Welcome to Gaia! ::

The official guild guide on how to safely prepare and handle food.

The reason why I am posting this is because I want you guys to develop good habits, so you can make sure you don't get yourself or others get sick. I care about my guild members! heart heart

Now, lets start out with some of the main causes of illness from contaminated food.

Inadequate hand washing
Someone cooking while they are ill
Cross contamination
Inadequate cooking temperatures
Inadequate temperature control (allowing foods to be in the danger zone)

We will discuss what exactly the danger zone is in a minute, but first lets tackle hand washing.

I know I shouldn't have to tell you guys this, but please please please wash your hands after you use the bathroom! You also have to wash your hands when doing the following things:

After using the toilet and again when getting ready to cook
After blowing nose, sneezing, coughing, or touching eyes, nose or mouth
Before starting cooking
Anytime hands come into contact with body fluids
After smoking, or using tobacco products
After eating or drinking

It is very important to wash your hands for all of the reasons listed above. It's better to be careful and have it take a little longer than be fast and ill.

Speaking of being ill, you should try not to cook when you are sick. If you must cook something for yourself or you will starve, then wear a doctors mask and wash your hands. Also,

Do not cook if you have a fever and sore throat
Do not cook if you have loose bowels (diarrhea)
Do not cook if you are throwing up (vomiting)
Do not cook if you have yellowing of the skin or dark tea colored urine (jaundice)

Not baking food for friends or family when your sick lowers their chance of catching what you have. Also, think of yourself. Your sick! Go get some rest! You can cook later!

Also, when cooking, cover up any cuts, burns, rashes, or infections with either band aids, rubber gloves, or wraps. This keeps bodily fluids from oozing into the food (eww...).

Now, for cross contamination, aka: hey! you got your raw chicken in my bread! You got bread in my raw chicken!

Cross contamination is, like the word implies, contamination thats passed from a table/surface/hand to food that is being prepared.

Just to give you an idea of cross contamination, lets say that your mom cuts up a raw chicken on the cutting board and only wipes up the blood with a paper towel. After she is done, you roll out your cookie dough on the same board. Your cookie dough has just picked up salmonella. If you don't keep your workspace clean, then you will most likely cross contaminate your food, even if you didn't know better. Cross contamination can also happen when you use utensils for different jobs. For example, you used a whisk to whip egg whites, which can carry salmonella. You don't wash the whisk, and use it to whip cream. Please wash utensils thoroughly when using the same one for different foods.

Now, for cooking temperatures. When baking a cake, wait until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean to declare it done. Since it has eggs in it, it needs to bake enough so that it can kill off all the bacteria in it. For other foods, I have a list here:

Poultry, ground poultry
Min. temp: 165F for 15 seconds (meaning it must hold that temperature for at least 15 seconds)
Extra tips: Stuffing should be cooked outside of poultry.

Stuffing, Stuffed Meats, Casseroles and dishes combining raw and cooked food
min. temp: 165F for 15 seconds
Extra tips: Stuffing acts as an insulator, preventing heat from reaching the meat's center. Stuffing should be cooked separately.

Ground or flaked meats. hamburger, ground pork, flaked fish, ground game animals, sausage, injected and pinned meats
Min. temp: 155F for 15 seconds.
Extra tips: Grinding meat mixes the organisms from the surface into the meat.
Alternative minimum internal temperatures for ground meats:
150oF (66oC) for 1 minute
145oF (63oC) for 3 minutes

pork. beef steaks, veal, lamb, commercially raised game animals
Min. temp: 145F for 15 seconds.


Beef or pork roasts
Min. temp: 145F for 3 minutes
Extra tips: Alternative minimum internal cooking temperatures for beef and pork roasts:
130oF (54oC) for 121 minutes
134oF (57oC) for 47 minutes
138oF (59oC) for 19 minutes
140oF (60oC) for 12 minutes
142oF (61oC) for 8 minutes
144oF (62oC) for 5 minutes

Fish, foods containing fish, and seafood
Min. temp: 145F for 15 seconds.
Extra tips: Stuffed fish should be cooked to 165oF (74oC) for 15 seconds. Fish that has been ground, chopped, or minced should be cooked to 155oF (68oC) for 15 seconds

Shell eggs for immediate service
Min. temp: 145F for 15 seconds.
Extra tips: Only take out as many eggs as you need. Never stack egg flats near the grill or stove. Eggs cooked for later service must be cooked to 155oF for 15 seconds and held at 140oF.

Foods cooked in Microwave Meat, Poultry, Fish, Eggs
Min. temp: 165F. Let stand for 2 minutes after cooking.
Extra tips: Cover food, rotate or stir it halfway through the cooking process.


Now that thats done, lets get to the danger zone temperatures, which are 41oF and 140oF for 4 hours. This means that food must be kept either colder or warmer than the two temperatures, and if they are in the danger zone, they can only be there for 4 hours before they must be thrown out.

As for measuring temperatures, any thermometer will do, but I recommend the longer stemmed ones that can fit deeply into the food and measure the temperature in the middle.

I would recommend calibrating, or making sure it's accurate, your thermometer once a month. To do this, put some crushed ice in a cup and stick your thermometer in. After 30 seconds, it should read 32oF(0oC).


Thats the end of my mega post. I wish you all good luck cooking!

I think ya did a brilliant job there smile

NEAT JOB DUDE THAT NEEDS A BIG THNX!!

I read the text you wrote about how important it is with clean hands in the kitchen and I can only say; that you would like me... I am super hygienic, I wash my hands very often and very properly so there is no chans that I got bacteria on my hands! The things you listed up is obvious to me but unfortunately it's not to the most people... =( I think we live in a very ugly and dirty world, people should be more hygienic!