Food Safety Week June 2010
The theme of this year's National Food Safety Week is "Take simple steps to avoid food poisoning". The Week will have a broad food safety focus encompassing key food safety messages dealing with safe storage, temperature control (both cooking and chilling), avoiding cross-contamination, kitchen cleanliness and hand washing.
Did you know...
- Food poisoning bacteria are very hard to detect; they do not usually affect the taste or smell of the food.
- One germ can multiply into four million in just eight hours.
- Germs can stay alive on hands for up to three hours.
- The number of germs on your fingertips doubles after you use the toilet.
- Up to half of all men and a quarter of women fail to wash their hands after they've been to the toilet.
- Right handed people tend to wash their left hand more thoroughly than their right hand, and vice versa.
- Damp hands spread 1,000 times more germs than dry hands.
- One housefly can carry two million bacteria.
National Food Safety Week 2010 runs during June. Working through local environmental health and health promotion departments, schools, hospitals, manufacturers and retailers, it aims to show how to keep our food safe from the time it is bought until it is eaten.
The key messages are:
- Keep food safe
- Avoid cross-contamination
- Keep raw and cooked foods apart
- Wash hands thoroughly before and after touching food
- Control temperatures
- Keep kitchens clean; and
- Avoid waiting times between cooking, preparation and eating.
Web: www.food.gov.uk
