Handling Food & Foodborne Diseases
by Dr. Deryck Pattron
Handling food is positively correlated with the risk of food borne diseases. This means that foods handled under unsanitary conditions and under inappropriate conditions of temperature and time tend to spoil faster and pose an ever increasing health risk to consumers and the general public. It therefore important that safe food handling practices be adopted and implemented so as to prevent, reduce and eliminate pain and unwarranted suffering and the economic burden of food bone diseases. Food handling safety practices must adopt a “farm to fork” approach to ensure safety of the entire food chain thereby ensuring public health safety. The following tips are provided for handling food safely in order to prevent or reduce the incidence of food borne diseases.
Taking food home safely • Do not keep chilled or frozen food for more than 45 minutes in a hot car. Use a cooler or ice pack for these foods. • Raw meat should be packed in a separate bag from other foods to prevent leakage and contamination of other foods.
Storing food safely • Keep foods in airtight containers. • Keep foods covered. • Keep shelves clean and sanitary. • Temperature in fridge should be between 2 and 4 °C. • Leftover hot food should be placed in the fridge as soon it has stopped steaming and used within 2 days. Beyond 2 days, throw it out. • Only freeze fresh good quality foods. • Only freeze small amounts of food at a time to avoid uneven freezing in the middle. • Freezing temperatures should be between -15 °C to -18 °C.
Hand hygiene key to preventing cross contamination of food • Wash hand thoroughly with plenty of soap and water for 20 seconds or more and dry with clean paper towel for 20 seconds. • Wash and dry hands: before and after preparation of food, after handling raw meat, after going to the toilet, after touching parts of the body, after touching animals or pets, after gardening, after handling rubbish and whenever the need arises. • Pathogens often transmitted by food contaminated by infected persons include: Calicivirus, Hepatitis A virus, Salmonella Typhi, Shigella species, Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus pyogenes. • Pathogens occasionally transmitted by food contaminated by infected persons include: Campylobacter jejuni, Cryptosporidium parvum, Entamoebia Histolytica, Escherichia Coli, Giardia lambia, Salmonella, Taenia Solium, Vibrio cholerae and Yersina entercolitica.
Food safety in the kitchen • Always use clean utensils when preparing food. • Use separate chopping boards for raw and foods to be cooked. • Avoid coughing or sneezing over food. • Do not allow pets near food. • Cover food to protect from flies and insects. • Infected persons should not prepare food.
Cooking food safely • Never thaw frozen food at room temperature. Frozen foods should be thawed in the fridge overnight. • Preheat oven so food cooks as quickly as possible. • Make sure that food is cooked and steaming hot right through to the middle. • Eggs should be well done. • Vegetables should be washed thoroughly before cooking. • Eat cook food immediately while it is still hot, do not leave it to stand at room temperature.
Dr. Deryck Pattron may be contacted at N/A ddpattron@tstt.net.tt. Click here to view more of their articles.
Dr Deryck D. Pattron is a Public Health scientist and specialist in Management in the Ministry of Health, Trinidad.
Food Safety: What is hiding in your food?
by Margie Geiser
As we head into the summer season, the number of barbeques and picnics increases. But this means more foods sitting out and shared by multiple people. This is the time that we all need to pay particular attention to the fact that food safety is NOT something to be taken lightly. Although just the thought of suffering from nausea, vomiting and severe diarrhea should be enough to motivate people to take food safety seriously, often people don’t think about it until it’s too late.
Over 250 organisms are known to cause foodborne illnesses. The causes of foodborne illness include viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and prions, and the symptoms of foodborne illness range from mild gastroenteritis to life-threatening neurologic, hepatic, and renal syndromes. In the United States, foodborne diseases have been estimated to cause 6 million to 81 million illnesses and up to 9,000 deaths each year.
Keeping track of people who actually suffer from foodborne illness is complicated by several factors. The first is that many cases are not ever reported. If you are sick, but not sick enough to see your doctor or be hospitalized, it’s unlikely you would report it to the CDC. However, the CDC requests that you do report it if you do suspect you suffered from food illness after eating at a restaurant. There are many cases where this reporting helped stop a potential serious outbreak.
A foodborne disease outbreak is defined as a group of people developing the same illnesses after ingesting the same food. If you think you or others became ill from eating the same food, please report this outbreak to your local (city or county) health department . By investigating outbreaks, public health officials learn about problems in food production that lead to illness. Applying what is learned in the investigation of one outbreak can help to prevent many future illnesses.
Second, many pathogens transmitted through food are also spread through water or from person to person, thus obscuring the role of foodborne transmission. Finally, some proportion of foodborne illness is caused by pathogens or agents that have not yet been identified and thus cannot be diagnosed. The importance of this final factor cannot be overstated. Many of the pathogens of greatest concern today (e.g., Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Cyclospora cayetanensis) were not recognized as causes of foodborne illness just 20 years ago.
Do you know how long that potato salad has sat out? Do you know what may have stopped by to ‘visit’ your container of mayo salad dressing topping that’s on the table, next to the hot dogs? Never take food safety lightly. Just to emphasize the point, spend some time on this site from a mother who lost her daughter to food poisoning: http://www.ideamarketers.com/toolbox/“http://www.geocities.com/tysca66/kelly.html”.
Here are some tips how you can practice food safety at your summer barbeques and picnics:
Wash hands. Frequently wash your hands – before and after eating. If you anticipate no running water available where you are, be sure to pack a waterless hand sanitizer in your bag. Remind family members to do the same.
