Uh...sanitation.  Not exactly appetizing, huh?  Well I sure learned a thing or two and it is probably not what you are thinking.  When you think of food and sanitation, your mind reels to horrible disgusting things. We haven't even gotten to those yet!  But in the grand scheme of things, what I have learned this week might even scare you more - even though it ranks lower on the disgusting scale...

First of all, did you know that there are over 76,000,000 cases of foodborne illness each year?  Somewhere around 325,000 people are hospitalized and approximately 5,000 cases prove fatal.  Many of these cases occured in fast food restaraunts or buffets. Two-thirds of infections result from food service personnel failing to do something as simple as wash their hands.  Food Safety and Sanitation can play large part in preventing these types of illnesses.  

The following have been reported to be the most common causes of foodborne illnesses¹:

•  Failure to properly cool foods
•  Failure to cook and hold foods at the proper temperature
•  Poor personal hygiene
  

To prevent these illnesses, we need to understand what causes them.  The primary offender in most cases is microorganisms, also knows as pathogens or just your plain, basic germs.  These microorganisms need 6 conditions to exist: food, acidity, time, temperature, oxygen and moisture.

Once the above conditions are controlled, the possibility of microorganisms drastically decreases. All things considered, the only conditions that we can effectively control are Time and Temperature. It is essential to not allow foods to remain the the Temperature Danger Zone (TDZ) for more than 4 hours. This is due to the fact that given time, bacteria alone can duplicate itself every 20 minutes!

But never fear!  HACCP is here!  Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points is a food inspection system designed to anticipate problems with food BEFORE they occur.  Essentially, a HACCP system is a proactive, dynamic process that defines all of the regular food safety practices in a kitchen.  For example, all chicken is cooked to an internal temperature of 165° F.  The object is to practice food safety consistently according to your HACCP system design.  By doing this, a HACCP system is recognized by law in the event a kitchen's sanitary practices are ever brought into question.

Next..  .

Germ Warfare	Who is Fat Tom?
General Prevention Tips

¹from ServSafe Essentials, National Restaurant Association Education Foundation, 1999.