I guess the first thing about reducing food waste is not to buy so much – plan ahead, see what you already have and don’t shop when hungry. Using a list can help, and on-line shopping can be a godsend for many reasons, but one is that you can check your cupboards as you shop. However, with all the will in the world, you may be faced with a load of food in the fridge that is making you feel guilty! Here are some simple tips to save waste.
Recently there has been quite a bit in the news about whether it is safe to eat food that has gone past its best-before or use-by date, and even more worrying, food being retrieved from skips and bins to eat. So what are the risks and more importantly, what can you do to save money with food without putting yourself or your family at risk?
Summer is here (well in theory) and the BBQs come out, but in the light of the recent findings that Campylobacter is still likely to be present in over 70% of raw chicken, what can we do to ensure that we are not serving up a dose of food poisoning to friends and family?
First of all, let’s think about how you can infect someone – bear in mind that Campylobacter is infectious in very small doses:
Recent research by has hit the press this week, reported as concluding that bacteria may not transfer quickly to some foods when dropped on the floor, and therefore the 5 second rule may apply. I carried out an experiment and put some special powder on the floor to simulate bacteria, and then dropped some bread on the floor and picked it up immediately. The bread looked fine in daylight (see the left of the image), but under the UV light showed up all the powder that had transferred (right of image) – showing what can be picked up if you drop food on the floor!
Traditionally many foods have been preserved without being stored in the fridge because they contain high quantities of salt or sugar which are used as preservatives. However, as we are being told we need to eat less salt for our heart’s health, and less sugar to reduce obesity, manufacturers are being urged by government departments to reduce sugar and salt in items we buy regularly. Read more
Food poisoning often starts with a bad bout of diarrhoea and or vomiting. It is understandable that you might think that the cause of your illness is the first thing you throw up, but in fact that can be far from the truth! In a recent survey carried out by Biomaster, 99% of respondents did not know that it takes a while for Campylobacter to make you ill after infection.Read more
Christmas is coming and the turkey questions keep rolling in! So here are some simple answers and top tips to keep you safe this Christmas. Watch this space – more updates to come!
In the 1960s I remember my Grandma boiling her kitchen cloths with washing powder on the stove in an ancient pan designated for this purpose. She used a pair of wooden tongs to get them from the pan to the sink where they were rinsed and then put on the drying rack. We could learn a lot from her.
Every day people ask me the question about whether we are too clean. My first answer is that if we were too clean, then 17 million people in this country would not get an infectious intestinal disease every year! 280,000 people suffer from Campylobacter alone, and 300 people a year die from this.
Burgers Again
The burger conundrum continues. Today is National Burger Day, and the Food Standards Agency is rightfully explaining to consumers why they need to cook a burger all the way through. Burgers are not like steak where just the outside surface could be contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli (and can be cooked off, leaving the middle rare). Burger meat is made from the outside and inside surfaces all minced up together, making the inside of a burger potentially contaminated.
