HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Department of Public Health and Social Services has brought back Food Safety Education Month after a seven-year hiatus to help the island’s community combat foodborne illness.
Public Health has adopted the theme “When Baxter Attacks, Food Guardians Fight Bac(-teria).”
“This is to introduce our food safety mascots during this year’s celebration,” Chief Environmental Health Officer Tom Nadeau said during a proclamation signing Friday. “Now Baxter is one of our mascots who represents the harmful germs that can cause foodborne illness. And then we have the Food Guardians on the other hand, who are the superhero mascots.”
Food Guardians represent the people of Guam who practice food safety at home, in the office, at parties and at food establishments.
“We developed these mascots during the 10th annual Guam Food Safety Education Month, which was held in 2015. That year we had over 1,800 students submit their mascot drawings,” Nadeau said.
From there, the five Guardians of the Food Galaxy were born: Dr. Food Safe, Lady Hotessa, Sir Chill, Mr. Washtastic, and The Separator – each one representing a critical risk factor for foodborne illness.
The campaign aims to help Guam residents protect themselves from food pathogens by following these simple steps to prevent contamination:
• Clean and wash hands and surfaces often.
• Do not cross-contaminate.
• Cook food to proper temperatures.
• Chill food properly.
Getting the word out
According to the proclamation signed Friday by Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio, “48 million cases of foodborne illness impact one in six Americans each year, resulting in an estimated 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.”
“Food safety, it’s such an important thing in our community. We do have a lot of social functions we go to, and we trust where we go,” Tenorio said. “Actually, everything on Guam, we always need to feed everybody, right? So I just wanted to say that this public information effort is great because there is a lot of times people don’t realize the threats that could be if things go wrong – especially when you’re dealing with seafood or raw foods. So it is very important for us to get the word out.”
Public Health will be hosting various events throughout the month of September as part of the campaign, including a food safety poster contest for elementary students, a food safety fair on Sept. 30 and food safety training for Division of Environmental Health employees at Public Health.
Assistant professor Byron Chaves leads a food safety certification workshop Aug. 8, 2023, at the University of Guam’s College of Natural & Applied Sciences in Mangilao.
