Food News for November 2019
Food Industry Employment Program Newsletter
Food Safety First
Noncompliance=Death
Dear ,
Happy Thanksgiving
Be safe this holiday season, not only in your commercial space, but at home too. This is relevant for whether you celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas or just generally want to have a safe dinner. Here are some food safety tips from FightBac! the Partnership in Food Safety Education:
Clean your hands properly
Clean your counters, dishes, cutting boards, utensils properly before you start
Keep foods separate; keep raw foods away from cooked and ready to eat foods
Keep meat and poultry in the plastic bag it arrived in until you are ready to cook it.
Don't rinse meat or poultry
Do rinse all fruit and vegetables
Never defrost at room temperature
Follow cooking directions
Use a meat thermometer to check that your meat is cooked to 165 F internal temperature
Refrigerate leftovers within 2 h of cooking
Don't keep leftovers too long
Romaine Lettuce and E. coli
Of course, it is Thanksgiving and that means another outbreak of E.coli on Romaine lettuce. Why does this keep happening?
My concern is that we expect out of season produce so lettuce is being grown on a ginormous scale and then shipped 1000s of miles.
Lettuce is a high risk product because it is mostly water, so anything in the water used to irrigate the fields it is grown in are going to end up on or even in the lettuce leaves. Additionally, we don't cook it. There is no step in lettuce production that could kill bacteria. Unlike broccoli where we typically cook before eating.
As a food producer, if you use fresh greens, you might want to consider the source of them. If possible buy them locally. You definitely want to know if they have been tested for foodborne pathogens. Make sure you have a traceability plan in place, so you know where you bought your ingredients from and where your product were shipped.
Grateful
I am very grateful for your time reading these newsletters. If you are a new subscriber, thank you for signing up. I appreciate everyone of you and I hope you find them helpful.
Don't wait until you have an E coli or other pathogen outbreak in your facility, schedule a time to talk about making sure your food safety plan is ready for 2020.
All the best,
Cathy
PS Feel free to share with anyone you think might find this interesting.