Food Safety (part two) Cross Contamination and Hygiene

Cross contamination happens when raw foods come into contact with cooked foods.  The obvious is cutting your salad ingredients in the same area you cut raw meat.  The bacteria from the raw meat will get on the vegetables.  It might be okay if you were going to cook the vegetables, but since you are eating them raw, you will be ingesting the bacteria from the meat.  The easiest way to prevent this is to wash your cutting surface thoroughly with hot soapy water and then rinse with clean water before you cut your vegetables.  Do not forget to wash your knife or any equipment you used to cut the meat.  Your hands are also a tool, so if they handled the meat wash them before you touch your vegetables.  Cutting the vegetables first would also solve the problem.

Your mother told you to wash your hands before you eat for a reason.  You touch so many things, even in your own home, that are not clean so don’t forget to wash your hands.  Wash them after you use the bathroom, before you start to cook, and when you change ingredients.  I know hand washing seems obvious, but it is easy to forget.  If you have a habit of wiping your hands on a towel, make sure the one you use to wipe meat juices from your hands is not the same towel you use to dry your clean hands later.  I prefer to use a kitchen washcloth to wipe my counters and sink down.  I just throw the kitchen washcloth into the washing machine with my whites and a bit of bleach.  A sponge holds in bacteria; if you use one wash it in the washing machine too. 

Here are a few more hygiene tips.  Do not put cooked food into containers that held raw food.  Be certain to put raw meat on the lowest shelf in your refrigerator; if it drips it will not drip onto cooked food.  Food safety is not difficult you just need to stop and think.  If you take a few minutes to pay attention you will never have to worry about getting sick from the food you make in your kitchen. 

   

Cooking is easier than you think and you and your family are worth the time and effort it takes. 

Simple cooking idea: When you put a lot of dishes into the oven at one time, the temperature will go down and everything will take longer to cook.

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