How can food contamination caused by pathogens on a food handlers body be controlled?
1 Answer
Good hygiene, mainly...
Explanation:
Starting point is clean hands: in most catering industries you will ( or should!) find posters with elaborate handwash instructions littered around the place, predominantly in the toilet sections.
As these sadly are usually ignored, gloves of some sort should be mandatory. Best ones are latex, but in practice cheaper, plastic ones are used. White coats and hairnets are usually mandatory as well, though it seems not in every country.
If you drop something on the floor: LEAVE it . Apart from contamination brought in on the soles of shoes etc., germs, moulds and other microlife do slowly sink down from the air onto the floor. Wearing gloves is no protection: apart from picking up something contaminated, you will soil the outside of your gloves.
In most Airline Catering businesses they have separate staff to keep the floors clean, and if you are involved in food preparation, picking something up from the floor can be a sackable offence.
In my student time, I worked on and off (part-time) for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Catering Department for a few years, and they were pretty hot on it. I have seen plenty of temps given their marching orders.....
NOTE: In serious laboratories (e.g. hospitals, chemistry labs), there are instructions how to safely put on (and take off!) gloves: hand touches hand, glove touches glove, and never the twain should meet. Unfortunately, most people in other sectors are not aware of this, and will gladly pick up a pen while wearing gloves to write something down, only to return to handling of food wearing the same gloves.
To extend a bit more:
Food handling instructions . For instance: NEVER carve rare meat (like pork or chicken) with a knife, and then use the same knife to shred some raw lettuce....
For fridge storage: make sure food items are stored in their correct locations: once again, raw meat at the bottom.
Swab tests: Regularly test working surfaces, used knives etc.for pathogens.
There are a few things more, but this is the bulk of it I guess....
