Hygiene in the kitchen: 5 mistakes we often make

2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 19:13

Your kitchen is hygienically safe? Yes, you know everything about anisakis And salmonella and, therefore, chill the fish and do not use raw egg. Sterilize jars and preserves to avoid the danger of botulinum. Don't interrupt the cold chain and you would never, ever refreeze a defrosted food, if not after having cooked it entirely.

You are very good but, perhaps, you unknowingly make more trivial but equally dangerous mistakes.

A few days ago, opening a package of super meat (alas, from time to time I also buy packaged stuff) on the back of the label I found a paragraph entitled "Hygiene tips at the basis of a healthy diet".

The consumer was advised to "preserve raw meat from contact with other foods", "always serve it well cooked", "wash hands and dishes carefully", "do not reuse packaging materials".

Now, if on the one hand interested suggestions may appear to me (the company is perhaps afraid that in Italy too, as in the States, the fashion of causes for damages not reported on the label is spreading), on the other I asked myself: they really have to write it down somewhere? Don't we all already know? Maybe not.

And you don't mess with bacteria. A trifle is enough for a bad microorganism to creep into your menu, an unwelcome guest harbinger of sometimes slight annoyances, such as a stomach ache, other heavier ones, such as intoxications.

Most of the possible errors relate to the most common tool, that is your hands. But everything that comes into contact with food must be hygiene proof. So here is the abc of the risks to avoid. In 5 points.

1. Do not wash your hands

Would you believe it? Before the second half of the nineteenth century, no one had linked the good practice of washing hands with the prevention of infections in hospitals. Today, more than a century and a half has passed, there are still those who don't do it in the kitchen.

Yet, leaving out this elementary rule, the risk is to circulate in the food not only the bacteria that proliferate on raw foods - especially meat, fish, eggs, dairy products - but also those present in our body.

Which can pass from our hands to the leaves of the salad or the fruit of the fruit salad, to say two preparations not subjected to cooking.

Hands are washed before, during and after. Always after handling fruit and vegetables, always (superlative that does not exist, I know, but gives the idea) after meat and fish, in any case every time, after a manual operation, you switch to another with a different food.

And it doesn't matter if after a while you throw everything in a pressure cooker and at 120-130 ° you kill any living creature: washing your hands must become a habit that you carry out without even thinking about it.

Like keeping a liquid soap dispenser on the sink (antibacterial is even better). And in a kitchen drawer a tube of excellent hand cream. That we care about their beauty, especially us women (see next point).

2. Forget about having nail polish

Many find seductive a beautiful, well-dressed and well-made-up woman who, with very manicured hands, with red-lacquered nails, kneads the bread, peels the prawns, handles a knife.

A very suggestive image, of course, but one that can hide the dirt. Right under the nails.

In fact, if it is easy to see under the white bezel a residue of flour, a fragment of meat, a thread of the soil scraped from potatoes or mushrooms, when we have the enamel everything is less evident.

So, ladies and gentlemen, please indulge your desire for a perfect manicure, but remember to keep a toothbrush on the sink and use it with every hand wash, you never know what certain claws can hide.

3. Use gloves

By definition, they prevent direct contact between your hands and food. Hence, they also prevent you from having the sensation of dirty, greasy, smeared, smelly palms and fingers. And you forget to wash your hands and / or change the gloves used for other risky preparations (see point 1).

Personally, I wear them only during staining operations, such as cleaning artichokes or grating turmeric, and only for those, taking them off and discarding them as soon as I finish.

If, on the other hand, you tend to keep them constantly up, in order not to have the fingertips that taste of onion or garlic, to avoid contact with the slimy surface of a squid, the bloody one of a roast, as well as learning to replace them often, perhaps you should ask yourself that kind of psychological blockage you have towards food.

Which, for a true enthusiast, it should always be a pleasure to touch and manipulate.

4. Confusing the tools

In professional kitchens there is a cutting board for everything. Red for meat, white for fish, green for vegetables, yellow for cheeses. In double or triple copy, of course. Never fillet the sea bass where the carrot julienne is then prepared. Least of all with the same knife. Even if in this case it is easier: who would use a fillet blade instead of the carving knife?

Then, go into your kitchen and there are two cutting boards (one wooden), the knife cutting only one. And with those you have to make do.

There are two solutions. The first: start by working the ingredients that will be eaten raw to finish with meat and fish to be cooked.

Or, resign yourself to washing the tools thoroughly at each change of ingredient.

Separate discussion for the wooden cutting board. You know that in professional kitchens it is officially prohibited (as well as spoons and other wooden tools) because it cuts, absorbs, becomes the perfect substrate for the proliferation of the hated germs. Unless you often sanitize it by wiping it with a sponge soaked in vinegar or lemon juice.

5. Randomly store in the fridge

It's the same old talk of cross contamination. Bacteria don't stay good where they were born and raised but they love to explore new worlds. Left free to wander, those with chicken breast book a holiday on stracchino, those on eggshell embark on a trip to bresaola.

You can make them permanent: just lock them in the containers, separate for each food. In short, it is forbidden to leave the slice of beef lying around on a saucer badly covered with a piece of film that does not adhere well.

Also pay attention to the defrosting phase: if it is true that the healthiest way to do it is in the fridge, avoid placing packages and trays directly on the shelves, as they could drip water, blood and other dangerous primordial broths.

It goes without saying that cleaning the fridge must be frequent and sanitizing, with water and vinegar or better still pure vinegar.

And at the end of this review, tell me: are you really really doing everything right? Well done! Otherwise, run for cover. Your health is seriously affected.

P. S. one thing I left out, namely washing fruit and vegetables before peeling them. To say, there are still those who are amazed that the melon or pineapple must be washed whole, so that the rind is eliminated. But when cut, what is stationed on the outside can be conveyed inside by the blade of the knife.

Just a step under running water, maybe a scrub with a toothbrush.

Danger avoided.