Monday, November 22, 2010
Food Smarts - Happy & Safe Thanksgiving
Monday, November 1, 2010
Food Safety and My Three Biggest Pet Peeves!
- 1) Servers grabbing glasses by the rim.
- 2) Kitchen employees eating while prepping foods.
- 3) Improper food storage in the refrigeration units.
FOOD SMARTS: Food Safety for Real
FOOD SMARTS: Consumers: Demand a ‘Call to Action’ With Latest Lettuce E. Coli 0145 Outbreak
- Runoff water from a pasture where cattle are kept
- Airborne particles from cattle farm via wind to the farm
- Wild life feces
- Humans harvesting the lettuce
- Irrigation practices
- Farms should be a certain distance away from cattle farms so feces particles containing E. coli 0145 cannot contaminate produce via runoff or airborne particles.
- Farmers should not be allowed to use unsafe waters mixed with sewage for crop irrigation.
- Porta Pottys and portable handwashing stations should be required on all farms by law. It is incomprehensible that it is not required by law currently.
- It should be mandatory that plants test each lot of produce for all six strains of E. coli before offering for sale.
- We should ask all of our vendors to confirm that they are buying from a plant that provides a guarantee and confirms they have third party audits.
- Always wash your produce; regardless if its labeled pre-washed.
- Keep raw meat separate from ready-to-eat foods.
- Wash hands properly with soap and water (minimum: 10 to 15 seconds) after using the bathroom, changing diapers, during and after visiting fairs, petting zoos, hospitals or nursing homes.
Food Smarts: Food Safety and Warning Labels … ?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Food Safety For Real: ‘Everyone is a high risk customer’
Juliet Bodinetz-Rich is the executive director of Bilingual Hospitality Training Solutions and has over 25 years industry and training experience. Her team of instructors’ specialty is food safety, alcohol training and ServSafe training in English or in Spanish and writing HACCP Plans in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. Metro Area. www.bilingualhospitality. com, juliet@bilingualhospitality.com or 443-838-7561.
Monday, August 23, 2010
FOOD SMARTS: Food Safety Done Properly
There are many things we can do to avoid cross contamination in our restaurants. Some you can/should incorporate in your establishment are:
• Wash hands between different tasks and handling different foods. That includes putting on a clean pair of disposable gloves after washing hands properly. Never reuse the same gloves for a different job handling task.
• Clean and sanitize all work surfaces and utensils after each use.
• Prep your raw meats and ready to eat foods in different sections of the kitchen or at the least if you don’t have a big enough kitchen to do this, prep foods separately at different times.
• Purchase specific equipment for each type of food i.e. color coded cutting boards. For example, use a red cutting board for meats, yellow for poultry, and green for veggies and fruits. This way, you will always have peace of mind when cutting lettuce on a green cutting board that no chicken juice has ever touched the green cutting board because you have put physical barriers in place.
• Store food in your refrigeration units based upon their dangers in the following order from top to bottom: ready-to-eat-foods, seafood, whole cuts of beef and pork, ground meats and ground fish and whole or ground poultry.
• Don’t grab anything where the customer’s mouth will go, i.e. don’t grab glasses or cups ever by the rim and always grab silverware by the handles.
• Never re-serve any food other than that which is completely sealed in a package, i.e. ketchups, mustards, etc.
• Mandate that your staff wear clean uniforms.
• Insist your staff wear minimal jewelry and nothing other than a plain band as a ring on their hands or wrists.
Finally, investigate the possibility that purchasing pre-cooked or pre-made ingredients can not only save you money, but also can help minimize the opportunity for “cross contamination” to occur. Many restaurants make their own chicken salad. Many employers might pay their prep cooks for ex. $13 per hour to make their chicken salad from scratch which can take many labor hours if they follow these steps: Receive –> Storage –> Cook –> Cool –> Storage –> Prepare –> Storage.
Sometimes, to save money, you have to pay more up front. For example, the restaurant owner decides to pay an extra $1 per pound to buy pre-cooked and pre-chopped chicken to use for the chicken salad? Yes, she is paying extra at the beginning, but look at the labor hours that have been eliminated at $13 per hour. Paying that extra dollar per pound for the chicken in the long run can save an operator a lot of money.
