Basic Food Safety

After one too many unsafe interactions with family and friends’ cooking, I’m here to provide my two cents on how to exercise basic Food Hygiene.

My qualifications on this are 6 years in Fast Food, and multiple Certificate courses on Food Safety to boot. (I think I earned a Cert. IV in Food Service at some point through a training program…)

You may be familiar with the basics – wash your hands, rinse your vegetables, and don’t leave meat out for too long, but do you know why and what the safe limits are?

Your Tools

A run-down of the basics are; Self, kitchen, tools.

Check each of these for safety, sanitary status, and cleanliness.

Self – If you have long hair, is it tied back? Do you need to wear a baseball cap over short hair to prevent it from falling into the food?
Are you healthy? If you have a cold or flu, it’s best not to prepare food for others unless it can’t be helped. If so, try to locate a face mask to prevent germs from spreading as you go.
Are your hands clean? Check fingernails, cuts and injuries on your hands and forearms.

Kitchen – Is the bench and cooking area clean? Has it been wiped down and sprayed with a cleaning agent since the last time you prepared food? Is the floor clean and clear for easy movement? Does the stovetop, the oven, and the fridge work properly? Is the cutting surface stable, and is the kitchen well stocked with paper towels and clean dish rags?

Tools – Inspect your cutting boards and knives for cleanliness. Then check your knives to make sure they’re sharp. Check your pots and pans for cleanliness, rust and stains before you start cooking. If there’s any residue, give the item another scrub before starting to use it. Check that you have enough seasonings, oil and cooking additives before beginning. Do you have plenty of stock? Are your tongs in working order? Check before you need them. Click click.

Explaining the Basics of the Basics

Your hands have been everywhere. Door handles, technology, bathrooms, pens and random tables. You have no idea how often these things are cleaned, so the safest way to prevent dangerous germs and bacteria spreading to your food is to wash your hands.

And when I say wash your hands, I mean really wash them. The most thorough technique I witnessed was in the preparation area of a surgical ward. You rinse your hands with warm water (as hot as your skin will safely stand), then you lather it with soap. Make sure the soap gets under your fingernails, palms and back of your hands, and go the extra mile by soaping up your forearms, too. A little extra cleaning won’t hurt.

Dry your hands on a clean towel, then use an alcohol-based sanitizer (one that evaporates off your skin). The sanitizer gets the last of the bacteria off your skin so you’re safe to handle pretty much anything with your bare hands.
Food companies and hospitals go one extra mile by putting on gloves after this, but if you’re at home you’re alright to handle food with your hands after this stage. A good point that was made was the fact that when wearing gloves, food workers can become complacent. They handle different food items without changing their gloves as often as they would wash their hands. So, to be fair to the process, having clean and bare hands in the kitchen means that you’re more likely to keep them clean throughout the food preparation stages.

Food Safety Limits

The basic premise of food safety is; Keep Hot food Hot, and keep Cold food Cold. Especially when it comes to meat and seafood – leaving hot food out to cool isn’t always the best idea, as much as the inverse is true. Bacteria which is dormant and otherwise harmless in food that is a safe temperature multiply to dangerous levels if food is not stores properly.

If you store food improperly, then that is the most likely way to contract food poisoning. There are recommendations of what temperature to keep food, depending on what type of food it is (high risk, or low risk) and how it will be prepared. As a general guide, keep meat, dairy and eggs below 5 degrees celcius in the fridge, and when cooking ensure that the food reaching 75 degrees celcius for at least 5 minutes (particularly if you’re cooking for pregnant or immune-compromised people). The best way to measure is with a food thermometer, and by checking the recommendations if you’re unsure.

Contamination and Preparation

Don’t mix raw and cooked foods, especially if one of them is ‘high risk’. In the same vein, don’t prepare high risk foods without cleaning the cutting board, bench and knife. This way you can prevent bacteria from one item being transferred to another. By preparing meat before vegetables, some people have transferred harmful meat bacteria to their vegetables and ended up with an unsafe meal.

If in doubt, wash your tools with hot water, soap and sanitizer between food items.

Basic Knife and Tech Safety

You would THINK that this was a no-brainer, but I’ve recently watched a video whereby a young man de-pressurized a broken pressure cooker with the tip of a knife.

Yes, you read correctly. Pressure cooker. Knife.

If an electrical appliance isn’t working, unplug it. ESPECIALLY if that appliance is pressurized, like a pressure cooker. Don’t touch it, don’t mess with it, don’t use it.

Sake goes with dull, bent, and chipped knives. Maintain them, sharpen them, and keep them stored safely.

Hopefully this post won’t become required reading for some of my loved ones, but you never know. Cook safe out there!