The Poverty Kitchen

Post-COVID, we should all be familiar with hand washing, and sanitizers.
Yet how many of use really really follow the best practices?
In the accompanying graphic from the MN Department of Health, the 6 steps are shown.

Seems simple, right?
How often should you wash your hands when preparing food at home?
That answer has a “obviously” answer, and some not-so-obvious answers.

Obviously, you should wash your hands prior to preparing food.
Before you put on food service gloves.
After you remove gloves, before you change into new gloves, or handle food with bare hands.

What about opening a cabinet, drawer, refrigerator, a packaged or boxed product?
Was that cabinet handle, drawer handle, refrigerator handle, or boxed/packaged product sanitized?
Were your hands or gloves clean of contamination when touching the sanitized handle?
No?

Back to the hand washing chart you go.

“But what about gloves?”
Gloves are a means to keep your hands free from contamination, or to limit the cross-contact with other ready-to-eat foods.
Example:
Raw chicken that will be cooked, then portioned once cooked to a safe temperature, placed onto a Caesar Salad and served.

Having raw chicken juice on your hands when preparing the salad is very possibly going to make someone sick. At the least, it’s “icky”.
Having raw chicken juice on your hands when handling the cooked chicken, makes that chicken no longer safe to consume.

Here’s an example of the process, to make a Grilled Chicken Caesar:

Wash your hands.
Put on food service gloves. Prepare the Caesar Salad with washed lettuce.
Once the salad is complete, you may handle the raw chicken.
Place the raw chicken in a bowl, on a cutting board, or on a prep plate.
Remove the gloves and dispose of them.
Wash your hands again – as you may have contacted the raw chicken juice on the glove cuff.
Now, season your chicken, and use a cooking fork or tongs to place the chicken into your pan, baking dish, or onto the grill.
Did you contact a non-sanitized surface?
Say the box that the gloves came in? Or a container of “Grilled Chicken Seasoning”?
Wash your hands.

Sanitize or use a different fork, or different tongs to remove the cooked chicken, putting it onto a clean cutting board.
With a clean knife, cut the chicken.
Using your hands with clean gloves on, your fork, or your tongs, place the cooked chicken onto the Caesar Salad.

Congratulations! You shouldn’t have made anyone sick.