Food Hygiene, also known as Food Safety can be defined as handling, preparing and storing food or drink in a way that best reduces the risk of consumers becoming sick from the food-borne disease.
With this in mind, ensuring that food is safe for human consumption is likely the most critical part of the food preparation process. This simply shows that maintaining a good food hygiene cannot be overemphasized. It is important at home as well as in the restaurant, retail store or food factory.
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Here are some food safety rules to observe in the kitchen :
- When buying food, it is important to pay attention to the expiration date. Using expired food poses a health risk.
- Food that has changed color, texture, taste, and smell are no longer good for consumption and should be thrown away.
- When washing manually, it is more hygienic to use a brush or silicon dish scrubber than a sponge, as fewer microorganisms remain on them because kitchen sponges quickly become highly contaminated with bacteria.
- It is very important to keep the kitchen counter, sink, refrigerator, tools and utensils clean.
- Personal hygiene, especially the cleanliness of our hands and clothes, is also important when preparing food.
- We must wash vegetables and fruits thoroughly under clean, running water before consumption.
- Eggs, fresh milk, poultry, and meat must be properly heat treated to destroy the microorganisms in them.
- It is not safe to consume food from damaged, corroded, non-hermetically sealed cans.
- Wash food and beverage cans before opening them, because there may be pathogens on the outside of the packaging.
In conclusion, Nutrition plays a major role in our lives, so how we treat our food is very important. Good food hygiene is essential to make sure that the food you serve is safe to eat. It helps prevent food poisoning