Food Hygiene Archives - The Hygiene Doctor

Campylobacter, Chicken, cleaning, Cooking Safely, Food Hygiene, Food Poisoning, Food Storage, Handwashing, hygienic cleaning, Outdoors, Targeted hygiene

Campylobacter food poisoning is not a mild dose of the runs
Some people think that food poisoning is a mild illness which if anything might help them lose weight, but I recently watched this clip about a man who contracted Campylobacter food poisoning and developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, causing him to be paralysed. Having seen a friend also go through similar slow recovery from this syndrome, I know how awful, painful and frankly scary it is.

I am sharing this because simple precautions can help to prevent what can be a life-changing or even life-threatening event. If we think about the chain of infection, the places to break that chain become very obvious, and are not even expensive. In the clip, Dai talks about the importance of cooking chicken to prevent illness, but there is more to it than that. It may be that he did cook his chicken properly, so how else could he have become ill?Read more

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cleaning, Food Hygiene, hygienic cleaning, Targeted hygiene

Why I’d like a clean plate for my dinner, please!
I know it is incredibly trendy to eat food off anything other than a “boring” plate, but really, do you want a mouthful of someone else’s meal mixed with their saliva with your dinner? Or maybe the dirty washing up water has softened up the food debris which then got stuck in the cracks of a broken board. That’s what I got when I had my pizza on this board!

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best before, Cooking Safely, Food Hygiene, Food Storage, Reducing food waste, use by dates

Reducing Food Waste Safely – Top Tips
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.

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Food Hygiene, Food Poisoning, Food Storage, Home hygiene

Rubbish Eating – food past its best-before or use-by-date
Is it Safe to Eat Food Past its Best-Before or Use-by Date?

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?

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Food Hygiene, Food Poisoning, Garden Hygiene

BBQ Season – an opportunity for Campylobacter?
Campylobacter is still at large – so be prepared in BBQ season

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:
- If you contaminate your hands with raw chicken, and then make up a wrap with cooked chicken, you could be passing the organism on in the ready-to-eat food. Your friends may not realise it was you that did it – they may not be ill for a couple of days, and it is possible that one slip up only affected one person, so no-one would associate the BBQ with their illness.
- By putting raw chicken on a platter, cooking it and then putting it back on the original platter – you have caused classic cross-contamination – everyone could be ill!
- When chicken isn’t cooked all the way through – for example cooked too much on the outside and underdone in the middle – this is a recipe for disaster as bacteria could survive!
- Using the same utensils to put the raw chicken on the BBQ as to taking the cooked chicken off could give you more cross-contamination.
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Food Hygiene, Home hygiene

The 5 Second Rule – revisited?
The 5 Second Rule: should you eat food if it drops on the floor?

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!

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Food Hygiene, Food Storage

Ketchup and sauces in the fridge – what is all the fuss about?
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

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Food Hygiene, Food Poisoning

Did your last meal give you food poisoning?
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

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Campylobacter, Cooking Safely, Food Hygiene, Food Poisoning, Handwashing

Christmas Turkey – top tips for safety!
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!

Q How do I store the raw turkey?
- In the fridge – lowest shelf, protected from any foods that are ready to eat.
Q Should I wash raw turkey?
- Absolutely not – never!!! If you wash turkey you risk spreading germs all over your kitchen sink, draining board and anything else in the vicinity. Try not to handle it too much either – anywhere it’s been needs disinfecting – use an antibacterial spray such as Dettol. And don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly using soap and dry with a paper towel. I wash my hands twice after handling raw meat and poultry just to be on the safe side.
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anti microbial resistance, Campylobacter, Food Hygiene, Food Poisoning, Home hygiene, Kitchen cloths

Grandma’s kitchen cloths: the good old ways?
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.

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