Safe Food Preparation and Handling
All of us who prepare food at home for our families and even those who only store their daily restaurant leftovers can benefit from some knowledge of safe food handling. Avoiding foodborne illness is of special importance for the safety of children, seniors, and anyone with a compromised immune system or serious illness. Here we will only touch on the important basics; for those desiring a full education, we encourage you to visit the USDA food safety site.
Main types of contaminants
Biological hazards include bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi, as well as certain toxin-carrying plants, mushrooms and fish. By far the most common problem comes from bacterial contamination, partly due to the growth rate of bacteria in favorable conditions. Bacteria can reproduce every twenty minutes... from one lone bacterium to a colony of one billion in only ten hours!
Also of concern is chemical/toxin poisoning, which can occur from large bacterial growths (despite killing the bacteria with heat, the waste products of a large colony are toxic) or improper use of cleaners or even cookware. Luckily we can control conditions like cooking, reheating and storage temperatures, as well as workspace and personal sanitation to help ensure the safety of the food we’re preparing for our friends and family.
The Eight Steps
Practice strict personal hygiene: It all starts with you! Clean your hands and forearms with hot water and anti-bacterial soap for at least 20 seconds (remove jewelry), paying particular attention to under fingernails. Cuts or abrasions must be clean, disinfected, and covered with a clean bandage (and preferably a rubber finger ‘cot’ to cover the bandage). This is very important... open wounds are a major source of bacteria. And now that your hands are sparkling, avoid touching your face or other possible sources of contamination while working.
Monitor time and temperature: Please purchase a good food thermometer, one that’s accurate from 0°F to 200°F. There’s no substitute for this important tool! [How to Calibrate a Thermometer] The most important concept to learn is that food can only be in the Temperature Danger Zone for less than 4 hours. That zone is 41°F to 140°F, and is the temperature range where bacteria grow rapidly. This 4-hour period is accumulative! Therefore, meat in the car coming from market that rises above 41°F is spending time in the zone. After you cook it, the time it takes for you to cool the leftovers to below 41 degrees is time in the zone. The time it takes you to reheat and the time it sits later on the table cooling down are counted as well. Do your best to keep track, and try not to approach 4 hours too often. Proper defrosting is an important part of this cycle as well.
Prevent Cross Contamination: Cross contamination occurs when pathogens are accidentally transferred from one surface or food to another. Most important is the avoidance of corrupting cooked or ready-to-eat foods with raw, possibly contaminated ingredients. So, be sure to keep chopping boards cleaned and sanitized between ingredients. While it may be “safe” (but a horrible idea) to chop celery, that you’re about to boil in soup, on a board that just held a raw chicken, it could be deadly if the celery is for your potato salad! Always wash vegetables, but with extra care if they’re going into an uncooked salad. The rag used to clean up your chicken chopping is now done for the day. In fact, a good tip is to have a few color coded boards for veggies and meat, AND to work on one at a time. Try cleaning and cutting your meat first, set aside, and then sanitize the entire area. Now work on the rest of the meal.
Clean and Sanitize Equipment and Surfaces: Sure, this is just common sense, but requires due diligence. Purchase one of the commercial sanitizing sprays for the kitchen, and follow the product’s directions AFTER making everything visibly clean with soap and water. Sanitize your counter, chop boards, utensils and your kitchen sink, especially near the drain. Re-sanitize after working with raw meats and vegetables, and remember to keep cleaning your hands throughout the cooking process.
Cook Foods to Proper Temperatures: Now that we have convinced you to buy a good thermometer, here’s your chance to put it to good use! CLICK HERE for proper meat temperatures.
Proper Holding Temperatures: It’s important to keep potentially hazardous foods at the proper temperature (i.e.: out of the Temperature Danger Zone) when serving them over long periods of time (even a few hours). So, hot foods must be kept above 140°F and cold foods below 41°F.
Proper Cooling of Cooked Foods: Since bacteria reproduce even faster from 70-125°F, it’s important to cool cooked food to below 70° within just two hours, and then from 70-40° within 4 hours. Don’t put the food into the refrigerator until you’ve reached 70°, as it will warm up other items in the fridge and not cool quickly enough. Use stirring, an ice bath, and smaller containers to reach that temperature before using the fridge. Stir a few time while in the fridge and you’re done.
And Proper Reheating: Reheat food for service to an internal temperature of 165°F for at least 15 seconds, within 2 hours.