Safety for Handling Cooking Food

To continue our series of articles on “Food Safety Tips at Home,” I am willing to stress on other important features in handling food safety and avoiding food poisoning.

In order to reduce the risk of food poisoning it is crucial for you to have the policy of ‘separatist’ in the kitchen; meaning, you should be careful enough to separate the food that is ready to be served and eaten from the raw food like meats, eggs, seafood, etc. The procedure of maintaining food safety while carrying out food handling activities holds the other important point, which is to keep the cutting boards and utensils separate to escape food poisoning. 

 What is cross-contamination?

The way bacterias spread is the cross-contamination. It’s common knowledge that it is dangerous to eat raw meat as it will cause food poisoning. One should keep in mind that in order to reduce the risk of bacterial illnesses, it is necessary to  keep the kooked food away from meat juices and dirty objects.

Depending on your food handling safety activities like where to buy and handle (store, shop) and how to cook, etc. you may reduce the risk of food poisoning. Here are a few steps for you to keep in mind:

•        Make sure that you keep your grocery bags filled with raw meat, eggs and seafood separate from the already ready-to-eat food. This way you keep the food safety main points and make it possible for you to enjoy a healthy food.

•        If you use the same grocery bag for different food products, make it sure that you have put the raw meat in plastic bags to avoid the leaking of the meat juice in the grocery bag. This way you will keep the bag free of bakteria and safe for the coming shopping.

•        It is highly preferable that you maintain food safety in each of your food handling activities. For example, instead of putting our grocery bags in the trunk of the car, just place it on the backseat.

•        A lot depends on how you store the food in the refrigerator. To keep the food safety activities on, you should place the raw meat, seafood in the lowest shelf of the refrigerator to avoid the leaking of the meat juice on ready-to-eat-food. As mentioned above, plastic bags are perfect to keep the raw meat inside.

•        Place eggs in their original carton in the upper shelf (do not take it out from the carton as the bacteria on the egg surface will spread in the door shelves and hence be a source of cross-contamination.

•        The reusable totes are a perfect spot for growing bacteria, as they become damp and dirty cause of shopping. The solution is to wash them frequently with hot soapy water or just put it into the washing machine hot cycle mode.

To conclude the article, I would like to add that the food safety tips are numerous, and they are valuable in terms of keeping the healthy ethics of handling food.