Serious stuff… be safe

I suppose most of us have suffered with food poisoning at some time or another. It is caused by eating contaminated food – most of us have heard of salmonella or Escherichia coli (E.coli) to name but two.

Food poisoning occurs not just from restaurants and fast food places – in fact you are just as likely to catch it from badly prepared food in the home.

I've already mentioned hand hygiene and washing down workshops and dishcloths too. Cross contamination is the transfer of bacteria from contaminated foods, for example, raw chicken to direct contact with food already cooked. By storing raw foods incorrectly for example storing raw chicken breasts in your fridge not in an appropriate container and allowing it to drip onto cooked food. You can also transfer – cross contaminate – by not washing your hands or via a dirty dishcloth.

Do I have your attention? When “fridging” raw meat and poultry ensure it is contained properly. Store the raw meat and poultry on the lowest shelf of your fridge. Store cooked foods away from raw.

I know this will sound ridiculous but I always think of raw meat and poultry as dirty – in fact it is since until you've cooked raw foods you've not destroyed the bacteria.

Whilst we're on the subject of poultry – under no circumstances ever wash meat and in particular poultry before cooking. Think of CSI – you've seen the investigators use Luminol which highlights blood, invisible to the naked eye at a crime scene – your kitchen will look just the same – except it won't be blood it'll be bacteria you've spread all over your kitchen!

Ensure that cooked foods are cooled and “fridged” as soon as possible.

Follow cooking instructions properly particularly where meat and poultry products are concerned.

Make sure your fridge is at the correct temperature – i.e. below 5c. By keeping your food cold you prevent the food poisoning bacteria from growing – fridge thermometers are not expensive.

Use by and best before dates – what is the difference?

A “Use by” date is on foods that go off quickly, smoked fish, meat products, ready prepared salads with dressings – always follow instructions with such products and keep them in the fridge. You can “suspend” use by dates by freezing and therefore extend the life of a product – provided of course that you check that it can be frozen. It can also avoid wasting food. Make sure though, that if you do freeze any such product that you pay attention to how it should be defrosted (or not) and cooked.

A “Best before” date usually applies to a much larger range of foods – i.e. tinned, dried or frozen and is more about quality than safety issues. Having said that I wouldn't purchase tinned foods where the tin is bumped or damaged in any way – just my personal foible!

Chopping boards. It's difficult to understand that there might a “chopping board fashion” - it's a bit like saying that red wine is good for you for a time and suddenly it's not – the same applies to chocolate (albeit dark chocolate). Wooden boards were considered to be taboo and you should use plastic and so it goes on. What you can get nowadays are boards that are dishwasher safe – take care when choosing sizes. Ideally you should have six different boards of different colours for raw meat, raw fish, cooked meat, salad & fruit, vegetables and finally bakery & dairy.

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