Food hygiene in Poland

shops/restaurants standards are always food standards regulated by law. O.k. I will go now, I'm bored.

so you agree that it's ok for me to scratch my ass and then rumage through the loose bread rolls in biedronka.

whatever regulation there is is difficult to comprehend.

The question was about "standards" , not whether it is difficult or not to comprehend, and for sure not about you and your standards...but food standards. Got it???

I'd personally like to see more temperature regulations, especially on buffets, warm food is really common in Poland, if its not consistently over 63oc its bacterial breeding heaven.

Sellers should be subordinate to the law. There is also an organization that controls it and called Sanepid (Stacja Sanitarno Epidemiologiczna) which exist in every town. If selling food place does not apply to this law, then they have to pay a penalty, or such a place is closed. But I can not help if the buyer does not know basic rights. You can stop visiting these places or call Sanepid.

Higher standards for clean water? When no one dared to drink water from the tap, at least in Warsaw? Joker of the month, you are..

No one dared because it taste bad and is full of antybacterial chemistry, it's a capital..not Poland. All my life I was drinking water from the tap.

First the warning: thevisitor.pl/index.php?id=194

then the explanation

Polish Journal of Environmental Studies , (Vol. 14) (No. 3) 327-333

The purpose of this work was to determine the occurrence of toxic phenol, chlorophenols, chlorocatechols and chlorinated methoxyphenols in the drinking water of the Polish cities of Lódz' , Warszawa , Poznan and Wroclaw. In samples, chlorophenols, 4-chlorocatechol, chloroguaiacols, chlorosyringols and 5,6-dichlorovaniline were detected. Higher concentrations and number of chlorophenols and their chlorinated derivatives were noted in summer. Among the most toxic compounds, 2,4,5-trichlorophenol which causes toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicityin was found in the drinking water of Warszawa (summer and winter) and Lódz' (winter) and tetrachlorophenol in water of Wrocaw (summer) were noted. Their concentrations were above the admissible standards of the EU and the US EPA. In some cases the concentrations of chloroguaiacols and 5,6-dichlorovanillin also were significant.

Happy?

Feel free.

I. This is an answer to: thevisitor.pl/index.php?id=194

3. Many people choose bottled water instead of tap. Are there diametric differences in their quality?

The tap water in Poland is subject to more restrictive laws than bottled water. It is regularly checked by health professionals of our country who decide to admit it as drinking water for general consumption. It is safe for health. The quality of water in the bottle corresponds to the manufacturer and should not contain pathogenic bacteria. (polki.pl/tester-brita_cala-prawda_artykul,10017907.html)

II. Answer to this: Polish Journal of Environmental Studies , (Vol. 14) (No. 3) 327-333

Union puts greater demands in relation to the content of chlorides and dissolved or emulsified hydrocarbons to extract the oil extractable. For example, Polish regulations allow the chloride content of 250 ml / l, and the EU - 200 ml / l.

Polish regulation established the classification of different ratios of surface waters. As suitable for abstraction of drinking water, it indicates a first-class water purity, while regulation does not contain requirements for the water abstracted for drinking.

Both (EU Directive and polish regulation) have the same 33 indicators. The Directive does not contain the 22 indicators that are present in the Polish regulation. The Regulation provides uniform water quality standards, independent of the scope of the treatment of water abstracted for drinking. 23 indicators included in the Polish standards meet the strictest standards of Directives covering simple water treatment in category A1, 5 A2, and 1 in category A3.

The polish Regulation contains additional indicators such as benzo (a) pyrene, chlorophyll, saprobowość, total phosphorus, total hardness, sodium, potassium, solutes, silver, chlorine free, thiocyanates, sulfides, formaldehyde, acrylonitrile, caprolactam, nickel, vanadium, pathogenic bacteria. However the Directive contains the following indicators are not included in the Regulation: bar, substances which can be extracted with chloroform, the number of coliforms at 370C in 100 ml of water, faecal streptococci per 100 m1 of water, salmonella, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

The Polish law on protection of groundwater is more restrictive than the provisions of the European Union

There is no equivalent in polish Regulation to the Council Directive [6] of water quality required for shellfish habitat. This is due to the fact that in Poland did not catch seep shellfish for consumption.

miks.ar.wroc.pl/doktorek/html/mgr/html/06.html

Do us all a favor and go already...you've posted 4 times since you said you would go.

