Avoiding Food Poisoning 2
Last time we discovered the incredible fact that cooking your food properly can prevent food poisoning; but it isn’t just bad cooking that causes problems – storing your food correctly is equally important!
Some foods need to be chilled or frozen – so chill or freeze them! It’s not rocket science but you’d be amazed how many people keep frozen foods in the fridge, just to find that they don’t stay frozen for very long! When it comes to freezing or chilling food; the lower you place the food, the colder it will be kept. Hot air rises and, although there’s no hot air in the fridge, the warmer air will always move to the top. So make sure you keep that food which need to be coldest at the bottom. Also, take care not to overload the fridge – it can stop the cold air from circulating, which causes al kinds of problems. Remember to adjust the temperature of the fridge to cater for the amount of food in it; lots of food in the fridge will require a colder temperature.
Another point that should be obvious is to use food by a use-by date on the label! We keep hearing about the tons of food that gets thrown away because people won’t use it after the use-by date – there’s a very good reason for that! Sure lots of food is fine to eat well after the use-by date, but if avoiding food poisoning is top of your agenda, the less risk the better. To be honest, it’s pretty easy to tell whether something is good to eat by using your own senses – though taste is not advisable. Most the time you’ll be fine if you make sure you cook your food thoroughly before eating it.
This isn’t complicated stuff but a little knowledge about food hygiene will help reduce the amount of sick days on your CV, making you look like a super-worker!
Next time: the principle of Drippage.
