What You Should Know About Food Hygiene

Whether you are a professional chef or a homemaker, good hygiene is important for your own safety and the safety of your cooks.

We all have standards when it comes to eating out (and many of us are shocked by the state of some professional kitchens at shows like Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares) but it is easy to let values ​​slip into our homes if we are not careful - and the consequences can be equally dangerous.

Although it is often dismissed as a minor illness as a result of slowing down, food poisoning can easily occur at home and can be especially dangerous for young children, including 125,000 food deaths a year. This makes it even more important for us to apply the same hygiene principles in our home kitchens, which we could apply in the restaurant.

Here, we have collected the essentials for food hygiene for home cooks and cooks alike, so you can keep your kitchen a safe place for your loved ones.

So, What Are the Facts About Food Poisoning?

• Food poisoning causes 420,000 deaths a year, about a third of which (125,000) are children.

• One in 10 people worldwide suffers from food poisoning each year

• This results in a total loss of 33 million years of healthy living (DALY) annually

• 11 million working days are lost annually in the UK alone

• 50% of people with Infectious Intestinal Disease (IID) took time o? at work or at school

• Norovirus and Campylobacter are the most common foodborne illnesses in the UK

• Twice the chances of getting food poisoning in a restaurant than at home

1.Cleaning Rotas

If you are a home cook, setting up a cleaning checklist or rota is a great way to make sure you stay on top of all cleaning tasks; and if you work in a professional kitchen, you probably already have one of these.

Divide household chores into daily, weekly, or monthly activities, to see if each task needs to be done regularly. For reference, anything you cook should be cleaned daily, including the oven, holes, surface area, and any fridge or appliances.

You should also easily clean your floors daily, with deep cleaning at weekly and monthly times. The refrigerator should be inspected and drained daily to prevent contamination.

2.Refrigerator

Another dangerous point of food contamination is your refrigerator. When food cools, it often causes water leaks in your building. This water carries germs, which can cause food poisoning and disease.

In particular, raw meat has a high risk of food poisoning and can leak water and blood into other foods near it. Therefore, it is very important that you keep your meat on the bottom shelf, and do not put other foods next to it (especially foods that can be eaten raw like fruits and vegetables).

Cold foods should be refrigerated at 8 ° C or below, or refrigerated at least -18 ° C. Frozen foods should not be reduced and re-frozen, as this may lead to the growth of bacterial colonies.

3.Cabinets

Foods stored at room temperature are generally less prone to sensitive issues such as food poisoning. But you can extend the life of your wardrobe by tightening it or closing it once it is open.

4.Separation of Containers

Using the same knife or raw meat chopping board and fresh vegetables can lead to re-infection, which can help serious germs like salmonella to spread and cause illness.

To avoid contamination, you should use different dishes of raw meat and vegetables, or at least, wash your cooking utensils in hot soapy water between ingredients. You should not have raw meat and fresh vegetables in one place at a time.

5.Hair & Nails

Hair should be kept clean and tied back when preparing food. This is because the hair in your diet can carry germs that cause infections such as Staph Aureus, which is a type of germ that can cause serious infections.

Hair can cause physical damage to your digestive tract, as well as transmission of food-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Also, it is considered a microbiological contaminant, as contamination of the hair in the diet can lead to the growth of pathogenic biological colonies.

Similarly, long, or false nails can also be a breeding ground for germs and pathogenic activity, as they are very difficult to clean. Ideally, nails should be kept short and clean. If this is not possible, wearing medical gloves over long or false nails is a viable option, but the gloves should be replaced after using raw meat.

Long hair or beard should be kept tied back or to the hair / beard net.

6.Environmental Health Problems

Any cuts should be covered with blue plaster to prevent microbial spread. Blue also allows the concrete to look good if you have to fall.

You should avoid preparing or processing food if you have an infectious skin disease, preventing contamination of food and cooking utensils.

7.Wearing gloves can also help reduce water exposure, irritants, and allergies.

If you are able to incorporate the food hygiene tips contained in this article into your regular recipes, it should help you and those around you to stay healthier, safer, and cleaner while preparing your food.