Prevention of Food borne Illnesses

We continue with our lessons on how to prevent food contamination that will lead to food borne illnesses. Below is the continuation.

• All foods should be cooked thoroughly to destroy all harmful microorganisms. 
• Keep raw materials away from ready to serve food. 
• Ensure work surfaces, knives, trays and other equipment used for raw meat and vegetables are cleaned and disinfected after use. 
• Wash and dry your hands after handling raw foods such as raw meat and vegetables, the toilet or rubbish. Harmful germs can survive for hours on wet hands.
• All cooked foods should be eaten hot and cold foods eaten cold. Left over foods should be stored immediately in a refrigerator and well heated before consumption.
• Refrigeration temperature should be below 0̊ C. 
• Foods stored in the refrigerator should be properly covered. 
• Frozen foods should be stored in the freezer.
•  High risk foods should be stored in the coolest part and separately from a low risk food in the refrigerator.
• Effective kitchen and personal hygiene needs to highly practices to prevent cross contamination. 

 This post has really been helpful and i know that we are all going to combat food borne illnesses as we ensure that food is handled, prepared and stored appropriately.

Symptoms and Prevention of Food borne Illnesses

Today we want to have a discussion on symptoms of food borne illness and how to prevent it.

Symptoms of food borne illnesses.

have you ever experienced any of the symptoms listed below after consuming a particular meal? Then you may have suffered a food borne illness. Some food borne illnesses can be mild whereas others can be fatal. Next time you experience any of these, please report to the doctor immediately since you may not be able to tell if it mild or fatal.

• Vomiting
• Fever
• Body aches
• Diarrhoea
• Abdominal pains and cramps
• Nausea

Prevention of food borne illnesses

We want to continue to look at how to prevent food borne illnesses

• When buying your raw materials ensure the environment is clean and do not buy ingredients displayed on the floor. 
• The expiry date on packaged and canned food should be checked before purchased.
•  All raw materials should be washed thoroughly under running water before cooking.
• Vegetables for salad should be handled separately from those that will be cooked.
• Separate chopping boards should be used for cutting fresh meat, fish, poultry etc.  
• These fresh animal products carry a lot of organisms that can contaminate other food. 

You are enjoying this right? There is more we will continue in our next post. Please let me hear how useful this post has been to you.

FOODBORNE ILLNESSES

Hello it been a while we communicated on our food ingredients hope our previous discussions has been helpful. We want to continue today with another interesting topic on food borne illnesses.

 Do you know food contamination can occur in our kitchen and can lead to food borne illnesses? Let take a look it.

Food borne illness

Food borne illness is an illness caused by the consumption of food contaminated by pathogenic bacteria, viruses, parasites, natural toxins and chemicals. These organisms have an incubation of 12-72 hours. 

How do these organisms get onto our food to contaminate it?

Source of raw materials:  have you thought of where you purchase your raw materials? How clean is that environment?

Improper handling of raw materials: fresh ingredients and meat carry a number of disease causing organisms and should be properly cleaned before cooking.  Raw food contaminates a ready-to-eat food when it comes into contact with it.

Freezing and thawing food: Thawing frozen food in room temperature is a sure bet for contamination.

Improper cooking of food: Some microorganisms are destroyed through high temperatures so improper cooking may not kill all these organisms.

Improper handling of cooked food:  When cooked foods are handled with unclean hands the food can be contaminated.

Storage of food: Storing foods below 0^oC in a refrigerator is not safe.

Poor Personal Hygiene: contaminate when you don’t wash hands well in between cooking can also contaminate your food.

Dirty food contact surfaces: can contaminate ready-to-eat food when it comes into contact

Pieces of equipment: used for multiple foods without cleaning and sanitizing between preparing foods. 

I believe this discussion has been so educative and you have enjoyed it. We will continue in the next post.

Choosing Fish For Your Food

We continue our lessons on the complete proteins. And in today's  lesson, we want to talk about fish. One of the components we cannot let go in our meals.

Do you know that fish is an important ingredient for healthy living? Let  us look at some points to consider when buying fish and what to do once we bring the fish home.

Point to consider when buying frozen fish        

Fresh shell fish

• The fish should be completely frozen.
• Look for the seal whether it is vacuum sealed or flash frozen and always opt for any of these.
• Frozen shell fish should be completely frozen. 

Now we want to look at that of fresh fish purchases

• The flesh should be firm to touch that is the flesh should bounce back when pressed.

  

  Fresh scaly fish

• The gills should be bright red.
• The eyes should be clear with no redness
• Scaly fish should be completely covered with scales. 
• Shell fish should be lively and frisky.
• The shells on shell fish should tightly close without cracks
• Smoked fish should look glossy with a fresh smoky aroma.

I believe we have learnt a lot today we will continue on our discussions on proteins as we consider what to do to maintain the quality of our fish for that sumptuous fish meal you planned. Thank you for joining me please send me your comments i will love to read from you.