[Foodborne diseases]

Foodborne diseases are frequent, even though food safety has never been so high in industrialized countries. The epidemics of previous centuries, such the cholera, disappeared from our everyday public health concerns. The persistence of foodborne diseases depends largely upon poor compliance with the rules of proper food hygiene, especially with storage and preparation of food items. While these processes are subjected to strict controls when food items are industrially processed, it is not so with everyone's food basket or kitchen. Feeding behavior also tends to change, with an increasingly popular trend to consume raw food, to consume exotic meals and to adopt exotic recipes. Altogether these factors compromise food safety. A good knowledge of foodborne diseases, whether native or imported is thus relevant to today's general practice.