South African Food-Illness Epidemic Spotlights Need for Change

Everybody wants to eat the hotdog, but nobody wants to know how the sausage gets made. In recent weeks food-safety standards in South Africa have come to the fore as a rash of severe food-related illnesses and deaths have swept the nation.

While mainstream retailers remain strictly regulated and largely unsullied  – informal vendors, typically evading government oversight, have come under harsh scrutiny as the flashpoint for food-system issues; such as the relabelling of expired products, spreading harmful chemicals and unlicensed manufacturers hacking together processed meat products unhygienically in shady garage & basement operations. As the bottom is falling out of the basket of produce ill-fit for human consumption, food-awareness organisation ProVeg South Africa takes a closer look at related issues in our food system. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on 15 November regarding the government’s response to food-borne illnesses and crackdown efforts on its sources. On 21 November the South African National Disaster Management Centre declared foodborne illnesses a national disaster, which over the last few weeks alone has allegedly claimed the lives of at least 22 children countrywide and are presently linked to 84 informal vendors. This ironically on World Fisheries Day, highlighting the approximately 50,000 worldwide cases of reported marine food poisoning annually, while on Tuesday 12 November the South African Police Service revealed that crime intelligence officers had raided a facility in Gauteng, during which they seized a large quantity of counterfeit pilchards and printing equipment used to alter expiration dates. 

From a historical perspective, South Africa is not new to widespread instances of food-related disease. In 2017 a massive deadly outbreak of Listeriosis nationally was linked specifically to processed meat consumption and a total over 1,000 cases were identified. Among 728 patients with a known outcome, 193 tragically died. In over six years of class-action litigation pressures are still mounting as of September 2024 on the food distributor responsible to compensate those affected. The pervasive avian flu [H5 and H7] outbreak in South Africa of 2023 which caused a national panic regarding poultry products with an estimated 8.25 million chickens culled and a noted shortage of eggs on supermarket shelves hit the industry hard, which has still been recovering throughout this year. ProVeg suggested a greater diversification into affordable plant-based proteins to alleviate the shortfall. Five outbreaks of African Swine Fever have been listed in South Africa between 2019 and 2023. One review of recorded African Swine Fever outbreaks in the history of South Africa showed 150 individual outbreaks between 1926 and 1993, and 72 more confirmed outbreaks up till 2018. Food-related illnesses periodically come into public focus as our nation endures animal-diseases and epidemic incidents of contamination that are not unavoidable.  

With this in mind the City of Cape Town and police raided an illegal butchery revealing sausages being prepared in unsanitary conditions. A Khayelitsha business was busted for its unsavoury practices when it was discovered it had been stuffing dog food into sausages instead of manufacturing genuine products. During the same week, food expired as early as 2021 was found dumped in that area while an outraged community called for the closure of spaza shops. On November 23, angry Soweto residents threatened to burn down one shop when a 12-year-old child was rushed to hospital after eating contaminated products purchased on location. On November 20 the Gauteng Department of Education lifted the ban on the sale of food inside school premises, but announced that food vendors can only operate as long as they adhere to new strict health and hygiene requirements. Time will tell if renewed confidence in this retail sector during the swirl of ongoing investigations was premature. 

Looking globally, other countries also grapple with food safety and impurity issues, largely involving animal products. The Centers for Disease Control [CDC] in the US reported human cases of bird flu as a result of dairy cattle with the disease prevalence higher than previously thought and some cases suspected to be going undetected. In late October McDonald’s Quarters Pounders were linked to an E. Coli outbreak reported in 10 States, almost a year since an American beef producer recalled more than 58,000 pounds of ground beef over similar concerns, with an alert by the United States Department of Agriculture. 

Even in our century, food purity with regards to animal products has proven to be a gamble. A 2013 report indicated that horse and donkey meat may be pervasive in the European beef market. In the same year, amid this bursting scandal which inspired a flurry of worldwide audits on processed meat products, a study published by Stellenbosch University found that 99 of 139 burger samples contained species not declared on the product label – such as donkey, water buffalo and goat meat. It also found soya and gluten were not labelled in 28 percent of products tested, undeclared pork in 37 percent and chicken in 23 percent; declaring that “there’s a fair share of fraudulent meat products on the South African market.”

