Food Health Certificate

The Diet Health Certificate is essentially a legal admission certificate for food-related practitioners, but its screening logic is fully applicable to ordinary people's daily diet health management. It is by no means only those who open restaurants and make milk tea need to care about this "certificate".

In the dog days of last year, I accompanied my cousin who runs a community braised food shop for the annual health certificate check-up. The corridor of the community health service center was crowded. There were children born after 2000 wearing milk tea shop uniforms who were holding employment notices and queuing up. An aunt who ran a small family restaurant specially left her grandson at a neighbor's house to apply for the certificate. She said that a parent asked last week if she had a health certificate, but she couldn't take it out, so she lost two students on the spot. There is also a blogger who sells handmade bread. He drove here from the outer suburbs and said that his fans suggested that he put the health certificate on the product details page, "so that no one will say that it is unhygienic for me to make bread with bare hands." After the blood was drawn, my cousin squatted at the door and nibbled three fried dough sticks that she had brought with her before she recovered. She complained that she suffered from this problem every year, delaying her morning stall, and selling tens of dollars less.

The controversy about this certificate has never stopped. Some veterans who have been working in catering for more than ten years think this is a "form of procedure". "I have been doing this for so many years and I have nothing wrong with it. I have to draw a tube of blood every year. It is a waste of time." Some people even complain that in some places, applying for a health certificate is just a formality. Just touch the skin with a stethoscope and it is done. It has no screening effect at all. But on the other hand, researchers in the field of public health have always emphasized the necessity of this certificate. In 2010, the country clearly prohibited the carriage of hepatitis B virus as a restriction for the food industry. The current screening projects are all for hepatitis A, hepatitis E, dysentery, typhoid, active tuberculosis and other infectious diseases that may be transmitted through food and droplets, as well as exudative dermatoses and other problems that easily contaminate food. Each of them is based on the bottom line of "eating without getting sick". In the past two years, there was a small-scale hepatitis A infection in my family. The source was traced back to the cold vegetable stall owner at the wet market. If he had done the health certificate screening in advance as required, he would not have caused more than 20 people to the hospital with vomiting and diarrhea.

I used to have a friend who often suffered from gastroenteritis. Every time he went to the hospital, he only prescribed antidiarrheal drugs. After struggling for more than half a year, he still couldn't find the root cause. Later, I suggested that he do a set of tests according to the screening items on the health certificate. The result was that it was a latent hepatitis E infection. It would have been better if he had discovered it early and intervened for half a month. If it had been delayed for a few more months, it might have damaged liver function.

Speaking of us ordinary people, there is really no need to go to the health service center to apply for a dietary health certificate and put it at home, but you can definitely get yourself a "private dietary health certificate". To put it bluntly, it is to find out your dietary bottom line: Are there any ingredients that you are allergic to? Are there any foods that cause bloating or diarrhea after eating? An additional screening for digestive tract infectious diseases during the annual physical examination is much more useful than buying probiotics and stomach-nourishing powder for hundreds of yuan. I have half a page saved in my mobile phone memo. For example, if you eat mango, you will get hives, if you eat iced American style with milk, you will have diarrhea, and I even remember clearly which takeaway you will get gastroenteritis after eating. It is equivalent to issuing a "qualified diet permit" to myself, and the chance of falling into trouble is reduced by more than half.

Of course, some people say that even if all practitioners have health certificates, it is useless if they do not wear gloves or wash their hands when cooking, and the ingredients are not fresh. This is indeed true. A health certificate is only a minimum threshold, not a gold medal to avoid death. Just like my cousin’s braised food shop, even if she sticks the health certificate in the most conspicuous place at the door of the store every year, she will wear two layers of gloves every day to operate it. If the braised food is not sold out on the same day, she will just throw it away. The old neighbors around are willing to buy it. After all, the paper certificate is for others to see, and the "health threshold" in the heart is the most effective.

After all, whether it’s the plastic card hanging on the bulletin board in the store or the list of dietary taboos you’ve memorized on your phone, they are essentially gatekeepers for our mouths. Every bite you eat has to be paid for by your own body in the end, right?