preparing food safely

• if people eat food thats contaminated they could become very ill, so its important to handle food safely and hygienically to prevent bacteria spreading
• when working with food, its really easy to pass bacteria from raw food to work surfaces, equipment and your hands. bacteria are then transferred to other food - this is called cross contamination
• cross contamination can happen from a variety of different sources:

  • other contaminated food - raw meat juices can drip onto cooked food
  • utensils, equipment and work surfaces - using unclean equipment, dirty cloths on work sources
  • people - poor hygiene and sneezing or coughing
  • pests - flies, rodents etc, walking over food, eating it
• when preparing food:

  • follow personal hygiene procedures - wash your hands, wear an apron, wear a hair net, remove all jewellery, cover all cuts
  • separate raw and cooked foods and use coloured cooking boards for different food groups
  • wash raw vegetables thoroughly - even traces of soil contain bacteria
  • use clean equipment and antibacterial spray to sanitise work surfaces
  • defrost frozen food fully, in the bottom of a fridge and away from other food
• when cooking food:

  • cook at the right temperatures and for the correct time
  • make sure food is cooked all the way through, account for varying sizes of food
  • test the temperature inside the food using a temperature probe
• for temperature probes:

  • sanitise the probe before and after use
  • insert the temperature probe into the middle of the thickest part of the food
  • leave the probe in until the temperature stabilises
  • check the probe reaches at least 75 degrees
• when serving food:

  • serve hot food straight away or keep it above 63 degrees for no longer than 2 hours
  • if youre serving food cold or storing it, cool it down within 90 minutes
  • keep food covered to prevent flies or other pests contaminating it - preferably put it in the fridge
  • try to avoid wasting food, and check bins are not overfilled