Post #7 Food Handling and Food safety

Food Safety

Food is one of the most common sources of disease and parasitic lifeforms and learning to handle and clean your food is as important as actually heating it and making it aesthetically pleasing. In fact, learning to handle and prepare food safely should be the first step you should take to becoming an at-home or restaurant cook.

This post is dedicated to teaching some of the basics of food safety and sanitation. While this might be an insightful starting point, it is always best to do your own research and even take a food handling course.

Four Basic principles of Food Safety:

-Cleaning

-Separation

-Cooking

-Chilling

Cleaning: While it might seem redundant to lecture someone about not cutting raw food with dirty utensils or failing to clean your vegetables before cooking, it must always be reiterated as the failure to properly clean foodstuffs and utensils leads to thousands of food-borne related illnesses. 

• Remember to keep all utensils clean with hot, soapy water and to use longer washes or bleach to clean cutting boards that have had meat on them.
• Don't wear dirty attire or aprons, they may rub against the food and contaminate them.
• Wash your hands often (including after handling money, raw meats and vegetables, after using the bathroom) to prevent any contamination from yourself directly 
• Keep Surfaces clean by using soap, water, a sanitizer, and air-dry
• Lose the earring and jewelry, they can be quite the breeding ground

Separation: It should go without saying that you simply cannot handle raw beef and and raw chicken together on the same board and not be the one to blame for getting yourself and others sick.

• Make sure to separate raw meats, vegetables, and other sensitive foods to prevent cross-contamination (avoid juices from coming into contact!!!!)
• Use separate knives, boards, utensils and trays while preparing to limit contact
• If need be, purchase pre-cooked or pre-packaged foods to limit the need for further contact

Cook/Heating and Chilling: Cook your food thoroughly, the only meat product that should be pink is beef and only if you ask for it to be so. The FDA and numerous restaurant and food associations suggest beef and shellfish be cooked to at least 140-145 degrees F, Ground beef and pork to 160 degrees F and chicken to be cooked to at least 165 degrees F. Any lower than 145 degrees is game for bacteria reproduction and anything higher than 40-45 degrees is the same.

• Use thermometers to check the temperatures of your foods accurately
• Don't overstuff your fridge or freezer as that draws more cold air to more products, raising the overall heat
• Eat the food closest to expiration as that frees up more space in your freezer
• Freezing doesn't kill bacteria, that is a myth. It only slows reproduction levels. Only very high heats kill microorganisms and this only works for most bacterium.

Extra tips for the road:

• Label and store your food according to product and expiration dates
• Watch out for common allergens such as milk, nuts, fish and wheat products
• Know that meat, cooked vegetables and fruits are sensitive to bacteria due to the common use of fertilizers, chemicals, hormones and animal-based bacterium (such as roundworm, Yersinia, Salmonella and Campylobactar) 
• Do your research!!!!! I'm still a novice and have much to learn and so do you! Don't trust me, trust the internet (or not, oh well).