Croggers made some salient points in his initial post - why the negative backlash? He isn't complaining - he's airing some concerns about basic sanitation in regards to food preparation in Poland. I have many of the same concerns and am very interested in the subject.

I get so tired of posters on this forum who are obviously so frustrated with their own lives that they need to come online to lash out at innocent bystanders.

Since you are here I changed my mind ;)


I gave him kind answer. As I see you read too much between lines, but o.k I go it, I should always finish sentence with words "just don't get me wrong". I told him we have EU standards,and he said "I doub't that", funny huh?? (salient points, yeah right)

Which are not met.

and this is a differen story ;)

Very high. all I can say about Polish food.

As long as you've got a cast-iron stomach and a strong immune system.

Well, then maybe you have AIDS.

No - completely free of that, but after years of wedliny, my immune system is strong enough to fight anything off. Which is good, since I ordered steak tartare in a Warsaw restaurant (on Nowy Swiat, no less) and had actually eaten some before I realised it wasn't beef tatare - the old hag of a waitress had brought me raw pork...

I see you are very brave man ;)

Real tatare is great - and should be prepared under sterile conditions. But this turned out to be raw pork. I'm sure that's illegal to sell. Mind you, I once knew a guy (not in Poland) who used to pay a butcher to let him stand outside the shop and eat raw chicken. I don't know ehy, but he was more than a bit weird.

I know I am annoying, but there is no such thing as sterile, of course in natural conditions, except bladder maybe :D..etc.

Merged: Do Polish people know about Germ Theory?

Hi!

I noticed that Polish people rarely, if ever, cover their mouths when coughing.

Is this a blatant disregard to their fellow human beings or is it that they don't know that germs exist?

To be honest, I think it is both.

A good rule of thumb:
Unless it's a high class restaurant, only eat stuff you see being prepared. An example of this from Galeria Bałtycka - I like eating at Asia Hung. There's always a line of people at the register, because the food is good and cheap.

Unfortunately, food shops in Poland err on the side of being stingy.

Funny just the other day my wife and i talked about the food in poland and how we have not been sick or had an upset stomach in free years, not bad considering you can buy something from be a drunkard and find out later it was a month out of date.

I got sick 2 times these past few years, the first time I had real food poisonning and the second time was a few years ago. What has always struck me in Poland for instance is that most cafés/shops selling cakes keep their cakes uncovered right near the cash register at customers' easy reach. Customers can knock them down, touch them, sneeze/spit on them... but no matter what, café/shop owners don't change ;)

yeah must admit that I too have seen the cakes out in the open for all to sneeze on, must admit where i live in the sticks the cakes dont seem to be very nice (although they look good), I think its a case of if you don't think something is stored or handled safely the don't buy i.

But that won't help when you are in a restaurant and can't see what they do in the kitchen. maybe one day there will be a hygiene certificate system so that you can see how safe a place is.

Yes. The local shop where I used to live always had Wędliny uncovered next to the cash register exactly at pensioner coughing height. It was an old sklep osiedlowy with no competition. Now there's a Żabka and a Biedronka nearby and they've had to up their game a bit.

Apart from the raw pork tartare that I mentioned above under my old name (which I didn't eat much of), the only time in Poland I've been really ill after food was after a buffet at a 5 star hotel in Warsaw. Generally, if a hotel does any sort of dish involving cooked smoked salmon, it's because there's something wrong with it - I didn't know that then.

A lof (most?) of coffee chains and small Polish shops have uncovered cakes near the cash register at people's reach. The other day, at my neighborhood shop, I almost knocked off the plate with cakes and the owner just told me "not to worry".

PS: raw pork?????

Merged:

Polish Salmonella outbreak

Polish salmonella outbreak to dangerous levels.Is this true or is it some kind of assault from the EU on Poland.

euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/salmonellas-polish-resurgence-raises-concerns/

Looks factual enough to me.14 different countries reported Salmonella cases to the European Commission's Food Safety Alert system. I don't see how you can look at that as some kind of EU assault on Poland, it's a public health problem.