When it comes to working with vulnerable people, or anybody for that matter, you need to ensure you’re not putting anyone at risk at mealtimes.
Eating food and preparing food is a joy for many, and it’s also a necessary act of life. We need to eat, right? But, imagine your guilt or dread if engaging in one of these tasks left you running to the bathroom. Or worse, to the hospital.
Yeah. That’s not something we want on our conscience.
That’s why it’s incredibly important to know what makes food safe. We need to know how to prepare, store and cook food to ensure that we get something tasty and something that won’t ban us from going anywhere near the kitchen.
So, where do we start with food safety?
Knowing the basics
When it comes to preparing, cooking and storing food, there are four rules to live by:
- Clean
- Separate
- Cook
- Chill
Four basic rules that can keep you happy, healthy and satisfied. Let’s get into the details of each rule, shall we?
Clean
We want the things we eat to be clean. Unless we’ve ordered a dirty chai, then of course, the dirtier the better. But overall, clean food, clean kitchen utensils and clean surfaces on which you prepare the food will ensure we avoid germs spreading.
You can easily reduce the chances of foodborne illnesses if you:
- Wash your hands and clean surfaces frequently – especially when touching any raw meat, eggs or seafood.
- Use soap. Sounds like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised…soap actually kills the bad bacteria – water won’t cut it alone!
- Wash your kitchen utensils. Your pans, your chopping boards, your knives…everything you use to prepare your gourmet dish (yes, ramen counts) needs to be clean of any food remnants or any bacteria that could be hiding.
- Rinsing fruit and vegetables is key too. Think how many hands have been touching those in the supermarket…unclean hands. Don’t ever just bite into an apple without running it under water first.
Separate
To defy Al Green, staying together isn’t always the right thing to do. When it comes to food, anyway.
High-risk food like raw meat, eggs and seafood contain microorganisms that can easily spread to other foods such as fruit, vegetables or already cooked food if they touch or are near to each other (and uncovered).
Say you’re making a lovely marinade for a chicken. You cut the raw chicken on one cutting board – you don’t clean it – then you begin making a salad on the same chopping board. Ugh. You’re spreading whatever was on the chicken (that can only be made safe to eat if cooked at a certain temperature) onto your fresh vegetables. That salad is very likely to make you and others ill.
Follow these tips to ensure you’re keeping things separate.
- Use one cutting board and knife for your raw meat or seafood and an entirely different set for other foods that don’t need to be cooked before consumption i.e. lettuce or capsicum.
- Don’t put cooked food anywhere near raw meat, raw seafood or raw eggs.
- Ensure you’re using tupperware to avoid raw food and cooked food touching.
Cook
With foods that contain microorganisms (those high-risk ones we mentioned earlier), we need to ensure we’re cooking them at a temperature (and for a length of time) that’s actually going to make the food safe to eat.
Many of us have run away from pink chicken at some point, but what if someone’s eye-sight isn’t very good? We need to know that what we send out for people to eat has been prepared and cooked in a safe way so that the person eating the chicken doesn’t need to have tip-top vision to know it’s fine to eat.
You can use a food thermometer (that’s been cleaned between each use) to check the temperature of your food. Stick a thermometer into a chicken, and if the temperature is at least 75°C in the centre of your meat, then you’re good to go!
75°C is what Food Standards Australia and New Zealand advises.
Chill
Food should be refrigerated as soon as you come back from the shops. That’s because bacteria can grow quickly if food is left in the danger zone (anywhere between 4°C and 60°C).
Making sure you have a fridge or a freezer that shows the inside temperature will help you keep on top of this.
Why should we care?
Well, who wants to get sick? Not us. And, in our industry, we’re looking after vulnerable people. Some of whom can’t prepare meals for themselves, so we need to make sure what we’re cooking for them is safe, delicious, nutritious, and won’t cause them any harm.
What is food poisoning?
Food poisoning is extremely debilitating. It can have us out of action for weeks, or just a few days.
It can be frustrating, more than anything, as it’s caused by food contaminated with parasites, bacteria or toxins which means…someone didn’t follow basic food safety.
Symptoms can include:
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Diarrhoea
- Dehydration
- Cramping
Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Nah. We’ll give it a miss.
Key takeaways
If we’re supporting someone who needs help making their food, or someone needs a bit more education around food safety, we need to ensure we know the basics.
It’s not just about taste, after all.
Follow our tips above and your food will not only be delicious, it will be contamination-free.
References:
https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/safety/Pages/food-safety-basics.aspx