I am in the “food safety business” not “how to save money business.” From a food safety aspect, the advantage of buying a pre-made ingredient is that you now eliminate many steps in the flow to make that chicken salad. Your new control points in handling the chicken are only: Receive –> Storage –> Prepare –> Storage. By minimizing the steps you handle the food – you’ve also eliminated opportunities where cross contamination can occur.
I always find “food safety” fascinating. Some people think it adds more work, but if you use your Food Smarts, you can actually make your job easier! ! !
Juliet Bodinetz-Rich is the executive director of Bilingual Hospitality Training Solutions and has over 25 years industry and training experience. Her team of instructors’ specialty is food safety, alcohol training and ServSafe training in English or in Spanish and writing HACCP Plans in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. Metro Area. www.bilingualhospitality. com, juliet@bilingualhospitality.com or 443-838-7561.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
To Wear Gloves or Not?
I take the surprising position of no, with exceptions. If I owned a restaurant, I would not make my kitchen employees wear gloves. However if they were to handle food in front of my customers, I would enforce the use of gloves, due to the public thinking: “How gross – they are touching my food with no gloves on!” I believe gloves are not used properly because they give a false sense of security. Food-handlers might take out the trash, handle money, and then continue to handle food, thinking they are safe because they are wearing fresh gloves.
Glove-wearing is never a substitute for hand washing! Proper hand washing entails using at least 100°F water and soap to scrub your hands and wrists for a minimum of 10-15 seconds and drying with a single-use paper towel. If you do not wash your hands, you will contaminate your gloves the instant you put them on with dirty hands. In addition, by wearing gloves, the wearer loses that tactile sensation that tells them when their hands are dirty or slimy, and need to be washed.
Maryland State regulations require the wearing of gloves when serving ready-to-eat foods if utensils such as tongs, spatulas, deli tissue or automatic dispensing equipment are not used.” COMAR 10.15.03.09F. In addition, if a food handler is wearing fingernail polish or has artificial fingernails, gloves are required. COMAR 10.14.03.14(H)(2).
Gloves can be used as an extra precaution to ensure food is not contaminated.
But, keep in mind that:
1) gloves are to be worn for one task only;
2) the same gloves are not used while working with ready-to-eat food and raw food; and
3) gloves must be discarded when they are soiled or damaged, an interruption occurs in the operation, or after 2 hours of continuous use. COMAR 10.14.03.14(J).
I recently heard yet another compelling reason to use disposable gloves with caution. One of my best friends, Debbie, was recently at the Jersey shore and had just eaten tilapia at a seafood restaurant that makes their own Catch of the Day. She enjoyed the fish, but within 10-15 minutes was presenting with symptoms of skin redness, tingling, rash and swelling, heart palpitations and difficulty breathing. Her mother took her immediately to the emergency room, where she was treated for anaphylactic shock. Her sister confirmed with the restaurant that they used latex gloves to prepare the fish, as Debbie already knew she had a latex allergy, which becomes worse with each exposure. As a result of the restaurant visit, she now has to carry an EpiPen with her, in case it happens again.
I always knew that latex gloves were a concern in dental practices and the medical world. For example, Johns Hopkins does not use latex gloves at all. For this reason I’ve always suggested to my ServSafe students that they refrain from using latex gloves, not only to avoid allergic reactions for their employees, but also theorizing that traces of allergens will effect the food.
There are circumstances where food-handlers need to protect themselves with gloves. If a food-handler has a cut, then disposable gloves are necessary to cover bandages or band-aids over clean hands so customers are protected from bloodborne pathogens and from any hidden surprises in their food. In order to avoid allergic reactions to latex for their employees and customers, food operators can use Nitrile gloves. Nitrile gloves are completely latex-free and do not contain allergy-causing proteins. They provide an excellent alternative for people who experience latex sensitivity, as well as eliminate the potential for adverse allergic reactions associated with latex protein.