The inherent issues of product-fidelity aside, when dealing with food-borne illness the fact is that animal products remain much more likely to cause contamination and spoilage-related disease than plant foods. Speaking to the extent to which plant foods may be fouled; this is often linked to the use of animal manure as a fertiliser for plant crops. While any food or ingredient can become a carrier for pathogens, certain animal products – poultry, fish, and eggs – are particularly likely to cause illness. The vast majority of salmonella infection is related to meat, eggs, or unpasteurised milk. Farm animals may pick up salmonella from their environment, which can be transferred via fertilisers to crops and via the slaughtering process to meat outputs.

Zoonotic diseases, originating in animals and transmitted from animals to humans, have delivered global pandemics. Covid-19 was first recognised in December 2019 and led to a large-scale long-term shutdown of all aspects of ordinary life, trade and travel around the world, with its economic and human impacts unparalleled in modern times. Currently about 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonoses. Some of the most well-known zoonotic diseases have agricultural origins and include SARS, MERS, Ebola, rabies, and certain forms of influenza. The ProVeg Food and Pandemics Report demonstrates how the risk of future zoonotic outbreaks and the severity of their impacts increase with the demand for animal-based products in today’s globalised world. The report strongly urges transformation of the global food system as a reliable way to prevent future pandemics.

In September, Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates predicted – some would say conservatively – that another infectious disease pandemic will occur within the next three decades. The general consensus of health experts is that Gates’s prophecy is likely accurate and could actually prove to be optimistic, as the countdown to the next big thing in everyday virology may be considerably shorter. As commented by Harvard University Professor Joseph Allen: “It’s not a near-certainty; it’s a certainty.” 

Over 20 children have sadly died in South Africa, so far, in this latest food fiasco. The suffering and death of a child is always tragic – a sentiment which is only amplified by circumstances which can be mitigated or prevented. The fundamental bond of trust that a young minor has with their parents, guardians, teachers and communities extend even – and perhaps especially – to the dinner table. A child trusts, without qualification, in many things, where the adults in the room are concerned. That includes that the food they’re being fed is somehow nourishing and good for them – or at least not deleterious, or deadly. 

Apart from the inclusion of toxic chemicals accidentally or deliberately hidden in every mouthful; what our children are actually eating and where it comes from may be a puzzle to many of them. One study this year emphasised that children are in fact unsuspecting meat-eaters. A team assessed children’s knowledge of the origins of foods and 44 percent of the 176 participants guessed that cheese originally came from plants, while 41 percent of the children believed that bacon grows on plants, and 40 percent thought hot dogs grow on plants. Chicken nuggets – despite the rather plain naming – were misidentified as coming from plants 38 percent of the time. Additionally the children were questioned about what foods can and can’t be eaten by people, which exposed more confusion when 77 percent for cows, 73 percent for pigs and 65 for chicken believed that these animals are inedible. Five percent believed that cats are a type of food.

Activism begins in the home kitchen. Part of the poor knowledge with regards to food sources and food safety could be due to parents withholding information about where animal products come from. As a result many kids eat meat unknowingly, perhaps in violation of a bias against animals as food, which has a lasting  impact on their eating habits, ideas about ethical consumption, beliefs about healthy nutrition and the unequal balance of risk in every meal and in every bite depending on what precisely is being consumed. 

Under the right circumstances any food can make you sick, however animal products generally present an outsized potential for danger. To some extent we already have a natural sense and instinct for this. As a species we’ve necessarily evolved a healthy barometer for assessing food-risks over eons – with particularly strong reactions against putrefied and fetid food sources – usually of animal origins. If you’ve ever suffered the agony of food-poisoning; did you blame the Waldorf salad or the lentil dhal at the buffet table – or did your mind run immediately to the oysters, the sushi, the eggs, the Butter chicken or that zesty-tasting beef burger you perhaps had for supper? There’s a good reason why you might leer at those mystery-meat pies in your lunchbox with suspicion – as you already have a strong hunch for the intestinal wager that they literally represent.

Adults have the sense and liberty to take risks of varying degrees of intelligence, with their own food or otherwise; but don’t we owe our children the health and safety that transforming our food-system and consumption habits to plant-based models will improve?

ENDS

Media Contact

ProVeg South Africa – Wikus Engelbrecht – Communications Manager: [email protected]; +27 64 172 0120

About ProVeg South Africa:

ProVeg South Africa is the local branch of ProVeg International. ProVeg is an international food awareness organisation working to transform the global food system by replacing conventional animal-based products with plant-based and cultured alternatives.

ProVeg works with international decision-making bodies, governments, food producers, investors, the media, and the general public to help the world transition to a society and economy that are less dependent on animal agriculture and more sustainable for humans, animals, and the planet.