Dangerous Food Fallacies Essay
5 Dangerous Food Fallacies and Practices
Celebrated author and TV personality Julia Child once joked: “Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?” Kitchen practices in relation to food health and safety, in truth, have been evolving. Microbial activities, including bacterial benefits and detriments, have been undergoing a huge amount of demystification. A number of practices and measures believed to be safe - even healthy - in the past have been proved otherwise. A few of these have been compiled by food microbiologist and Food Safety Information Council vice president Cathy Moir:
Fallacy #1: Cooked food can only be refrigerated once completely cooled.
According …show more content…
Bacteria can grow on food without causing the smell or appearance of food to change. Check for spoilage and expiry carefully before consumption to avoid food poisoning and contamination.
Fallacy #3: Covering food in oil allows food to last long in normal, room temperature.
Although there are practices - especially in the Mediterranean - where food is preserved by using oils such as olive oil, such practices must be done using special technique and requiring special safety conditions. However, Ms. Moir cautions: “Adding oil will not necessarily kill bugs. The opposite is true for many products in oil if anaerobic micro-organisms, such as Clostridium botulinum (botulism), are present. Lack of oxygen provides perfect conditions for their growth.
“Outbreaks of botulism arising from consumption of vegetables in oil " including garlic, olives, mushrooms, beans and hot peppers " have mostly been attributed to products not being properly prepared.”
Australian regulations, for example, require pH is less than 4.6 for making vegetable oils as such a level of PH does not allow the growth of bacteria that cause food poisoning.
Fallacy #4: Defrosted meat or chicken cannot be frozen
Celebrated author and TV personality Julia Child once joked: “Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?” Kitchen practices in relation to food health and safety, in truth, have been evolving. Microbial activities, including bacterial benefits and detriments, have been undergoing a huge amount of demystification. A number of practices and measures believed to be safe - even healthy - in the past have been proved otherwise. A few of these have been compiled by food microbiologist and Food Safety Information Council vice president Cathy Moir:
Fallacy #1: Cooked food can only be refrigerated once completely cooled.
According …show more content…
Bacteria can grow on food without causing the smell or appearance of food to change. Check for spoilage and expiry carefully before consumption to avoid food poisoning and contamination.
Fallacy #3: Covering food in oil allows food to last long in normal, room temperature.
Although there are practices - especially in the Mediterranean - where food is preserved by using oils such as olive oil, such practices must be done using special technique and requiring special safety conditions. However, Ms. Moir cautions: “Adding oil will not necessarily kill bugs. The opposite is true for many products in oil if anaerobic micro-organisms, such as Clostridium botulinum (botulism), are present. Lack of oxygen provides perfect conditions for their growth.
“Outbreaks of botulism arising from consumption of vegetables in oil " including garlic, olives, mushrooms, beans and hot peppers " have mostly been attributed to products not being properly prepared.”
Australian regulations, for example, require pH is less than 4.6 for making vegetable oils as such a level of PH does not allow the growth of bacteria that cause food poisoning.
Fallacy #4: Defrosted meat or chicken cannot be frozen