~Pagan Hearth Recipes~

Can Your Kitchen Pass the Food Safety Test?

PROPER FOOD HANDLING

Lately it has become popular for the media air stories the sole intention of which is simply to frightening to death those among us who eat food. Everyone seems to be getting into the act, even the president Ц who recently announced the formation of a commission to study ways to ensure the safety of the nationsТ food.

Restaurants are routinely accused of serving food that makes people ill. And, of course, there are instances in which this is actually trueЕsome of these instances were infamous Ц and deadly. But, the truth is that most of the time restaurant people do handle the food properly and the "illness" the victim suffers from is not food poisoning at all, but rather a virus that has unhappily been picked up along the way. This usually is the case when two or three people all "come down" with the MontezumaТs revenge after eating out together. Think about it: if a restaurant that serves hundreds of people could selectively cause a few people to get ill while others remain healthy eating the same foodЕwell, all I can say is that more customers would be on their best behavior when dining out!

Anyway, most of us are really not trained in good foodhandling practices. Nevertheless, since everyone eats, we all think we instinctively know how to handle food. It is like the notion that because we can produce children we think we also know how to raise them.

Everyone who comes to work at Olive Garden Restaurants, where I, (Lady Elaine) work, gets some rudimentary training in safe food handling practices. We are regularly impressed with the lack of knowledge about food that newly hired staff bring with them. The following was modified from a list that is shared with all Olive Garden employees. Much of the information is really common sense. Nevertheless, if everyone handling food followed these Ц or similar - guidelines, there would be many fewer incidents of foodborne illness in America.

