Food
Food must be safe to eat and prepared in a clean and hygienic
manner.
The Council carries out a number of activities to ensure that
food manufactured, prepared, processed, displayed and sold within
Broxbourne is safe to eat:
Food Safety tips for Food Safety Week 2013
This year Food Safety Week was 10th -15th June
2013
Each year the Food Standards Agency organises Food Safety Week
(FSW).
The interactive online version of the Kitchen
Check will be available from 10 June at www.food.gov.uk/kitchen-check
Kitchen Check
Most people don’t believe the food they cook at home can make
them ill, but meals prepared at home can be source of food
poisoning. Kitchen Check is a simple tool that helps you
find out if your kitchen habits are putting you, or your family and
friends, at risk of food poisoning. Kitchen Check helps
you to go through each stage of the food preparation and cooking
process to find out how well you are doing or whether there are
things you can change to help protect you and those you care about
from food poisoning.
Cleaning
• Hands are one of the main ways germs are spread. Wash hands
thoroughly with soap and warm water before preparing and handling
food, cooking and after touching the bin, going to the toilet,
handling pets or handling raw food.
• Wash or change dish cloths, tea towels, sponges and oven
gloves regularly and let them dry before you use them again. Dirty,
damp cloths are the perfect place for bacteria to breed.
Avoiding Cross Contamination
• Cross contamination occurs when harmful germs are spread
between food, surfaces and equipment. Help to prevent this by
removing clutter that you don’t need and washing worktops before
and after food preparation.
• Always use a chopping board. Wash the board and other utensils
in hot, soapy water when
you’ve finished using them and in between preparing raw foods
(meat, poultry, eggs, fish and raw vegetables) and ready-to-eat
food. Better still, use a separate chopping board for each type of
food.
Chilling
• Make sure your fridge is set between 0 and 5°C, using a fridge
thermometer to check. This is to prevent harmful germs from
growing.
• Don’t overfill your fridge. This allows air to circulate and
maintains the set temperature.
• Store raw meat and poultry at the bottom of the fridge and
properly wrap or cover it to avoid raw juices contaminating other
foods.
Cooking food thoroughly
• Cook food thoroughly until it is steaming hot in the middle.
This will kill any harmful bacteria that may be present.
Understanding ‘use by’ and ‘best before’
dates
‘Use by’ dates are typically found on perishable products
(dairy, meat and fish) and are based on scientific testing to
determine how long these foods will stay safe. After that date,
food could be unsafe to eat even if it is correctly stored and
looks and smells fine.
‘Best before’ dates are used on foods that have a longer shelf
life and tell us how long the food will be at its best. After that
date it may be safe to eat, but its flavour and texture might have
deteriorated.
The exception to this rule is eggs which have a ‘best before’
rather than a ‘use by’ date. Providing the eggs are cooked
thoroughly, they can be eaten a day or two after their ‘best
before’ date but not longer than this.
Check the ‘use by’ dates on the food in your fridge on a
regular basis and be sure to use (eat, cook or freeze) food before
its ‘use by’ to help you avoid throwing food away
unnecessarily.
Once food with a ‘use-by’ date has been opened, follow any
storage instructions such as ‘eat within two days of opening’.
Test your knowledge and put paid to those old food myths
with our quiz
For further information please look on the Food Standards
Agency's pages or www.facebook.com/foodsafetyweek