Food Safety Week is an annual event to promote the importance of good food hygiene in the home and runs from 10 to 16 June 2013.
Kitchen Check
The theme this year is focussed on helping consumers assess their own home kitchen habits.
Most people don’t believe the food they cook at home can make them ill, but meals prepared at home can be source of food poisoning. Kitchen Check is a simple tool that helps you find out if your kitchen habits are putting you, or your family and friends, at risk of food poisoning.
Kitchen Check helps you to go through each stage of the food preparation and cooking process to find out how well you are doing or whether there are things you can change to help protect you and those you care about from food poisoning.
The interactive online version of the Kitchen Check will be available from 10 June 2013 at www.food.gov.uk/kitchen-check
Food Safety tips for Food Safety Week 2013
Cleaning
Hands are one of the main ways germs are spread. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and warm water before preparing and handling food, cooking and after touching the bin, going to the toilet, handling pets or handling raw food.
Wash or change dish cloths, tea towels, sponges and oven gloves regularly and let them dry before you use them again. Dirty, damp cloths are the perfect place for bacteria to breed.
Avoiding Cross Contamination
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Cross contamination occurs when harmful germs are spread between food, surfaces and equipment. Help to prevent this by removing clutter that you don’t need and washing worktops before and after food preparation.
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Always use a chopping board. Wash the board and other utensils in hot, soapy water when you’ve finished using them and in between preparing raw foods
(meat, poultry, eggs, fish and raw vegetables) and ready-to-eat food. Better still, use a separate chopping board for each type of food.
Chilling
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Make sure your fridge is set between 0 and 5°C, using a fridge thermometer to check. This is to prevent harmful germs from growing.
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Don’t overfill your fridge. This allows air to circulate and maintains the set temperature.
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Store raw meat and poultry at the bottom of the fridge and properly wrap or cover it to avoid raw juices contaminating other foods.
Cooking food thoroughly
Find out more
Visit www.food.gov.uk/kitchen-check to find out if your kitchen habits mean you’re cooking up a storm, or if they’re putting you in hot water. After taking the Kitchen Check online you will have the option to share the tool via Twitter and Facebook.
