I have been working around food my whole life. My first job was at a party center helping cater parties of up to 300 people. I spent a good part of my 20’s running restaurants and teaching the importance of food safety and proper cleaning techniques to my employees. Why am I talking about this today? I missed posting yesterday because I caught a horrible case of food poisoning, losing a little over 4 pounds in one day. Luckily I am an otherwise healthy adult, but stressing the importance of food safety is still paramount in my mind especially if you are feeding someone who is at higher risk (young children, elderly, and compromised individuals). Today I wanted to take some time to discuss cross contamination and FATTOM, the acronym for how bacteria grows on food.
What is Cross Contamination
Cross contamination is when you introduce bacteria from one food to another. Technically, most cross contamination is harmless. Bacteria that may grow naturally on most foods are likely going to be harmless when consumed. The real problem occurs when we introduce unsafe bacteria that can cause food borne illness, like salmonella from raw chicken. When working in the kitchen, it is a great best practice to have a prep space for raw foods that are unsafe for consumption before cooking away from other foods.
How to Avoid Cross Contamination
One of the easiest ways to avoid cross contamination is to have different prep areas for your foods with completely separate tools for prepping. This may not be possible in your kitchen, in which case avoid preparing ready to eat foods on the same surfaces as uncooked foods unless they have been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. Here are a few quick tips to keep you safe:
- Always wash your hands after handling raw foods, before handling ready to eat foods.
- Use different knives for raw and ready to eat foods.
- Replace any cracked cooking boards.
- Replace knife handles with cracks.
FATTOM - Food, Acidity, Time, Temperature, Oxygen, Moisture
This is an acronym to remember how bacteria grows and multiplies on food. The more bacteria on food, the more likely you are to get sick from ingesting them. In order for bacteria to thrive, they need these 6 conditions. The first is out of your control, as working with food means bacteria have a natural source of food… who knew?! The level of acidity of your food changes the rate at which bacteria will multiply. The more acidic the food, the longer it takes for bacteria to multiply. Bacteria growth is exponential, which means the longer your foods are exposed to these conditions the more bacteria you’ll have. That is why it is so important to follow proper food safety protocols! DIfferent foods have different requirements for internal temperatures to ensure that the dangerous bacteria they harbor will be neutralized during the cooking process. Refer to cooking instructions on the package for these temperatures. The last two go hand in hand: Oxygen and Moisture. Oxygen is the building block for all life and bacteria is no different. If you expose bacteria to Oxygen and moisture, they will grow freely. Keep your foods sealed and in a temperature controlled environment to avoid moisture build up.
I could write a whole book on food safety and proper food handling techniques! This article is just a quick overview of the easiest things you can do to help keep you and your loved ones safe when making food. Always do your best to avoid food borne illness as food poisoning can be more than an unpleasant experience, it can be deadly!