Personal Hygiene In The Kitchen

Having a good personal hygiene is important in having a good kitchen hygiene. It can prevent food poisoning and other food-borne diseases from being spread. Bacteria that can cause food poisoning can be on everyone and can be spread through cross contamination.

Maintaining Personal Hygiene In The Kitchen

The following steps will help in maintaining a good personal hygiene in the kitchen:

1. Wash and dry hands thoroughly before cooking. We will look at this in more detail later.
2. Don’t smoke, chew gum, spit near your cooking area.
3. Never cough or sneeze over your food. (nobody does it intentionally, but can be avoided if your mouth is covered with a mask or a cloth).
4. Wear a clean apron while cooking.
5. Tie your hair if it long.
6. Keep fingernail short and avoid using the nail polish since the nail can get shipped into the food.
7. Avoid wearing jewelry, rings or earrings.
8. Cover all cuts and wounds with a wound strip or a bandage.
9. Wear gloves.

People in charge of cooking may contaminate food if they are feeling unwell, it is therefore suggested to avoid cooking if ill from illness that can transmitted by food. Illnesses that are transmitted through food include Gastro, hepatitis A and Hepatitis E, sore throat with fever, and fever with jaundice.

It is important to maintain high standards of personal hygiene in the kitchen. Contaminated hands will spread bacteria rapidly.

To prevent cross contamination of food it is essential to wash your hands correctly and frequently.

How to wash your hands

1. Use warm water and preferably anti-bacterial soap.
2. After wetting hands, apply soap and use the following procedures to clean your hands:
3. Rub palm to palm
4. Rub back of both hands
5. Rub both palms with fingertips
6. Rinse hands under running water and dry thoroughly on clean towel.

How frequently to wash your hands?

For the person cooking it is very important to wash their hands frequently. They should wash their hands:

1. Before starting work.
2. Before handling food.
3. Between handling raw and ready to eat food.
4. After going to the toilet.
5. After handling raw foods.
6. After handling waste.
7. After eating, drinking or smoking.
8. After handling chemicals
9. After handling babies spoilt diapers
10. After handling money.

Health

Many food poisoning incidents are caused by cooks who have continued to handle food after falling ill themselves.

You should not handle food if you:

1. · Know you are suffering from food poisoning
2. · Are a carrier of food poisoning (someone who does not show any symptoms but is still ill ) .
3. · Have any symptoms of food poisoning

If you do handle food, it is possible for you to pass it onto others. It is best not to handle food for a further 48 hours after symptoms have ceased as you could still be spreading large numbers of the food poisoning causing bacteria.

Personal hygiene

When preparing or cooking food for others, it is recommended to take precautions to ensure that food or surfaces that come in contact with food are not contaminated by your body or anything that you are wearing. Examples include hair, saliva, mucus, sweat, blood, fingernails, clothes, jewelry or bandages.

Gloves can be worn as a way to help ensure food is not contaminated by bare hands. It is important to remember that gloves should be changed as often as you would wash your hands. Also, you should still wash your hands before handling food even though you are wearing gloves.