Perfil e condições higiênico-sanitárias de cantinas escolares de Pelotas/RS

Abstract

The canteen is one of the places within the school, where they are made meals and foods purchased by students for their consumption. This place should provide well-being and provide adequate food, both in nutritional quality as in sanitary conditions. In this regard, the importance of this study is to understand the canteens of schools in the city of Pelotas / RS, with the main objective to characterize them as to the types of produced and marketed food, as well as to their sanitary conditions. The study was cross-sectional, the type census, held between April and September 2014 in 87 schools and 26 canteens in the city. The following instruments were applied: school characterization questionnaire, canteen characterization questionnaire, offering Checklist and advertising of foods and list for verification of good manufacturing practices. Point of water collection was held located within the area of handling each canteen, being held chlorine dosing and microbiological analysis to detect total coliforms and Escherichia coli. As important results have been verified to low interference in the production and marketing community for food in the school canteen, few places with Sanitary Permit and nutritionist, unskilled owners in food handling, high frequency marketing of unhealthy foods, adaptation to hygienic conditions health of most canteens, but with some unsatisfactory items as physical facilities, waste management, handler, documentation and registration. To improve the service conditions and ensure the nutritional and sanitary quality of food produced and sold in the canteens are required educational activities involving the whole school community.