Food Safety Can Be Seriously Compromised By Cross Contamination

Cross contamination is the transfer of pathogens from a source to high risk food or surfaces. It can be direct or indirect.

Cross contamination is the transfer of pathogens from a source to high risk food or surfaces. It can be direct or indirect. Direct cross contamination is where a piece of raw meat is stored next to and touching high risk food. Indirect is where the pathogens are transferred to the high risk food or surface by a vehicle or fomite. The fomite could be a cloth, hand, food container, preparation board, knife, etc. For example if a knife is used to prepare raw meat for cooking and subsequently used to cut sandwiches, without cleaning and disinfecting the knife, contamination will occur, compromising food safety. High risk food is classed as cold food that is going to be eaten as it is, for example, sandwiches, scotch eggs, pork pies, in fact any cold food that is not going to be re-heated. A good example is a party buffet, which mainly contains high risk food. For that reason, all buffet items must be served refrigerated or certainly not removed from a fridge until customers are ready to eat in order to maintain the food safety chain. High risk food will contain spores and bacteria, which, if allowed to remain in a warm room, will germinate and grow respectively. The majority of food poisoning cases can be attributed to cross contamination, especially in a domestic premise, where the consumer is not educated in food safety. The consumer may prepare a raw piece of meat, such as poultry, and place in an oven for cooking. Without washing their hands, the consumer might then touch work surfaces in the kitchen. The work surfaces are now contaminated with pathogens from the raw meat. Any high risk food that comes into contact with the pathogens will also be contaminated. If that high risk food is allowed to remain in the warm kitchen, the pathogens will grow to dangerously high numbers and cause food poisoning when consumed. The raw meat will not cause a problem, per se, as it is going to be cooked, which will kill the pathogens. It is the consumer's hands that have caused the problem. I've seen many examples over the years of direct cross contamination, especially in butchers' shops. Butchers should either deal with raw meat or cooked food, not both, unless the operations are totally separate, utilising separate staff, equipment and preferably rooms. If the same member of staff is preparing and serving raw and cooked food, the chances of food poisoning are greatly increased. Indirect cross contamination involves a vehicle to transfer the pathogens from the source to the high risk food or surface. The sources include raw meat, poultry, fish, raw vegetables, food packaging, food handler, pests, and domestic pets. The vehicles include preparation boards, knives, hands, cloths, food containers. The final destination is the high risk food or surfaces and the food safety chain is broken.

Comments? Questions? Email Here

© HowtoAdvice.com