As people become lazy or increasingly time-poor due to a range of work, study and social commitments, convenience foods play a role important in the diet of many people around the world. Since a recent listeria outbreak, some concerns have been raised that convenience foods pose health risks. This study will examine the safety risks associated with convenience foods. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayAre the risks of convenience foods too high?Convenience foods, mentioned in this study, are commercially prepared refrigerated packaged foods created for consumers as an easy way for them to obtain and consume a dish of their choice. Since the 1920s, when Clarence Birdseye discovered that peas could be quickly blanched and frozen, refrigeration has made it possible to preserve and use many food products, such as cooked vegetables and meat, and to use them in different ways. other times for convenience. The proliferation of large supermarkets in the 1940s and 1950s, with reliable refrigeration systems, allowed customers with freezers to purchase pre-prepared frozen foods like frozen peas, beans and carrots to save time and which were comparable in color and taste to fresh seasonal cooked vegetables and these became staple foods in many Australian family diets. According to Bee Wilson, in 1948 only two percent of British households owned a refrigerator, and convenience foods became more popular as refrigeration became more affordable. Thus, in 1968, approximately 94% of Australian households had a refrigerator that allowed them to store ready-to-eat, homemade or store-bought foods. The popularity of the convenience food industry has grown enormously, so much so that Statista, a market research company, estimates its value at more than $380 million a year in Australia. Australian Food News reported in 2010 that CHOICE, a leading consumer advocacy group, had conducted research which found that fresh frozen foods offered comparatively better nutritional value than "fresh" foods vacuum-packed with carbon dioxide and nitrogen and refrigerated for long periods. Freezing vegetables can lock in nutrients, and as households continue to be short on time, the convenience of pre-prepared fresh fruits and vegetables, such as bagged mixed lettuce, cut pumpkin and chopped root vegetables, has also become more available. The Cost of Convenience] In recent years, there seems to be a recall of pre-prepared, frozen or packaged vegetables and fruits every few weeks or so. Food contaminated with micro-organisms such as Listeria, E coli, salmonella hepatitis has made headlines. According to Food Standards Australia, there have been 174 recalls due to micro-organism contamination in the last 10 years. Microcontamination has been found in a number of frozen foods, including frozen pomegranate, and has contributed to the deaths of some consumers. Microcontaminations caused outbreaks of hepatitis A in NSW earlier this year and, following investigation, Creative Gourmet's 180g frozen pomegranate arils were withdrawn from sale in April. SA Health again in May reminded people to throw away the product after it was linked to 11 cases of hepatitis.Professor Paddy Phillips SA Health, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Public Health Officer, recently revealed that a 64-year-old South Australian woman died on June 5, 2018 after being hospitalized with an infection caused by this product. He said only 226 packets of the 2,000 million packets of pomegranate arils grown in Egypt were returned, although many more may have been thrown away by consumers after the warning. Nationally, 24 cases of hepatitis A, including two in South Australia, have been linked to this product from Entyce Food Ingredients. In May 2017, after another hepatitis A scare, approximately 45,000 packets of Creative Gourmet mixed berries with a use-by date of January 15, 2021 were recalled and in July 2018, Food Standards Australia and NewZealand (FSANZ) issued a warning and recalled certain brands of frozen vegetables, some of which were imported from Europe and sold by Aldi, Woolworths and Aldi stores. This came after a Listeria outbreak that killed six people in Victoria and New South Wales was traced to the brands. Contamination is likely to occur when preparation and storage are compromised. For example, if frozen vegetables are thawed then frozen again, and thawed before use, bacteria can multiply, making consumers sick when they consume the product. Frozen foods are convenient, taste reasonably fresh if stored and used properly, and are an economical solution to eating vegetables out of season. However, contaminated frozen food can pose a serious risk to people's health. What are the food poisoning problems in the hospitality industry? Food safety should be a number one priority for all food and beverage outlets, regardless of size or scale. Without clearly defined food safety standards in the workplace, phenomena such as food poisoning from cooked meals can occur. Food poisoning is an illness that occurs when food contaminated with harmful bacteria or toxins is digested. In Australia, there are 24 different food hygiene laws and regulations. Additionally, there are over 700 local councils with different bylaws to regulate food businesses. The way the system currently works costs governments $18.6 million per year (net) to enforce it, and it costs small businesses about $337 million per year to comply. Approximately sixty to eighty percent of foodborne illnesses come from the food service industry. Every day in Australia, 11,500 people contract a foodborne illness. That's 4.2 million cases of foodborne illness each year. It is undeniable that food poisoning is expensive: there are more than 500,000 cases per year in the United Kingdom according to a study by the Food Standards Agency, and estimates in the United States put the cost at $77 billion, or nearly twice the annual cost of the common cold. Not only can food poisoning be an unpleasant experience for the victim, it can also be crippling for the business where the outbreak originated, whether due to a tarnished reputation for quality or, in worst case scenario, a lawsuit. Fast food restaurants and salad bars, rare 50 years ago, are now the main source of food consumption for many Australians. There are just over 24 million Australians and they eat out on average two to three times a week. That.