Proper Food Handling: Avoid Cross Contamination of Bacteria

Cross contamination of bacteria in a home kitchen is a bigger health risk than most people realize. This risk of cross contamination can easily be avoided with proper food handling. Proper food handling procedures include cleanliness, thoroughly cooking foods, prompt refrigeration of foods and avoidance of cross contamination of harmful bacteria. There are more germs and bacteria in the kitchen sink, than are present in your bathroom toilet. The first step in proper food handling to avoid cross contamination of bacteria is cleanliness.

1. Wash hands before handling foods and after handling foods with warm soapy water, for at least twenty seconds. Use a clean dish towel to dry your hands or paper towels would be a better choice.

2. Wash fruit and vegetables under running tap water before consuming.

3. Scrub thick or firm skinned fruits and vegetables with a fruit brush, under running tap water before eating or preparing to cook.

4. Use paper towels to clean up spills in the kitchen. If you use a dish towel, the towel becomes cross contaminated with bacteria. Each surface you clean there after with the kitchen towel, you will be spreading germs and bacteria.

5. Use an anti-bacterial spray cleaner, to clean counter tops after preparing raw meats for cooking, to kill germs and bacteria. If you have washed raw meat in your sink, be sure to spray the sink as well. I like to use a solution of 1/2 bleach and 1/2 water, poured into a spray bottle for all non-porous surfaces.

The second step in proper food handling to avoid cross contamination is to thoroughly cook foods.

1. If food is improperly heated or cooked, bacteria can still survive. Always use a food thermometer to measure the internal temperature of foods, the color is not a reliable means of judging whether food is done or not.

2. When reheating vegetables, soups, gravy, or sauces be sure to bring them to a full rolling boil. This will ensure that any bacteria that may have formed, before refrigeration, will be killed.

3. It is especially important to thoroughly cook ground beef and ground poultry to the proper internal temperature. Never judge these meats by color. Harmful contamination of deadly bacteria could still be present, even if meat looks done.

4. When cooking eggs, make sure that they are cooked until the yolks as well as the whites are firm. Eggs need to be cooked thoroughly to avoid bacteria, which could possibly make you or your family terribly ill. Only use recipes that call for cooked eggs, or recipes that will be cooked long enough for the eggs that they contain, to be completely cooked.

The third step in proper food handling to avoid cross contamination is to promptly cool foods.

1. As soon as you get your perishable groceries home from the store, promptly refrigerate them. Bacteria will quickly grow when foods reach a temperature that exceeds 40 degrees. The higher the temperature of the food reaches, the faster the bacteria will spread.

2. All leftovers should be refrigerated within two hours of serving. Set the temperature of your refrigerator to 40 degrees or below to ensure proper cooling of foods. Place an appliance thermometer inside the refrigerator to keep track of the temperature.

3. When defrosting foods never defrost at room temperature. the only proper ways to defrost foods are in cold water, in the refrigerator or in the microwave. The foods that are thawed in cold water or the microwave, should be cooked immediately.

The fourth step in proper food handling to avoid cross contamination is to keep raw meat and their juices, away from ready to eat foods.

1. Never, never place cooked food on a plate that has previously contained raw meat. The juices left on the plate from the raw meat, will come into contact with the cooked foods, and contaminate this food with the bacteria that was left on the plate.

2. Always use the same cutting board for cutting raw meat. Use a separate cutting board for fruits and vegetables.

3. Keep meat and it's juices apart from fruits and vegetables, or ready to eat foods, so that the juices from the raw meat will not come into contact in any way with these ready to eat foods. This is one of the most commonly overlooked cross contamination, in your refrigerator.

4. Wash your hands, food preparation surfaces, utensils, plates, pans or anything that comes into contact with raw meats or their juices. This cannot be stressed enough! This last paragraph pretty much sums up, the problem of improper food handling resulting in cross contamination of bacteria.

Think of it this way, you touch the raw meat, your hands are contaminated with bacteria. You just dry them off on a dish towel. You take a head of lettuce from the refrigerator, along with vegetables for a salad. prepare the salad with your contaminated hands. The entire salad is now teaming with harmful bacteria! You take the dish towel that you wiped your hands on and you dry the counter, where you made the salad. Now the counter is covered with bacteria. Then you take a plate from the dishwasher, it is still damp, so you dry the plate with the contaminated dish towel. The person who eats from this plate is now in danger of becoming deathly sick, from the bacteria that was transferred from the dirty dishtowel to the plate. This could have been prevented, with proper food handling to avoid cross contamination of bacteria.

I feel that I know quite a lot about how to properly handle food to minimize cross contamination of bacteria. I was the manager of a restaurant a few years ago. Being a manager, I was responsible for the proper cooking and handling of food, as well as the cleaning of the kitchen and proper storage of food. I have taken this experience into my own kitchen at home. Almost to the point of obsession. I hope that this advice will help you to keep your family safe through proper handling of food to avoid cross contamination of bacteria.