Will the death of home economics be the death of us?

A dish goes out at a restaurant where the meat served is undercooked. The waiter serving it hasn’t washed his hands in the past few hours and neither has the proffered cutlery been properly cleaned. Any of these components could cause the patron eating the meal to spend the next few days in bed with Salmonella, rotavirus or norovirus.

That was the case in 2016 when Wahaca,¹ a Mexican food chain, had to shut down nine London branches following a suspected norovirus outbreak. Last year, a chef faced jail time² after 32 diners became ill and one died from eating an undercooked shepherd’s pie in Northamptonshire. And just several weeks ago, a Swindon kebab and pizza shop³ was closed after a rabid cockroach infestation was discovered.