Here are my top food hygiene tips to help keep your family safe.

Carefully wash your hands.

Good handwashing is a vital way of ensuring that you stay safe in the kitchen.

Wash and dry your hands thoroughly before you start cooking, between handling raw and cooked foods, before serving food, before eating, after petting animals, after using a computer keyboard,  after using the loo, after smoking or vaping, and after coughing or sneezing.

Use a good quality hand soap or liquid hand wash and use a clean towel or kitchen paper to dry your hands on. It is also a good idea to wash your hands when you come home from work, the supermarket and shops too. 

 If you find that you are washing your hands a lot and they are starting to dry out, use a good quality hand cream once you’ve finished handling food for a few hours.

Tie Long Hair Back

Tie long hair back out of the way of your face. After you have tied your hair back wash your hands carefully.

Shop wisely – know your dates!

When shopping check use by dates and buy whatever has a good use by date. Don’t eat anything that is past its use by date as it may not be safe to eat. It can be helpful to plan your weeks meals by considering what needs using up first and what has a longer date on it.

Best before dates on the other hand are a guideline and suggest that after the best before date has passed the food may not be at its best but it should still be safe to eat.

Display until dates are there for the shops benefit more than anything. If you see things like root vegetables with a display date on them you can normally decide for yourself whether they’re still edible by looking at them, seeing whether they’ve still got a bit of crunch to them and checking for obvious signs of mould or deterioration. If it doesn’t look edible, pop it in the bin.

 Learn more about use by dates and best before dates: https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/best-before-and-use-by-dates

Top Tip:

When you bring multiple items home it can be good practice to stack items in order that they need to be used with the item with the longest date on the bottom.

Read related article about Meal Planning  https://www.mamacoopskitchen.co.uk/how-to-meal-plan/ 

Use a good quality, easy to clean chopping board.

You can buy plastic chopping boards that are different colours (using separate chopping boards for raw meat, cooked meat, fish, vegetables and cheese.)

Avoid wooden chopping boards as they’re harder to keep completely clean. Where possible  never use the same chopping board for raw and cooked items. If you only have one chopping board ensure it is THOROUGHLY washed between uses using hot soapy water. Ideally it should be dishwasher safe if you have a dishwasher as the heat from a hot wash will help sanitise it.

How to safely store food in the fridge

There are some rules to follow when storing things in the fridge. Firstly put raw meat at the bottom of the fridge (unless it has a separate meat compartment) Ensure all food is carefully wrapped up or stored in lidded dishes. If you haven’t got lids for dishes you could use plates or foil or cling film.

Ensure nothing can drip on anything and that any spills are wiped up immediately.

Ensure that anything going into the fridge is cold. Do NOT put dishes with hot food straight into the fridge.

Decant the contents of tins into a glass or bowl and cover over. Do NOT store things in tins in the fridge. 

Ensure Food is heated to the correct temperature

Ensure food is heated to the correct temperature to prevent bacteria from being able to multiply. Here is an interesting article on how to ensure food is served and stored at the correct temperature https://essentialfoodhygiene.co.uk/the-correct-temperature-to-serve-hot-foods-explained