TKU has started it annual inspection of the food sanitation standard of the restaurants and eateries nearby since March 29th. During this time, students working at the Sanitation and Health Care Section (SHCS) of the university have been cooperating with the inspectors assigned by the Public Health Bureau (PHB) of Taipei County Government to assess the sanitation and food safety on and off the campus. Some tentative results have emerged from their investigation: The cleanest three are as usual—Lai Chi Mei Noodle Eastery, Jia Wei Fast Food and Da Lu Noodle Eatery; however, The last four on the list are An Ko-yan Cantonese chichen and Meat Eatery, Da Chi-co Fast Food Eatery, Ji-hsiang Eatery and Hong Kong Da Yuan Fast Food Restaurant located in Da Tian Liao is the last on the list due to its poor sanitation standard found in the kitchen.

Su Chia-hsien, a staff at the SHCS, explains that they have examined 47 establishments located in Da Hsueh Chen and Da Tian Liao so far, but those on Shui Yuan Street have not been evaluated due to a shortage of staff in PHB. They will be inspected, nonetheless, in the near future.

For the work they have done to date, PHB sent out two inspectors accompanied by TKU students to conduct their unannounced inspection on the above-mentioned two locations respectively. The main items on their checklist include whether kitchen staff and the proprietors have had medical examination and attended any training on food safety and sanitation; the kitchen floor is kept clean at all time; mosquito screens are properly sealed and the temperature of the freezers is indeed set at 18 degree below zero. TKU students in turn gave a score to each of these items and added up the results to form a ranking that has been published by Tamkang Times.

The results of the investigation reveal that the majority of proprietors have passed a physical examination but have not attended any training lately. According to them that as TKU had stopped offering such an activity, they felt rather lost as regards to where to take such training.

As for the kitchen, despite some improvement comparing with last year, inspectors and students concerned could still witness food randomly exposed in open air inside or outside the premises. In this regard, three of the Cantonese-styled chicken and meat eateries not only violate the sanitation standard, but also are indifferent to any improvement measure. Furthermore, some of the proprietors mentioned the difficulty of maintaining the required coolness for their freezers as it may cause problems in the defrosting process. The two inspectors suggested that this might have been caused by the unreliability of the thermometer installed in the freezer; therefore, proprietors should place an extra one to control the temperature correctly.

There has not been any unpleasant scene as most proprietors have been cooperative during the investigation. They explained carefully the workflow and storage practices to investigators and accepted any suggestion. Some eateries could not be examined as they were closed during this time so their names are not listed on the ranking. (Ying-hsueh Hu)