3.3.4. Food products and related food-borne diseases
Substantial food safety knowledge gaps were identified when
food handlers were asked about food products and related foodborne
diseases. Actually, only 36.3% of food handlers knew that
smelling, tasting or visually checking food is not a appropriate to
evaluate food safety.
Our results showed that 45.8% of all food handlers could identify
UHT milks as a sterile food. Nevertheless, it is of note that about the
same percentage of all food handlers (45.0%) answered that
pasteurized milk is a sterile food. Our results indicated that >70% of
participants knew that food such as beef, eggs or poultry, when not
properly cooked, can cause serious food-borne diseases. Among
them, only 55.6% of Greek respondents knew that undercooked
beef might be dangerous for the consumption, which was signifi-
cantly lower than Serbians or Portuguese respondents (93.5 and
73.2%, respectively, p < 0.001). What seems to be very worrying is
the fact that only 27.2% of food handlers knew that there is a serious
microbial risk associated with cooked rice (Table 2), with Portuguese
respondents showing significantly lower percentage (10.3%)
of correct answer compared to Serbian or Greek (20.9 and 35.5%,
respectively with p < 0.001).