It doesn’t matter whether you’re running a commercial restaurant, a deli, or you just serve food in your own kitchen at home regularly. It’s vitally important to understand how to prepare and serve food safely. If you don’t practice safe food handling practices you could end up with a sick family, sick customers and a potential lawsuit on your hands. Learn how to handle food properly and you’ll keep everyone healthier and will have less to worry about when it comes to food.
1Wear Protective Clothing
One of the simplest safe-food practices to follow when working in a commercial environment is to wear protective clothing always when handling the food. That means wearing rugged nitrile gloves, a hair net, long sleeves and other clothing to keep the food protected and safe while you work with it. Protective clothing also has the added benefit of keeping you safe while you work with hot substances while cooking.
2Clean Regularly
Work hard to keep your work space and your hands clean the entire time that you’re working with foods. Use cleaning products to keep surfaces like counters clean and free from bacteria. Also wash your hands each time that you use the bathroom or throughout the day. Also take the time to wash down vegetables and fruits and all the dishes and utensils that you use during the day.
3Separate Foods with Care
Keep raw meats away from the other items in your kitchen, like vegetables and utensils that will be used with other food items. Be careful not to contaminate your kitchen with things like poultry and seafood because you aren’t separating everything properly. Take care to keep it all separate and you’ll maintain a cleaner environment.
4Cook Foods Thoroughly
Know all the safe temperatures for different types of foods and measure internal temperature with a thermometer to ensure that all your meats and other foods are prepared properly. This helps you avoid serving up foods contaminated with bacteria. Always check the thickest part of the meat cut to ensure that it’s heated up properly, because the thick sections heat more slowly in the middle than the thin sections do.
5Chill Foods
Properly cooked foods don’t stay good forever. Be sure to properly chill any food that isn’t going to be served immediately. Store foods in consistent temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower up until the time that it’s going to be serviced. This is important to do for foods that will be served later like fruits and vegetables, or for left-over foods that aren’t going to be eaten the same day they’re served originally.
Keeping food safe is a real task that’s not always easy to accomplish. Good protective clothing and tools like nitrile gloves help that effort, but so does proper food handling techniques. Learn how to keep your foods in good shape and to prevent serious problems like mold or bacteria growth from occurring, and you’ll be healthier for it. This is especially important knowledge for a commercial kitchen that serves up food regularly.
