Personal hygiene refers to cleaning, grooming and caring for your body at the most basic level. While personal hygiene helps you put your best foot forward, the Better Health Channel says that it is also one of the most effective ways to protect yourself and others from illnesses and diseases such as head lice, pubic lice, body lice, ringworm, scabies, pinworms, Hepatitis A and athlete’s foot. Start studying Basic facts of food hygiene. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.
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Below are our “10 Commandments of Food Safety”—basically the advice that we keep hearing again and again from food-safety experts. How many do you follow? Use a “refrigerator thermometer” to keep your food stored at a safe temperature (below 40°F). Perishable foods should never be thawed on the counter for longer than 2 hours because, while the center of the food may remain frozen, the outer surface may enter the Danger Zone, the range of temperatures between 40° and 140°F, in which bacteria multiply rapidly. If you’re short on time, use the microwave—or you can thaw meat and poultry in airtight packaging in cold water. Change the water every half hour (so it stays cold) and use the thawed food immediately.
Always use separate cutting boards for raw meat/poultry/fish and produce/cooked foods. One effective way to prevent illness is to use a food thermometer to check the internal temperature of meat, poultry and egg dishes. The USDA Recommended Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures are as follows: beef, veal and lamb (steaks and roasts), fish, 145°F; pork and ground beef, 160°F; poultry, 165°F. In the EatingWell Test Kitchen we often recommend cooking meats like roasts and steaks to lower temperatures, closer to medium-rare, so that they retain their moisture. However, we recommend that those who are at high risk for developing foodborne illness—pregnant women and their unborn babies and newborns, young children, older adults, people with weakened immune systems or certain chronic illnesses—follow the USDA guidelines. Avoid unpasteurized (“raw”) milk and cheeses made from unpasteurized milk that are aged less than 60 days.
Raw milk is milk from cows, sheep or goats that has not been pasteurized (heated to a very high temperature for a specific length of time) to kill harmful bacteria that may be present. These bacteria—which include salmonella, E. Coli and listeria—can cause serious illness and sometimes even death. The bacteria in raw milk can be especially dangerous to pregnant women, children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.
Raw-milk cheeses aged 60 days or longer are OK, since the salt and acidity of the cheesemaking process make for a hostile environment to pathogens. Never eat “runny” eggs or foods, such as cookie dough, that contain raw eggs. Even eggs that have clean, intact shells may be contaminated with salmonella, so it’s important to cook eggs thoroughly until both the yolk and the white are firm. Casseroles and other dishes containing eggs should be cooked to 160°F (use an instant-read food thermometer to check). In the EatingWell Test Kitchen, we don’t always recommend cooking eggs fully. However, we recommend that those who are at high risk for developing foodborne illness—pregnant women and their unborn babies and newborns, young children, older adults, people with weakened immune systems or certain chronic illnesses—follow the USDA guidelines.
If you can’t resist runny eggs—or sampling cookie batter—use pasteurized eggs. They’re found near other eggs in large supermarkets.
Always wash your hands in warm soapy water for at least 20 seconds before handling food and after touching raw meat, poultry or eggs.