Food Safety
Jessica schmidt
What is Food Safety?
Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness.This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. In this way Food Safety often overlaps with Food Defense to stop people from getting hurt.
Why is it important?
Food safety is almost 100% preventable.
Washing Food
Never wash raw meat/poultry. You actually spread more bacteria around then getting it off. All commercial eggs are washed before they are sold. So, when you wash them again you actually increase the risk of cross-contamination, especially if the shell becomes cracked.
Washing Hands
Hand washing is like a "do-it-yourself" vaccine. It involves five simple steps (Wet, Lather, Scrub, Rinse, Dry). Regular hand washing, particularly before and after certain activities, is one of the best ways to remove germs, avoid getting sick, and prevent the spread of germs to others. It's quick, it's simple, and it can keep us all from getting sick. Hand washing is a win for everyone, except the germs.
Washing your hands is a key part of food safety. YOU will be handling your own or others food. It is very important to wash your hands before handling food.
Washing Dishes
The correct way to wash dishes is with hot soapy water. The hot soapy water cleans and also kills any bacteria left on your dishes. All ways let your dishes air dry when your done washing them.
Oven Safety
A stove and oven are a necessary household item. We use them on a daily basis for small meals and large meals alike. The stove is a critical component of the household and life would be hard without one, but life can be dangerous if you are not practicing safety and caution while using a stove.There are many things you can do to prevent accidents (like burning yourself or starting a fire) from happening.
- Never leave your cooking unattended
- Keep it clean. Food particles and such can ignite and start fires.
- Turn all pans/pot handles inward.this way they can't be pulled/pushed/or knocked off.
- Open oven door all the way. As well as pulling out the oven rack.
- Always use oven mitts.
- Always assume that the oven is on and hot.
Knife Safety
One of the greatest sources of accidents is one of the most commonly used pieces of small equipment – knives.To assure the safest work environment possible, it is essential to follow basic rules for the proper use and care of all equipment used in the operation. There is a variety of knives in the kitchen, and they are used for cutting all types of food.
- Pay attention to what you are cutting.
- Always use a cutting board. Use color-coded cutting boards to prevent cross-contamination.
- Always use sharp knives, never dull ones.
- Use the correct knife for what your using it for.
- Don't hold food in your had while you cut it.
Separate
Use separate plates and utensils for cooked and raw foods.Before using them again, thoroughly wash plates, utensils, and cutting boards that held raw meat.When a cutting board gets excessively worn or develops hard-to-clean grooves, you should probably replace it.
Temperature
Always use a food thermometer. Cooked food is safe after it’ s been heated to a high enough temperature to kill harmful bacteria. Color won’t tell you whether your food is done. Use a food thermometer to be sure.
Chilling/ Thawing Foods
You can freeze most if not all food. It doesn't kill the bacteria but it really stops it from growing. Freezing food is almost like pressing pause on when you can eat it. Most food frozen can last a lot longer then if it was kept out or refrigerated.