I’m too Busy to Wash my Hands!

By Francine L. Shaw

This is part two of a four-part series on building a food safety culture in your establishment by Francine L. Shaw, president, Food Safety Training Solutions, Inc.

Several years ago, I walked into a kitchen to conduct an audit. The head chef had five pairs of single-use gloves layered on his hands. When I questioned his behavior, he pointed to the sink and stated, “Ma’am, the sink is way over there. I don’t have time to walk that far every time I need to wash my hands!”

I couldn’t believe it. I’m sad to say that I’ve actually seen many people—including professionally trained kitchen staff—practice this erroneous behavior.

Oftentimes during kitchen inspections, trainings and audits, I tell foodservice employees to change their single-use gloves and wash their hands. I also explain that single-use gloves are only effective when used properly: one pair at a time, with proper handwashing each time they’re changed.

I’ve witnessed restaurant employees wear and not change their single-use gloves when opening cooler doors, checking cellphones, touching their hair or face, handling money, or touching other objects, such as doorknobs, menus, garbage bags, etc. These are all examples of classic cross-contamination, yet they happen daily because employees either don’t realize the danger or don’t feel they have time to wash their hands.

Handwashing with soap stops spread of disease & saves more lives than vaccine or medical…

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Handwashing with soap stops the spread of disease and can save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention. Each year, 19 million people get food poisoning due to improper handwashing. Improper handwashing can lead to each of the Big 6 Foodborne Illnesses:

1. Hepatitis A virus
2. Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC)
3. Norovirus
4. Salmonella Typhi
5. Salmonella Non-Typhoidal (NTS)
6. Shigella

Not to mention Staphylococcus aureus and more. Again, simple mistakes like a lack of handwashing or improper use of single-use gloves can sicken or even kill your guests and potentially destroy your brand.

Everyone assumes tragedies happen to the other guy. Well, what if the other guy is you? A foodborne illness or outbreak can destroy your company’s reputation, result in lawsuits and potentially put you out of business.

#Norovirus affects 1 in 15 ppl and is 100% preventable. Retweet to help prevent. @FSTS3787 #ACFChefs

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Norovirus is the most common foodborne illness. It affects 1 in 15 people (approximately 20 million Americans) and causes 570 to 800 deaths annually. Norovirus is 100% preventable. On average, each of us gets Norovirus five times during our lifetime, leading to horrible gastrointestinal distress. If an employee neglects to wash their hands after using the restroom, one gram of fecal matter on the hands can host 1,000,000,000,000 germs! Norovirus is highly contagious and easily spreadable from dirty hands to food and other surfaces. Therefore, norovirus is a huge threat within the food service industry.

Several recent studies indicate that employees come to work even when they’re sick and 70% of infected workers cause about 70% of reported norovirus outbreaks. It takes as few as 18 norovirus cells to cause illness and there is no cure. Hand sanitizers do not prevent norovirus. The only way to prevent norovirus is to wash your hands regularly and properly.

Hand sanitizers do not prevent #norovirus, only handwashing does. @FSTS3787 #ACFChefs

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Norovirus can persist for days and even weeks on surfaces. Cold, moist conditions help it survive even longer. On hard surfaces, such as faucets, counters and door handles, the virus can survive up to 12 hours. On soft surfaces, such as carpet, norovirus can thrive up to 12 days. Some studies say the virus can persist even longer.

To help prevent norovirus, don’t allow employees to work while they are vomiting or have diarrhea, and then not for at least 24 hours after these symptoms stop.

Follow these steps to reduce the risk of any outbreak:

1. Wash hands with soap and hot water (a minimum of 100 degrees);
2. Apply soap;
3. Scrub hands well, including in between fingers and under fingernails;
4. Rinse under clean running water;
5. Dry with clean, single-use towel;
6. Turn faucet off with towel;
7. Use towel to open door;
8. Wash hands again when you return to your work station; and
9. Implement a double handwashing policy. Wash your hands once in the restroom and again when returning to the work station.

