Today, my brother brought me a chocolate bar from a nearby grocery shop. But guess what? The expiration date had already passed! And no, it hadn’t expired the day before; it was three months old. Thank God, we noticed the expiration date and trashed it.

But I began to wonder: what if this chocolate bar had fallen into a kid's hands? Without a doubt, he would devour it incautiously and get food poisoning.

Sadly, this type of incident did not happen to me once or twice; it happened several times, and on more than one occasion, I got food poisoning. That was when I learned to check the expiration date on all food products before eating. However, simply being aware to check the expiration date is not an adequate solution to this problem. Especially, when it is impractical to think that a child would bother to check the expiration date on all food and candy; even if he were told to do so.

This problem doesn't occur only in grocery shops but also in restaurants and other eateries. Surely we cannot look into every establishment’s refrigerator to check the expiration date of each product. Even worse, we might see a filthy kitchen and lose our appetites.

Thus, we desperately need health inspectors. I'm not sure if we already have them, but if, then they definitely should check business more often to prevent such incidents.

For those who don't know what health inspectors are, they are government employees who investigate health hazards in a wide variety of locations and take action (typically imposing fines or closing down the business) to mitigate and eliminate unsanitary practices.

If these inspectors were sent regularly to restaurants and grocery shops, the owners would make sure to check their products and pursue cleanliness to prevent the consequences of noncompliance. As a result, this certainly will lead to a healthier and safer environment. Maybe this will cost the government a bit, but it's really necessary. We don't want to end up in the hospital every other day. Do you?