Food safety is not simple; and please, stop yelling
When people write using exclamation marks, especially in an e-mail or web-based postings, they seem to be yelling,
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At the reader.
At me.
The U.K. Institute of Food Science & Technology issued an update yesterday on avoiding cross-contamination in the home. Why did the group specifically target the home and not include food service and retail? No idea.
I won't bicker with the advice -- although in some cases it seems excessive and culled from brochures rather than actual observation. For example, under handwashing, the report says,
"Wash hands, including finger-tips, thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and dry them thoroughly before you start preparing food. Do this repeatedly during food preparation - after every interruption and always if you have had to change the baby's nappy or have been to the toilet; or after combing or touching your hair, nose, mouth or ears; or after eating, smoking, coughing or blowing nose; or after handling waste food or refuse; or after handling dirty cloths, crockery etc; or after shaking hands; or after touching shoes, the floor or other dirty surfaces. After preparing raw foods such as fish, meat, or poultry, wash your hands again before you start handling other foods. Rings can harbour germs - remove them before preparing food!
Twenty seconds of handwashing -- which is itself excessive -- is further excessive after simply scratching (not picking) my nose. I'm sure that will spark some hate mail. We were talking about that yesterday during my presentation at the Alabama Food Safety and Defense Conference in Montgomery, AL, yesterday.
But look at that exclamation mark. Gives it the ring of a fascist line-dancing instructor barking out orders.
The document concludes by stating,
If you suspect cooked, or ready-to-eat food might be contaminated, don't serve it or eat it!
Remember:
Food-poisoning is preventable - avoiding cross-contamination is simple and important!
Food safety is not simple. And save the exclamation marks for the truly exclamatory.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/admin/trackback/71459
Dear Doug,
How superior and condescending.
IFST Advisory Statements are issued in support of UK Food Safety Week (which will be 9-13 June 2008). They are not addressed to professionals but to the general public in the home. Hence they are written in appropriate layperson's language and deal with aspects of food safety in the home, not in retail or foodservice.
If you had read this Adisory Statement with care, as I would expect, you would see that it did not say food safety is simple -- it said that avoiding cross-contamination is simple - which it is if the outlined precautions are taken.
J Ralph Blanchfield
As a "lay-person" I have to object to the idea that avoiding cross-contamination is simple. Any time I have grilled raw meat, I find it complicated to remember when I need to wash my tongs and when they can be reused. Before I met Doug, I never washed my tongs after flipping meat on the grill. I probably even touched raw meat and then took vegetables off the grill with the same tongs. I find it equally complicated when I'm peeling raw shrimp to not contaminate the whole kitchen just by trying to throw the shells in the garbage and then wash my hands. Or try getting your contaminated bowl into the dishwasher without cross contaminating. Part of the problem, for me, is that people keep saying it is simple. Why can't we acknowledge that it's not and that it takes special attention. Wouldn't people take pride in knowing they are doing something that isn't just for dummies?