Food
preparation

A lowered resistance to disease leads to an increased risk of infections, including gastrointestinal infections. One of the pillars of their prevention is paying attention to good hygiene. Here are a few basic principles, wich will help you with observing proper hygiene when preparing food in your kitchen:

  1. Before starting to work, it is necessary to wash our hands with soap, scrubbing them under running water for at least 30 seonds.
  2. It is important to care for cleanliness of the surfaces we prepare the food on. The countertop, cutting board, utensils, should be all thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.
  3. When using cutting boards, we should have a couple of them: a separate one for cutting vegetables, cheese or bread, and a separate one for cutting meat, especially raw meat. This way we can avoid cross-contamination.
  4. After finishing work, it is very important to thoroughly clean and disinfect the countertop, cutting board, and utensils. The non-disposable wipes and towels, used during food preparation, should be thoroughly dried, to avoid bacterial growth.
  1. Prepared food should be refrigerated not too long after preparation, to prevent the growth of microorganisms. The leftovers should not remain outside of the fridge for longer than 2 hours.
  2. It is necessary to maintain a sufficiently low temperature in the refrigerator—between 8 and 12 degrees Celsius. Low temperature slows down bacterial growth.
  3. When thawing frozen food, one should keep it in the refrigerator, removed from the original packaging.
  4. One should never eat raw cookie dough, especially if it contains raw eggs, since this carries the risk of Salmonella infection.
  5. The drain hole of the kitchen sink, and the area around the trash can—those are places we often forget about while cleaning. But the bacteria do not. An appropriate disinfection will ensure cleanliness in those germ-infested locations.
  6. Quite important is also daily disinfecting the dish-washing sponge, which, when wet, is an excellent breeding ground for bacteria. This can be done by placing the sponge in the microwave for at least 60 seconds