The average door handle has about 360 types of bacteria on it? @fsts3787 #ACFChefs

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Make sure good hygiene is part of your food safety culture. Proper and regular handwashing can significantly help prevent food safety incidents and outbreaks, so make sure that your employees are washing their hands!

Many Television Chefs are Cooking up Foodborne Illnesses

By Francine L. Shaw, President
Food Safety Training Solutions, Inc.

Recently, a popular on-air personality did a segment remotely from a restaurant.  While participating in this cooking segment in a restaurant kitchen, he didn’t wash his hands before handling the food, didn’t check the internal temperature of the burger he was cooking, sampled the burger while still wearing food prep gloves – and the list of his mistakes goes on and on.Part of my morning routine is watching a national morning television show or cooking show while I’m getting ready for work.  Often, the on-air personalities make blatant food safety errors on national TV – which make their viewers think it’s OK to model similar behavior in their own kitchens.

While I recognize that there’s limited air-time for each televised segment, it’s frustrating (and dangerous) to see on-air personalities make such obvious errors with regard to food safety protocols.  When viewers see highly-respected TV personalities and chefs skip hand washing, fail to use meat thermometers, cross-contaminate (e.g., using the same board to prep raw meat and ready-to-eat foods like vegetables), or cook with their long hair and dangly earrings hanging over the food, they think it’s OK for them to do the same.  Keep in mind: each of these mistakes on its own could cause a foodborne illness incident or outbreak.  Combining multiple errors while prepping one meal increases the risk factors exponentially.

As a food safety expert – and as someone with a robust history of food service and hospitality experience myself – I encourage the media to do a better job promoting the importance of food safety.  And I also remind TV viewers to not make these same mistakes in their own kitchens.

Foodborne illness is a widespread and serious problem that sickens 48 million people in the U.S. each year and contributes to 5,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths annually.  I travel around the country educating people about the importance of food safety protocols, but then they tune into cooking shows/segments and see TV personalities making the very same mistakes that I tell them to avoid.

Foodborne illness is 100% preventable.  Whether you’re running a restaurant, cooking dinner for your family at home, or demonstrating a new recipe on a television show, there are certain things you should do every day – for every meal – to prevent foodborne illness:

• Wash your freaking hands. This is the single most important thing for people to do to prevent the spread of dangerous bacteria.  Wash your hands with soap and hot water – not hand sanitizer – and scrub in between your fingers and under your fingernails.  Dry your hands with a clean, single-use towel.

• Avoid cross-contamination. Raw proteins – poultry, meats, seafood, and eggs – contain bacteria, so be sure to wash and sanitize anything that’s come in contact with these raw foods – your hands, cutting boards, knives, plates, etc.  Don’t use the same cutting board or knife to chop ready-to-eat foods (like veggies for a salad) after prepping raw chicken on that board.  And don’t place cooked meats on the same plate you used to hold the raw meats.

• Cook foods to the proper temperature. Use a food thermometer every time you cook meats/proteins to ensure they’ve been cooked to the proper temp.  Undercooked foods can harbor unsafe levels of bacteria and can make diners sick – and can even kill them.  Many cooking show hosts and TV chefs use “touch” methods or look for a certain color in their meats to determine doneness, but neither of these approaches ensures that the meats are cooked to safe temperatures.  Years ago, a huge foodborne illness outbreak at a Jack in the Box restaurant was traced back to undercooked burgers. People died from this mistake.  Avoid this error in your kitchen!

• Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. Not only should you cook foods to proper temperatures, but you should serve them correctly, too.  If you have a buffet at your restaurant (or at a party at home), keep hot foods hot using warmers or slow cookers, and serve cold foods (like shrimp cocktail) on ice so they remain chilled.  Don’t allow any foods to sit out for more than two hours – or one hour if your party is outside on a warm day.

