Three Practical Approach to Make Your Food Safe

Food safety has become a great concern to individuals as well as private and government agencies in recent times. It is estimated that every year around 30 percent of individuals in developed nations experience food-borne illnesses. In poorer nations, food-borne diseases claim the lives of millions of people every year, the most affected in this group are children. Food items are easily contaminated when exposed to flies. Microorganisms cause a lot of harm when they penetrate into our food items. In what manner would you be able to protect yourself and your family from the danger of food-borne illness? Here are some approaches to make your food safe.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Shop shrewdly

Except you grow your own food, your initial contact with food you consume would be at the general store or market. When you shop, there are some measures to ensure that your food items are safe:

a)    When shopping, perishable food items should be handled with extreme care. If you are going to purchase foods that are kept in ice chests, then you ought to make them last in the rundown of items. This also goes for hot foods. It is advisable to keep them hot and fresh always.

b)     Select fresh food: Always try to purchase fresh food. To do this, it means setting off to the market so early when the food items are still very fresh. Purchase fresh meats that are slaughtered the same day.

c)    Continuously assess what you are purchasing. Check if the items are free from unusual smell. This goes also for natural products, vegetables, fish and meat. Always check the bundles of prewrapped food. Doing this gives you the opportunity to identify if the food is safe to buy. Microscopic organisms can easily contaminate foods that are not properly packaged. Always check for the expiration date of the food items.

Always pack securely

If you utilize a reusable shopping bag or plastic container, wash it out often times with hot soapy water. Convey meat and fish in divided containers or packs so they don't contaminate other food items. Pretty much as a specialist secures his patients by washing his hands, disinfecting his instruments, and keeping up a clean working room, you can safeguard your family by keeping yourself, your kitchen, and your food clean.

a) Wash your hands regularly! 80 percent of regular common maladies like normal cold and flu are brought about by unclean hands. So wash your hands with soap and water before cooking and most importantly, after visiting the toilet.

b)  Always keep your kitchen clean. The kitchen is one of the spots where fecal microbes flourish. They can be found in wipe and dishcloths. Consequently, change dishcloths as often as possible and use soap water or disinfectant to clean kitchen surfaces.

c) Separate raw meat. To prevent the spread of microbes, seal or safely wrap all raw meat, poultry, and fish, and separate them from other food items. Use a different cutting board and knife for those foods, wash your cutting board and knife altogether with soap and hot water.

Prepare and store food carefully

When food preparation and storage go bad, it can be very harmful to people eating it. To avoid food-borne sickness, maximum care should be taken when preparing and storing foods.

a) Do not thaw meat at room temperature. Despite the fact that the middle of meat may in any case be frozen, the external layer of the meat could be in the risk zone between [4◦C  and 60◦C] temperatures at which microscopic organisms multiply quickly. To prevent this, try to thaw food, especially meat in the fridge, in a microwave, or under cold water package that won't leak.

b) Cook properly. Thorough cooking kills pretty much of all harmful microorganisms. When cooking food, particularly soups and stews, verify that it achieves a temperature of no less than 70 degrees Celsius. Some foods, for example, poultry, need to be cooked to a higher temperature. Since it can be hard to judge the interior temperature of few dishes, numerous cooks utilize a meat thermometer.

c) Serve most dishes quickly in the wake of cooking. Cooked food should not be left at room temperature for a long time, so serve it promptly to prevent contamination and waste.

I do hope that these tips would go a long way in ensuring that you eat and stay healthy! I’m a real foodie, it doesn’t go wrong with me. I take my time to plan what I eat and I derive lots of fun preparing some of the dishes myself, so, the tips above have been put in practice in my own kitchen.  I also visit good restaurants in Lagos when I don’t feel like cooking. I would also like to introduce you to hellofood, an online market-place for food ordering I discovered in Lagos recently. I heard about them from a radio station and decided to check how it works. 

I typed www.hellofood.com.ng from my browser, entered my location and the restaurants in my area were displayed, enabling me to place my food order from my favourite restaurants; payment was made at the time of delivery.  I think it is pretty cool as it reduces the stress of looking for what and where to eat, especially after a long day at work. The most interesting part is that you can download their mobile app and order your food just from your mobile phone.

I will be working on more tips for food and healthy living in the coming weeks, stay tuned!