than Rs. 5 lacs. Respondents belonging to Urban High Income category were having the highest awareness score(72.5%) while the Rural High Income category were least aware (52.1%)of food safety issues. An enquiry about the knowledge of various food safety standards prevalent revealed highest awareness for ISI standards, followed by Agmark standard, FPO and MPO. Only 14.17% of the respondents were aware about HACCP. Further it was seen that the urban respondents(25.83%) were having better awareness about the food standards as compared to the rural respondents(2.50%). A significant negative correlation was found between food safety awareness with the incidence of food borne diseases.