Community urged to check food safety

Story and photo by Laura Kreider
USAG Vicenza Public Affairs Office

Sgt. Zachery Wright from Vicenza Public Health Command, Veterinary Services, right, provides information and hands out the food safety quiz to Chap. (Capt.) Ashley Payne, USAG Vicenza Chapel, during the food awareness display at the post exchange Aug. 21.

9/10/2012 VICENZA, Italy- How many food packages do we open every day? How many bottles do we consume? How many times do we look at the appearance of them? A little attention to everyday habits may be important.

As part of Antiterrorism Awareness Month, the Food Inspection Team for Vicenza put together a food awareness booth at the post exchange Aug. 21.

Many people stopped at the display where they could fill out a food safety quiz and learn more about food poisoning.

"Almost any food, beverage, or other item you ingest could be of some risk. Our booth provided information on how to carefully examine all food and product packaging to notice if it had been tampered with," said Wright.

"This is a great opportunity we have to teach the community about the risks of intentional contamination so we can help greatly reduce the chance of having food used as a weapon to attack us (consumers)," he added.

 The Food Inspection Team also provided information on who to contact to report in case of suspect a product had been tampered with.

"The response from the community was awesome," said Wright.

"We especially had fun with the young children who stopped to get food awareness coloring books and received a little knowledge on food safety," he said.