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Kitchen Safety Tips – Kitchen Hygiene, Cooling Food, Re-heating Food
OPH Good Housekeeping & HomemakingIntroduction – Kitchen Safety Tips
Kitchen safety is fundamental in creating a healthy environment to cook in. When we think about the approaches we take to cooking are thoughts usually turn to recipes and ingredients, but we forget that other considerations have an important role to play too such as good housekeeping and hygiene, the overall kitchen environment and cooking organisation. Kitchen Hygiene
What many people don’t know is that the kitchen provides the perfect breeding ground for bacteria and pests - although only a few of them are likely to cause you harm if they are found in large enough quantities. However, it must be noted that bacteria can multiply in an extraordinary fashion in the right conditions, when left un-tackled. Luckily for us, most of the time our immune systems easily combat bacteria related illness and any complications are usually kept to a minimum. But, some groups are more vulnerable to these pests and require meticulous hygiene and good housekeeping practices: Babies and children under two years of age.Pregnant women.The elderly.People who are suffering from an illness or convalescing.People with impaired immune systems or who have been prescribed immune-suppressant drugs.How can I make my kitchen safer?
Always ensure you wash your hands, before and after handling food and even more importantly after handling different types of food such as raw and cooked meat. This will help you avoid the problems associated with cross contamination. Please note, see to it that you don’t wash your hands in the kitchen sink.When preparing food make sure you don’t touch your hair, nose or mouth .Ensure you keep cuts, burns or grazes covered, with a clean waterproof plaster or any other appropriate aid.Even if some foods such as vegetables, fruit and salads look clean, see to it that you soak them in clean cold water for a few minutes, before rinsingRaw poultry should be washed before preparation too. Once you have finished with the rinsing, pat dry with a paper towel. Next, see to it that you thoroughly wash and disinfect the sink and any other work surfaces and utensils that came into contact with the bird.A good kitchen safety tip is to have separate plastic chopping boards for meat, poultry, fish and vegetables, to avoid the risk of cross contamination still further.Washing kitchen utensils between preparing cooked and raw food is a necessity.Whatever you do don’t place cooked food on surfaces that have just had raw meat, fish or poultry on them.See to it that you regularly disinfect surfaces and keep them dry.If you wash-up by hand as opposed to using a dishwasher ensure you do so in hot soapy water and rinse crockery and utensils under running water to remove the suds and detergent.See to it that you change tea towels, dish cloths and disinfect work surfaces on a daily basis to combat bacteria.Where possible try and keep your pets out of the kitchen and definitely off work surfaces and tables.How do I cool foods?
Many people don’t know that warm food is an ideal breeding ground for bacteria, so as a rule of thumb, don’t keep your food warm for longer than is necessary and see to it that you don’t leave it sitting in the kitchen, oven or microwave oven. When it comes to cooked meats, you should ensure that it’s not left lying about at room temperature for longer than 90 minutes without it being refrigerated. For those of you who like to cook food in large batches, to be eaten later or to be frozen, then why not speed up the cooling down process by dividing the food into smaller batches. A good kitchen safety tip is to place the containers in cold water to speed up the cooling down process. Please note, you should never attempt to cool down food while it’s cooking. What is the general rule of thumb concerning re-heating food?
The best advice I can offer you here is to refrain from re-heating leftovers or pre-prepared food, where possible. If you really do have to re-heat food see to it that you never re-heat it on more than one occasion and ensure it is piping hot all the way through. If you use the microwave to do this, then see to it that you stir food half-way through cooking to prevent any cold spots. In addition make sure you leave the food standing for a little while after cooking, so the heat can be conducted all the way through. Kitchen safety tips –Beware of mould?
In regards to kitchen and food safety, moulds have to be seriously considered. They grow from microscopic spores in the air and when these spores come into contact with certain foods, they will germinate and produce a visible growth on the surface. Sometimes it may appear that the surface of the food is just contaminated and the rest of the product is presumed safe to eat. However, this is not always the case and caution must be exercised. Some moulds contain mycotoxins, which embed themselves in the food, rendering them possibly harmful. Here concern is particularly focussed on liquid or soft food such as jam, tomato puree or chutney, so throw away any jars which have the slightest bit of mould on them. Certain hard foods such as cheese is much safer and are less likely to contain these mycotoxins, therefore can still be eaten as long as the mould is removed along with half an inch of the food underneath it. How should food be stored in the fridge or freezer?
As many of us already know, storing perishable food at the correct temperature is essential. Colder temperatures will considerably slow down the growth of bacteria – but not kill off – harmful bacteria, apart from listeria. The following kitchen safety tips will provide you with a rule of thumb guide into freezing and refrigerating food. First of all see to it that your fridge’s thermostat is set between 1 and 5 degrees C and your freezer below -18 degrees C.You should also make sure that you don’t keep opening and closing the fridge or place hot food in there as this will only serve to temporarily drive the base temperature up. In addition overloading the fridge will yield the same unwanted results.Avoid cross contamination by storing raw fish, meat and poultry at the bottom so that blood and juices don’t drip on other foods.See to it that you cover all food placed in the fridge and tend to any spillages immediately, by cleaning them with a paper towel or clean dish cloth.If you’re not lucky enough to have automatically defrosting fridge freezer then ensure you manually defrost in a regular basis (see, How to Defrost a Fridge Freezer).Make sure that you clean your fridge regularly using specialist germicidal fridge cleaner or alternatively one tablespoon of baking soda dissolved in one litre of lukewarm water.Thanks for reading our article on Kitchen Safety Tips. I hope you found it useful. While you’re here why not check out our other related articles. Or why not keep up to date with our activities on Twitter - One Pair of Hands or Facebook - OPH Good Housekeeping.Our Related Articles
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