Guarantee food safety and quality in the kitchen

To avoid food poisoning we must carry out four fundamental processes in the kitchen: washing, separating, cooking and cooling

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), each year more than 350.000 people die from food poisoning in the world, 40% of them are children under five years of age.

In addition, when a person consumes a food contaminated by bacteria, a toxic infection appears in our body, in the figure of gastrointestinal disease.

The main symptoms are abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, which appear 2 to 6 hours after ingestion of food and disappear in a couple of days.

However, illnesses caused by cross contamination or poor cooking hygiene can be easily avoided.

Procedures to ensure food safety and avoid food contamination

Wash the food

In the first place, we must clean food with water before consuming it is essential, as well as having clean utensils and surfaces that will be in contact with them. Germs can be found on the knife or on the table itself and spread to food when you cut it.

Also, wooden boards should be used, as they have natural antibacterial properties. But without forgetting to wash them with soap and water between uses.

separate the foods

Second, we must put everything together will give us problems, so what is raw and what is cooked is essential that they be kept at a certain distance, never in the same container or plate.

Likewise, in the refrigerator, food should be kept in separate containers, hermetically protected with special attention to the eggs that must be in a different place from the rest of the food if they are free of packaging, since their shells contain bacteria.

Cooking Food

Thirdly, it must be taken into account that the temperature eliminates bacteria, so in the kitchen we manage to guarantee food safety by taking the products to extreme temperatures during their preparation process.

Veal and fish, we must bring them up to 75 degrees, at least. To know if a meat or a fish is well done, we must split the cooked food and see that the meat is not raw and that the juices are clear. Some restaurants offer rare meats, and this is possible and safe in some circumstances, if specific practices are followed up the food chain to the restaurant.

In the special case of chicken and pork, it must always be well done in its entirety, raising the cooking temperature to almost 90-100º. In barbecues it is convenient to previously cook the meat in the oven before finishing it on the embers.

Also, be careful when reheating, microwaves can leave cold parts and not kill the existing bacteria, if the food is not mixed during the heating process.

Chill food

Fourth, you have to lower the temperature of the food, generally keeping it in the fridge, especially in summer, where it is also recommended to cook it as soon as possible.

At room temperature some bacteria multiply rapidly, so if we get temperatures below five degrees or above 65, the growth of the bacteria is delayed or stopped.

The defrosting process should be done in the refrigerator the day before or in the microwave just before cooking, not at room temperature.

In the specific case of rice, we eliminate its bacteria during cooking, but not all … we must put it in the fridge after cooking, as soon as it is cold and only reheat it once.

Thanks to these four procedures, we will be able to minimize the risk of suffering a toxic infection, although none of these techniques is 100% infallible.

We must know the processes that are applied to food until it is served to the table and always preserve its food safety.