Urban myths about servings of rats and dog meat aside, I always thought that takeaways were a reasonably safe eating option.
Sure, some kebab meat may look like a rotting cow’s carcass that’s just been retrieved from a field, complete with swarm of buzzing flies, but in general takeaways are a tasty, convenient and satisfying substitute for a proper meal. It turns out that I was wrong and we might all actually be playing Russian Roulette with our health when we tuck into them.
One in seven UK takeaway restaurants have failed food hygiene tests according to data released by the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Among the biggest sins were dirty kitchens, infestations of rats and cockroaches and storing food at unsafe temperatures.
The FSA gives restaurants a rating from zero to five. A score of three to five is considered to be satisfactory while a zero rating means you’d probably be better off swimming in a large septic tank with your mouth wide open.
Staggeringly, in most parts of the UK, the law doesn’t require restaurants to display their official FSA rating. However, the practice is compulsory in Wales, which is thought to have contributed to an improvement in food hygiene. Well of course it would’ve.
If you see a big fat zero on the door of your local curry house, you’re hardly going to place an order if the korma is going to put you in a coma. The continued loss of custom should force the filthy business to smarten up its act.
It’s a no-brainer. Dirty restaurants should be named and shamed. Food poisoning can be a killer, so the law must force eateries to come clean with their hygiene reports. We need to be sure that what we are putting inside us is not going to make us ill. And those takeaways that continue to fail to meet legal health requirements deserve to go out of business as we take them off the menu.
