Food Safety and Sanitation

Erik Chavez
Mrs. Vidrine
Principles of Human Service
12/1/2014
Food Safety and Sanitation
In today’s dirty, filthy, impoverished world, it is important to keep our food clean. Without clean food, we are susceptible to diseases and viruses, and our lifespan shortens by years depending on the inflicted disease. Ebola can spread through food. That banana you’re about to eat? It wasn’t properly cleaned. Now you have Ebola. Get ready, I’m going to get some facts up in this. Restaurants have to follow a set of rules, as do food suppliers. We all do. But these are very specific rules that insure the quality and cleanliness of our food. Let’s begin with temperature control. Here’s a bulleted list to explain in a short and sweet method.
Avoid prolonged holding in the danger zoned (from 40F to140F).
Provide functional thermometers to all food storage boxes.
Monitor the temperature on serving lines on a regular frequency.
Thaw frozen foods under refrigeration or under cold water.
Do not thaw foods at room temperature.
Regardless of type of processing or food handling operation, the number one consideration in food sanitation is people. Persons known to be suffering from, or known to be carriers of a disease likely to be transmitted through food, must be restricted from any food-handling area. Likewise, persons afflicted with infected wounds, skin infections, sores, etc., must also be restricted from these areas.
Facilities with hot water for hand-washing must be provided and must be convenient to food handling areas. All personnel involved in food handling must thoroughly wash hands with soap under warm-running, potable water. Hands must also be washed after handling contaminated materials and after using toilet facilities, as well as disinfectant hand dips.
Personal cleanliness must also be maintained while involved in food handling operations:
Sanitary protective clothing, hair covering, and footwear must be worn and maintained in a clean, sanitary manner.
Gloves, if worn, must be clean and sanitary.
All food-handling personnel must remove object (i.e. watches, jewelry) from their person which may fall into or contaminate the food product.
Tobacco, gum, and food are not permitted in food-handling areas
All food-processing and –handling rooms and other rooms must be in a clean, sanitary manner. A major source of plant contamination is from custodial personnel and equipment. All custodial brushes and equipment must be in good repair as well as being clean and sanitary.
Now in a not so serious tone, the conclusion. We must keep our food and food-handling areas clean because otherwise, epidemics can start. Stomach viruses, Ebola, and etc. will spread quickly and the apocalypse will occur. Only YOU can prevent epidemics. Simply wash your hands, cough into your elbow, and sneeze into a wad of paper. And wash your hands again. Then rub disinfectant all over.