	*Wash your hands often - with warm water and soap - especially after handling raw foods.* The single most common means of bacterial transmission occurs when a food handler brings bacteria from one food (usually raw food) to another (usually cooked food) by touching both. Wearing gloves will not prevent this transfer of bacteria, because bacteria will survive on the gloves long enough to infect the next food handled. For the same reason, a towel that has been used to clean or handle raw foods should never be used to handle cooked foods. By washing your hands after eating, handling money, smoking or going to the bathroom you will reduce significantly the chance of transferring other kinds of infectious agents onto the food that you prepare for your family. By the way, this is the reason that foodservice employees should never eat or drink in food preparation areas.
	All foods should be maintained at temperatures warmer than 140░ F or cooler than 45░ F. Bacteria are incredibly hardy stuff. They are able to grow even at temperatures high enough to boil water and cold enough to freeze it. But bacteria grow best between 45░ F and 140░ F. So maintaining food at temperatures outside that window considerably enhances its safe shelf life. Except during use, food should not be allowed to stand unrefrigerated for more than a few minutes. For the same reason, if you are going to use only a portion of refrigerated food, only remove that amount from refrigeration. Most of us take the entire container of milk from the fridge and leave it on the kitchen table throughout breakfast. Instead, fill the kidsТ glasses up and return the container to the cooler. Similarly, buy a small pitcher for coffee service at home. If necessary, foods left out for long periods of time may be nested in larger containers that have been filled with ice to keep them cold.
	Food should never be stored on the floor, even in containers. Many restaurants have refrigerators large enough to roll a cart into. These are generically called "walk-ins." While this section is aimed mostly at managing food in the walk-in, it is also applicable to foodhandling at home. How many times have you set on the floor in front of the fridge a six pack of beer or a jug of juice you just bought at the market? You just set it there an instant while you juggle the bags and such and then open the refrigerator door and put the item inside. Well, Marian, you just yelled at Kevin for picking up a piece of fallen candy and putting it back in his mouth. You did that because you recognize that terrible things are going on right there, under your eyes, on the linoleum. Guess what? All those terrible things have also grabbed onto the bottom of the container you just took off the floor and set on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator. Tomorrow you are going to set a head of lettuce in the same placeЕ.uh, oh. A box or plastic container that is first set on the floor and then moved to a shelf will transfer bacteria from the floor to the shelf. It then has the chance to fall from the shelf rack onto the food stored below it (contaminating the lower shelved food) or it may simply sit there patiently waiting for you to set something else over it.
	Food should always be covered. Most food deteriorates upon exposure to air, becoming dried out and discolored. Covering food slows this process. Covering food helps to prevent the contamination that might occur when one food falls into another. Covering food also will help to contain odors.
	Raw foods, particularly poultry, meat and fish, should never be shelved over cooked foods or above foods that will be eaten raw. As with #1, bacterial contamination from raw to cooked foods is by far the most worrisome. Virtually all raw meats, fish and poultry are actually contaminated with bacteria when you buy them. Most of this bacteria will die during the cooking process. But, if this bacteria is given the opportunity to grow on foods that are already cooked [or foods that, since they are intended to be eaten raw (like lettuce), will never be cooked], they may make someone sick as a result.
	*Foods should never be "nested."* Nesting refers to the practice of setting one container of food inside another container that already has food in it. Because the bottoms of food containers are likely to touch countertops and shelving that have bacteria on them, setting one container inside another increases the likelihood that the food will become contaminated. LetТs say the refrigerator is really full and youТve got leftovers to put away. You put the plate of leftover, raw chicken wings onto a bowl of cherries on the top shelf. Since the cherries are uncovered, there is a chance the raw bacteria from the chicken can contaminate the cherries. If you reverse the nest by putting the bowl of cherries on top of the uncovered chicken wings, the next time you will set the bottom of the contaminated bowl someplace Ц simply moving the bacteria from one place to another.
	"New" foods of the same type should never be combined with "old" food - even when they are originally from the same batch. When you are almost out of something, donТt simply add new to the old. Even if both were originally from the same batch, the "old" food is likely to have grown more bacteria than the remaining balance of the batch. This is because handling food (mixing, even) itself actually promotes the growth of bacteria. With handling, the bacteria becomes exposed to more air (which helps bacteria to grow.) In addition, the bacteria that has begun to grow on the surface of the food is then spread through the entire mass of it.
	When in doubt, first check, then throw it out. Most of the time if you think that some food youТve got (leftovers or fresh) is not "right," you are going to be correct. If you think something isnТt right, just throw it out. The old saw about safety vs sorrow is good to draw upon here, Alice.
	There is no such thing as "I almost caught it," - The Nameless CookТs 10-Second Rule. In a restaurant, 99 times out of one hundred, food that touches the floor cannot be made to be safe again. That means that 99 times out of 100, food that touches the floor should go into the garbage. At home you can be less rigid. After all, it is a less trafficked area, you may have the time to properly wash, trim or otherwise reconstitute the fallen food. Obviously you donТt want food to be thrown away so we hope such accidents never happen. But, in a restaurant, when the integrity of a food product cannot be guaranteed, the food has to be thrown out. No questions asked. At home, raw food that hits the floor can be salvaged with little concern if it can be properly cleaned and, shortly thereafter, cooked. We once hired a cook who believed in what he called "the 10-second rule": if he could pick the fallen food off the floor within 10 seconds, he felt it was safe to serve. He was wrong, and, as a result, he was fired the first day.
	If you are sick, you can easily make someone else sick. Most of the time this will happen because we do not wash our hands enough. When you are sick you are carrying germs that readily find their way to other people. If you have a cold and touch your nose or face you are likely to next transfer those germs to the skin of another person, to the surface of silverware, glassware or plates, or directly onto food. If you are sick, take medication to reduce your symptoms (if your nose doesnТt run and you donТt sneeze you are less likely to give someone else your cold.) When in doubt, see #1 again.

For your own information: true food poisoning is extremely rare. Most of the intestinal distress people attribute to food poisoning is not the result of consuming spoiled food. It happens when someone is infected with a virus that causes such symptoms when a similarly infected food handler has not followed safe food handling practices.