Check that cold foods are cold. Be certain that foods you are eating are as cold as they should be. Be sure bowls of cold food are nesting in bowls filled with ice.
Check how the meats are cooked. Before biting into a burger – break it open to be sure it looks thoroughly cooked – brown in the middle. Be sure you do not eat chicken that has pink inside.
Pay attention to how food is served. Check that each salad or plate of food has its own serving utensils.
Eat once food is served. Eating once food is brought out lessens the chance of bacteria growing as it sits out.
Ask your host. Finally – if you have any questions about how the food was prepared or how long something has been out – ASK. Chances are your host or hostess will want to assure you that she has taken appropriate food-safety precautions as she prepared for the barbecue.
Summer is a great time to get together with friends and family and enjoy some summer foods – just be sure to take those necessary precautions.
Margie Geiser may be contacted at http://www.megfit.com/ info@1stva.com. Click here to view more of their articles.
Marjorie Geiser helps people overcome the confusion and distress they may feel when trying to add healthy eating and fitness into their busy lives. She offers a free, monthly newsletter on various topics of health. She is a Registered Dietitian, Personal Trainer and Life Coach. To learn more about her services, go to her website at http://megfit.com/ or email her at margie@megfit.com.
Creating a Baking Center to Store Your Baking Staples
by Donna Rivera-Loudon
Learn how to create an easy baking center in your kitchen to keep your food fresh and the bugs out. This is so important in the summer when critters are looking for a cool dark place.
It can be so frustrating when we go to cook or bake what's on today's menu only to find the bugs have got in our main ingredients or that the ingredients have gone bad. How do we keep these staples nice and fresh and bugless. My solution is Tupperware containers. I learned how to create a custom kitchen with Modular Mate containers from Tupperware. Not only do they keep the food fresh longer, but they also tend to keep the critters out while saving space in my kitchen cabinets. In this article I am going to attempt to explain to you, step-by-step, how you can also use Modular Mates to organize your baking staples while keeping them fresh.
Step one is to consider the height of containers you want to use. To do this, measure the height space available for the shelf you plan to use for your baking center. Deduct about three inches from the top so that removing and replacing the containers will be easy. If the fit is too snug, it will be difficult to take the containers in and out of the cabinet. Once you determine the height space you have available to use, determine which modular mates size will fit. These containers come in five different heights. I have listed them below.
Height One: 2 1/4" high
Height Two: 4 1/2" high
Height Three: 6 3/4" high
Height Four: 9" high
Height Five: 11 1/4" high
Determine if your available shelf space is Height one, two, three, four, or five. Once you determine this, you can begin to build your custom baking center. You can combine sizes. For example, if your available shelf space is 12" you would specify your shelf as Height Four. Height five does not give you enough room to take containers in and out of your cabinet. What is nice about the Modular Mates is you can combine sizes to equal your shelf height. For example, 2 Height Two's will equal a four shelf. Or 1 Height One and 1 Height Three will equal a four shelf. So you are not limited to just using Height Four containers.
Step Two
Determine the depth and width of your shelf. Here are the depth and width measurements of the Modular Mate containers.
Oval: 7 1/4" in length and 3 3/4" in width
Super Oval: 11" in length and 3 3/4" in width
Square: 7 3/8" in length and 7 3/8" in width
Rectangle: 11" in length and 7 3/8" in width
Once you determine the length of your shelf you will know which containers you can use. For example, if your shelf is 10" deep you know you will not be able to use the Super Ovals or the Rectangles.
Do the same thing with the width and determine how many across you can store on your shelf.
Step Three
Which foods do you want to store in the Modular Mates and what size containers will they go in to? The list below will give you an idea of what items go in what size containers. If you have any questions you can send me an email and I would be happy to assist you. You can also visit my Tupperware website at http://my.tupperware.com/DonnaLoudon and use the Contact Me button to send me an email.
Creating Your Baking Center
If you are using Oval containers here are some items and weights you can use in them:
Oval One will hold:
10 oz baking powder
1 pound baking soda
12 oz baking chips
8 oz baking chocolate
Oval Two will hold:
2 pounds baking soda
1 pound brown sugar
1 lb. 8 oz baking chips
1 lb. baking chocolate
10 oz coconut 1 lb cornstarch
1 lb powdered sugar
Oval Three will hold:
2 lb cornmeal
1 lb unsweetened cocoa powder
Oval Four will hold:
4 lb baking soda
2 lb all purpose flour
1 lb 2 oz oats
Here are some items you can use in the Rectangle containers.
Rect 1
3 lb 12 oz baking mix:
Rect 2
4 lb baking soda:
Rect 1
2 lb all purpose flour:
Rect1 10 lb all purpose flour: Rect 4 5 lb sugar: Rect 2 10 lb sugar: Rect 3
Here are some items you can use in the Square containers.
2 lb 8 oz baking mix: Square 2 3 lb 12 oz baking mix: Square 3 4 lb baking soda: Square 2 2 lb brown sugar: Square 1 5 lb all purpose flour: Square 4 1 lb powdered sugar: Square 1
These are just a few samples of what you can do to create a baking center with Modular Mates. In upcoming weeks I will provide the specs for creating a Pasta and Bean Center; a Beverage Center; a Snack Center, and a Breakfast Center.
