Sanitation and Safety: Part 2

Many kinds of bacteria attack the body directly. Two of them are common kitchen offenders, entering the body by way of contaminated food.

Salmonella (sal-mun-ell'a) is probably the most common family of bacteria: there are more than 400 kinds, including typhoid. They are present in the intestines of all forms of animal life. They are spread by contact—to eggshells in hens, for example, and to almost anything in the kitchen that touches them. These bacteria can multiply in any environment containing moisture, oxygen, and favorable temperatures. It is almost impossible to keep them out of the kitchen. Your chief concern is to keep the numbers down.

Clostndium perfnngens (klos-trid'-ee-um per-frin'junz) bacteria, though far less common than salmonella, are especially dangerous in that they do not need oxygen to reproduce, only moisture and warmth, and they often survive cooking. Thus they cause problems in cooked meats and other cooked foods that are held at room temperatures before being served or left to cool before being stored. Leftover cooked foods should be stored immediately.

Since you as a cook cannot tell what bacteria or toxins are present in foods, your only course of action is to take every precaution you can. Four basics of good sanitation keep bacteria from reaching harmful levels:

• Limiting their entry

• Stopping their spread

• Preventing their growth

• Killing them

KEEPING BACTERIA OUT

Bacteria enter the kitchen in a number of ways: with people, foods, flies, roaches, rats, and mice. Controlling all these sources of en-try is an important way of keeping undesirable bacteria out of food-preparation areas.

People as carriers

People who handle food are a great threat to good sanitation. The places people go, the things they do, and the sanitation and personal hygiene habits they practice make it easy for them to harbor and transport bacteria. Many states still require health examinations and periodic follow-up exams for workers in food establishments. But the small piece of paper certifying freedom from disease tends to create a false sense of security. The only value of such an exam is to certify that the person did not have an infection at the time of the examination. You could contract an infectious disease between the examination and your first day of work.

You should be constantly aware of your health and that of those around you. If you are concerned about your health, have it checked if you are concerned about the health of those around you, report it to management.

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