Food safety is a super important element in any environment where food is prepared, handled, or served. Food safety is the practice of correctly handling, preparing, and storing food items to cut the risks of foodborne illnesses. Its primary goal is to prevent food contamination, which can result in various health risks. This article will go over measures and strategies for effective food safety.
Wash hands
Washing your hands to keep your food safe
Clean hands will protect against external bacteria getting into the body through foodstuffs, particularly with regards to finger food and snacks. Cross-contamination can be limited or completely avoided if the food handling is done with clean hands. Clean hands also prevent the spread of disease through direct contact, such as after one has sneezed into one’s hands, or after one has touched unsanitary objects.
Washing your hands prevents the spread of infections and illnesses
Washing one’s hands with soap or hand sanitiser eliminates a good percentage of germs from one’s hands, which in turn limits the spread of related infections and illnesses. Germs tend to find their way into the body through the eyes, nose, and mouth - body parts that are often touched by hands, either by accident or intentionally. Germs can also be transferred from one’s hands to objects that one touches, which further spreads them to other people who may be more susceptible to getting sick. Washing one’s hands lessens the risks of this.
Washing one’s hands lowers antibiotic resistance
This might seem like a bad thing on paper, but high antibiotic resistance is terrible for a person, especially if they have a weak immune system. Antibiotic resistance makes it difficult for medicines and drugs to take effect within the immune system, prolonging the length of time that a person is sick and making any viruses or bacteria more immune against the effects of the drugs.
Food Preparation
Make a plan
The foundation of every well-executed action is a good plan. The same can be said for food preparation and having good stock control procedures in place. Identify the ingredients of the meal or meals that you’d like to make, and plan how much of it you want to cook. Planning your meals can save you time when doing your shopping.
Organise your food storage areas
Keeping the food storage areas organised can do wonders for the efficiency and productivity of a kitchen. Food preparation in a kitchen is a hectic process; so an organised food storage area makes it easier for kitchen staff to see what’s in stock. This practice makes it easier for staff to find what’s needed for a dish, as well as identifying which ingredients or stock should be replaced or discarded (if they’re expired or contaminated).
Freeze wisely
Practice the “First In, First Out” (also known as FIFO) method of storing food items in the freezer. This practice ensures that the items placed first in the cool rooms/fridges are the first to be taken out and used. This guarantees that food items are consumed while still fresh, as well as providing an organised method of identifying which food items are nearing expiry. To fully organise the FIFO method, utilise a dating system - write labels on the containers of the food items, as well as the date in which they were stored. Paired with the FIFO method, this will make sure that the quality of food items are always optimal for food preparation purposes.
Plan your dishes
When cooking many dishes simultaneously, start with the meals that take the longest. This is to ensure the freshness of the dishes when served concurrently. Most restaurants commit the mistake of cooking with the quickest dish first, operating under the idea that it’s more convenient to finish the easy dishes first before tackling the more complicated ones. The opposite is true, in terms of food prep - starting with the dishes that require the most time and preparation ensures the freshness of all the dishes intended to be served together, as this will mean less cool-down time for quick meals. Less cool-down time, in turn, means that bacteria has less time to settle into dishes before they’re served.
Handling Food Allergy Risks
According to the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA), Australia is being considered as one of the countries in the world with the highest food allergy rates, and this number continues to increase each year worldwide. Usually, when people with food allergies eat out, they rely on food businesses to provide accurate information about the ingredients in their menu items. With this, they will be able to make informed decisions about what they should order. If given inaccurate and insufficient information, their health may be at risk and, in worst case scenarios, their lives as well.
Become familiar with food allergies
One of the common mistakes food businesses make is confusing intolerance with an allergy. Keep in mind that intolerances are less severe and only involve the digestive system while food allergies can be very bad as they involve the immune system. Staff serving food should remember this difference - that food allergies are not food preferences but are allergic disorders. A food allergy can happen when a person’s immune system reacts to a foreign substance. Usually, it’s a protein that is breathed, eaten, or touched. Alarmingly, people who have allergies can be in danger and may undergo a life-threatening condition they call anaphylactic shock. This occurs when they consume products containing the allergen (even a minimal amount). Signs that someone has an allergic reaction. Once a person eats food he or she is allergic to, the reaction may flow through the body, causing physical symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea, swelling of the lips, tongue, and throat, abdominal cramps, difficulty in breathing, and hives. Signs that someone is experiencing anaphylactic shock. When anaphylaxis occurs, a person’s airways will begin to swell and tighten, making it nearly impossible for them to breathe. Other symptoms include chest tightening, dizziness, facial swelling, gastrointestinal problems, heart palpitations, and severe anxiety.
Food safety plan
One way to minimise risks for customers is to integrate allergy risk prevention into the Food Safety Plan. Involved in it is a written plan for handling customers with food allergies that the staff must follow. Assign someone who will respond to questions from customers regarding the menu, who will check the ingredients and note any that contain allergens in the menu. There must be members of staff who know how to handle someone having an allergic reaction if it occurs, etc.
Delegate responsibilities
The key to safely serve customers who have food allergies is cooperation. The staff (customer service staff and the food staff), including the managers and the Food Safety Supervisor NSW, must learn about the issues surrounding food allergies and how to answer customers’ questions properly. For Food Safety Supervisors, it is their responsibility to become familiar with menu-item ingredients and food allergies, especially when faced with questions from a customer. This way, they can inform the staff preparing the food about the allergies, if there are any, and take the necessary steps to avoid cross-contamination with the allergen carefully.
Educate staff
It is the initiative of Food Safety Supervisors to train the staff about the proper ways of dealing with requests from customers with food allergies. Also, the staff who handle food must prepare food for an allergy-prone customer from other meals that may contain allergens, with different plates, knives, and trays, so that the food of a customer doesn’t come in contact with other food that may trigger the disorder.
