Sanitation
5 Areas of sanitation or healthy food handling practices:
Germs and Bacteria are everywhere. The goal in the kitchen is to work in a controlled
environment where germs and bacteria are minimized. The following are some steps
that will assist you in minimizing germs and bacteria.
Sanitation at home is no less important than in a restaurant. Many times it is more
difficult because you have no one to hold you accountable, such as the board of health
or board of agriculture.Whenever you prepare food for someone you are managing the
growth of bacteria that may be responsible for food borne illness. If you stick to these
principles you will be taking steps to preventing food borne illness for those you are
preparing food for.
5 Areas of Sanitation or healthy food handling practices
1. Clean as you go - As you work in the kitchen you will wash,chop, peel, handle raw meat,
etc. All of these processes leave debris. Peels, andparticles could be kept in a bowl
until you have time to discard them. You should wipe surfaces down when you
change ingredients. This is more important when handling raw meats, then it is
between produce items. Fill your dish pan with water and try and washsome
pots as you go it will make cleanup easier at the end and you will probably need
something you have used already.
2. You're work station - You want to start by washing down your counter/work surfaces.
Then dry them with a paper towel or clean cloth. You may wipe the same surfaces
with a sanitizerwipe or solution. You want to keep your work surface free from
crowding, chemicals, and things that would interfere with knife work or that may
incidentally get into the food.
3. Working with Food - Keep a separation between your raw meats, and raw produce. This
is especially important when you are working with items that will be consumed raw.
(Salad,Celery sticks, Carrot sticks) What you will want to do is work with vegetables
first, then meats, vs. cooked. If you can'tdo this then clean the area down, as you did
when you set up your work station above. The HACCP description below is an important
part of sanitation. See Roasting Charts.
4. After you've cooked - Bacteria grows the most between 40 and 140 degrees fahrenheit
(the Temperature Dangerzone). What you should be aiming at is getting the
temperature of you're food down to 70 degrees in 2 hours then in another 4 hours
down to 40 degrees or below. The total process encompasses 6 hours. One way to
achieve this is to divide your product into smaller quantities, or putting a pot
in the sink surrounded by ice water, stirring frequently. Do not put large quantities
of hot food into your fridge at one time, it will raise the temperature of your
refrigerator exposing anything in it to unsafe temperatures.
5. Recieving and storage of foods - Mostly common sense, dealing with a
grocer you have in good faith that they aren't recieving food products that have been
tainted or exposed to dangerous bacteria or hazards. When you shop you should be
looking for fruits and vegetables that are not bruised or damaged, meats and seafood
that are fresh and do not have a foul oder. These will be covered in more detail in
About You're Food. Bags of rice and flour that are not ripped, and cans that are not
bulging or dented. When storing you should keep cooked or raw vegetables above
raw, uncooked meats at all times. Generally try and keep dry goods in just that a dry
area, room temperature to 50 degrees is an acceptable temperaure. Always keep
chemicals and cleaning products away from foods.