(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Lebanese Health Minister Wael Abu Faour raised concerns on Tuesday over food sanitation in the country, warning that “the food that the Lebanese are eating is full of diseases.”
Abu Faour listed some of Lebanon’s most popular restaurant chains and supermarkets as locations that serve customers food “that contains sewage and fecal matter.”
“A large number of foodstuffs firms are operating without licenses and without meeting the proper health conditions,” the minister announced at a press conference.
“Some of the food that is being consumed by the Lebanese contains remains of human feces and this is something intolerable,” Abu Faour revealed, lamenting the dire situation.
The minister noted that warnings will be addressed to the violating restaurants and fines will be imposed over practices that pose a health risk to consumers.
“I will ask the interior minister to close the sections that do not meet the proper health and hygiene conditions in all the aforementioned firms until they rectify their situations,” Abu Faour added, stressing that the ministry’s campaign “is not temporary” and vowing to “disclose more names.”
The minister noted that 1,005 firms were inspected across Lebanon and that 3,600 samples were sent to the laboratories of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Revealing the names of these firms “is not aimed at defamation or at harming their business,” Abu Faour noted, emphasizing that he is only shouldering his responsibility as health minister.
“Some of the owners are my personal friends and some of them support our political party,” Abu Faour added.
In addition to contamination with bacteria and other inedible substances, the minister mentioned other violations involving “the presence of flies on the refrigerators of dairy products, the presence of open garbage bins in kitchens, workers not wearing gloves … and frying oil that was not changed for months.”
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