Health encyclopaedia - Alphabetical Topic List
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Facts of Food safety
Wash your hands:Before you start any type of food preparation, make sure you wash your hands. You should also wash your hands after touching raw meat, using the toilet, gardening, touching the bin or handling pets. Don’t forget to dry your hands too, as germs spread more easily in moist conditions.
Raw meat:
You can also stop bacteria spreading by keeping raw meat separate from cooked meat. Keep raw meat in a sealed container or bottom shelf of the fridge to stop it dripping onto cooked meat,and always use a different chopping board and utensils for preparing raw and cooked meat. Bacteria on raw meat isn’t killed until you cook it, so wash your hands after preparing it and don’t let it touch ready-to-eat products.
Cooking food:
Bacteria are killed by the heat, so it’s important to make sure food is cooked through before you serve it. Make a small cut in the middle of the food to check it’s piping hot – steam should come out. If you’re baking a cake or quiche, the middle should be set, and if you’re cooking meat such as poultry, sausages or burgers, the juice should run clear and there should be no pink or red meat left.
Some types of meat are ok to eat rare (still red in the middle), such as steak, as long as they have been ‘sealed’ during the cooking process. This means that the outside should change colour, for example as it’s fried, killing any bacteria on the surface. However, children, elderly people and pregnant women should make sure meat is cooked all the way through.
If you have leftover food that you want to reheat another day, let it cool down before putting it in the fridge and use it within a couple of days. When reheating food, check it’s piping hot in the middle and don’t reheat it more than once.
Storing food:
Most products have storage instructions on the label – it’s important to follow these so that the food is safe to eat and tastes at its best. Lots of ready-to-eat foods, dairy products and meat need to be kept in the fridge to stop bacteria growing on them. These sorts of foods should be left out of the fridge for the shortest time possible – for example – if you’re having a buffet, put out things like sandwiches at the last minute. If you’re saving leftover food, let it cool down as quickly as possible, cover it, and put it straight in the fridge.
Make sure fresh meat is covered and stored at the bottom of the fridge so it can’t drip on anything. If you’re freezing meat, try to do so on the day of purchase (make sure this is before the use by date). Defrost meat thoroughly before cooking – lots of liquid will come out as it thaws, so stand it in a bowl or plate to stop bacteria in the juice spreading to other things.
