How safe is your kitchen?

Always wash your hands thoroughly before handling or preparing food ingredients. Nazma Lakhani

Good food hygiene is about more than just checking a “use by” date.

There are many places in your kitchen that germs and bacteria can lurk. If they get into your food and you don't kill them by properly cooking or re-heating, you could get food poisoning. This can be particularly harmful to at-risk groups, such as elderly, people whose immune systems are not working properly, as well as pregnant women and young children.

Follow the tips provided below when preparing, cooking, storing and reheating foods to ensure that what you eat is clean and hygienic from start to end.

Food preparation

• Always wash your hands thoroughly before handling or preparing food ingredients.
• After chopping raw meat, use a different knife to prepare other ingredients, as well as a different or clean chopping board. This will minimise the chance of harmful bacteria spreading from uncooked meat to other food. Also, use different utensils and tongs for raw and cooked meats. Raw meat should not be placed close to other foods, especially foods that are eaten raw, such as salads.
• Raw eggs can transfer germs so wash your hands after cracking eggs and don't mix raw eggs with ready-to-eat foods.
• Dirty, damp cloths and washing sponges are the perfect place for bacteria to breed. So it's very important to wash kitchen cloths and cleaning sponges regularly and leave them to dry before using them again. Be sure to replace them often to prevent a build up of bacteria.

Cooking food

• Make sure that food – especially meat – is properly cooked all the way through. When checking meats such as burgers, chicken, or steak, cut into the middle and check that the juices run clear - ensure the juices don't have any pink or red in them. The meat should also be piping hot in the middle. Charred meat may look cooked but if unsure, cook for a little longer.
• If you are cooking minced meat from frozen, be sure that it is completely thawed before cooking it. This will prevent the outside from looking cooked while the inside is not.
• When using a microwave oven, stir the food from time to time to ensure even cooking and heat distribution.
• When using the oven to cook frozen, pre-cooked foods and ready meals, be sure to preheat the oven according to the manufacturer's instructions. Otherwise the food may look browned on top but not be fully cooked inside.

Food storage

• Always follow the manufacturer's instructions on storing bought food and do not use it after the use-by (or “best-before”) date. Storing food at the right temperature in fridges and freezers prevents bacteria from multiplying.
• If you buy frozen food, get it into the freezer quickly. Bacteria grow quickly at room temperature, so be sure to refrigerate or freeze food immediately when returning from grocery shopping.
• Some people cook a large pot of curry in the morning and keep it in the pan for dinner – this is not a good idea. The food, particularly the curry in the middle of the pan, will remain warm for a few hours providing a good breeding ground for bacteria. Instead, remove the curry from the hot pan, and place it in a dish to cool before covering and storing it in the fridge. Then reheat only the portion you think you will need for dinner and make sure you heat it until it's piping hot.
• Uncooked meat, poultry and eggs are the foods most commonly contaminated with salmonella bacteria, which can cause food poisoning. Store raw meat at the bottom of the fridge so that dripping blood cannot flow into other foods. Remember to keep cooked meat separate from raw meat.

Leftovers

• If you have cooked food that you aren't going to eat straight away, cool it in a different container, cover it (with a lid, plate or clingfilm) and then store it in the fridge.
• If a dish of leftovers is quite large, consider dividing it into smaller portions so that it cools evenly. Use leftovers within two days and when you reheat, make sure that it's piping hot all the way through. If the food is just warm, it might not be safe to eat. Bacteria breed well in plain rice, so only keep plain boiled rice until the next day.
• When re-heating leftovers, warm up only what you plan to eat. Repeatedly refrigerating and reheating the same food increases the chance of food poisoning.
• When cooking something from a tin, such as baked beans, do not leave the remainder in the can when refrigerating, as you risk a reaction between the contents and the tin. Instead, place the contents into a separate sealed container and store in the fridge.