• Properly clean and sanitize all equipment. Often, on television, chefs use a cloth towel to wipe off cutting boards or knives. Wiping equipment with a cloth towel won’t remove bacteria from the surface – only properly cleaning and sanitizing can do that.  In fact, if you wipe contaminated equipment with a towel, the towel would then be covered in bacteria that can be spread to hands, foods, and other equipment. It’s essential to regularly rinse, wash and sanitize all surfaces and equipment – especially after prepping raw proteins.

• Practice safety over fashion. On TV, chefs always look “camera-ready,” with cute outfits, stylish jewelry and fancy hairdos and fingernails.  In reality, restaurant and home chefs should tie their hair back so strands don’t drop into the food, contaminating it.  Also, rings, bracelets, and watches can trap dirt, food, and bacteria – and possibly fall into the food accidentally – and shouldn’t be worn while preparing or serving food.  Fingernails should be kept short and clean, and fake fingernails (which can harbor bacteria and fall into the food) should never be worn in the kitchen.

Cooking shows and segments are certainly entertaining and can inspire new ideas, recipes, and techniques.  While it’s OK to watch and enjoy these shows, be aware that they often don’t reflect proper food safety protocols that would keep your guests – and your family – safe and healthy.  Follow proper food safety practices every day, with every meal, no matter what you see chefs doing on TV.  While TV chefs can be fun to watch, they most certainly are not good role models when it comes to food safety.  Hopefully, that will change in the future.  If these popular television chefs modeled proper food safety practices, perhaps more restaurant and home chefs would learn to do the same.

Francine L. Shaw is President of Food Safety Training Solutions, Inc., which offers a robust roster of services, including food safety training, food safety inspections, norovirus policies for employees, norovirus clean-up procedures, curriculum development, responsible alcohol service training, and more. The Food Safety Training Solutions team has more than 100 combined years of industry experience in restaurants, casinos, and convenience stores. The company has helped numerous clients, including Paradies Lagardère, McDonald’s, Subway, Marriott, Domino’s, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America, Dairy Queen, and Omni Hotel and Resorts, prevent foodborne illnesses. Additionally, they work with restaurants of all sizes, schools, medical facilities, convenience stores, hotels, and casinos.  Francine has been featured as a food safety expert in numerous media outlets, including the Dr. Oz Show, the Huffington Post, Food Safety News, and Food Management Magazine.

How Safe Is Your Kitchen?

According to recent studies, it may not be as safe as you think. It is estimated that over 15 million Americans contract foodborne illnesses every year – from their own kitchens. Home kitchens are not held to the same standards as professional kitchens, which can be expected when there are children, pets and family members in food prep areas. However, there are several cooking practices that are considered a no-no.

Handling Raw Protein

Before and after touching raw protein cooks should always wash their hands to avoid contamination. Washing raw meat in the kitchen sink prior to cooking is an unnecessary practice that does not get rid of bacteria. Raw poultry is often contaminated with salmonella and campylobacter, germs that are often the leading causes of food poisoning.

Undercooking Meat

A surprising number of people do not use a meat thermometer, which is the only way to guarantee a safe cooking temperature. Just 40% of people in a recent study were aware that the safe cooking temperature for chicken is 165 degrees Fahrenheit. You may think you can eyeball it, but researchers found that no matter what kind of chicken dish was being prepared, 40% of cooks had undercooked the chicken.

Not Washing Your Hands

Just 20 seconds of washing your hands with soap and water before and after handling raw meat could make the difference between you and family getting sick. Make it a standard practice in your kitchen.

Sanitize Your Kitchen

Be sure to properly sanitize your cutting boards, knives and countertops. Never cut meat, poultry or fish on a wooden cutting board, and use separate cutting boards for proteins and produce. And remember to wipe down forgotten areas of your kitchen including doorknobs and refrigerator handles.

These are attainable ways to practice food safety in the home kitchen. Being conscious of practicing safe habits will help to prevent illness and keep your family healthy.