The second blog in this series is about bad habits. Have you ever heard the expression “bad habits, die hard”? Well, its true! Bad habits can take several days, months or years to completely rid your self from them. However, when working with food these habits can results in serious illnesses.

It is important to being mindful of bad habits when working with food such as:

• Touching, scratching or playing with hair while cooking food
• Wearing of rings, wrist watches or bangles
• Biting nails or piking nose while on the job
• Not properly covering cuts, boils, and septic lesions with appropriate dressing
• Not taking bath before entering the kitchen can cause contamination
• Coughing and sneezing over cooking surface or utensils
• Wearing dirty and soiled clothing
• Not washing hands after cooking something or after going to the washroom
• Snacking while working with food
• Keeping of long finger nails or applying nail varnisher
• Touching around the face
• Improper handwashing/lack of handwashing

Some factors that responsible for in-sanitary habits

• Cross contamination -uncooked or raw materials in a kitchen can result in cross-contamination if stored or kept together.
• Improper health education – Professionals responsible for food handling having improper knowledge about food hygiene, contaminate food.
• Improperly cooked food – Food that is not cooked properly can result in food born disease to human.
• Only healthy food handlers without any kind of infection should be allowed to handle food. Proper helath check-ups must be done on regular intervals.
• Allowing rodents or other pests in the kitchen area aids contamination of food.
• Not following proper hand washing and personal hygiene habits after visiting toilet or other activities aid food contamination.

There are many ways food handlers can be mindful of their bad habits. The first thing is to recognize that your habit can result in food borne illness. How can you recognize this? By gaining essential food safety knowledge. Food handlers must learn about safe food handling to ensure they are doing everything in their power to prevent food borne illness.

When you are running a food business like a restaurant or hotel, it is important to understand the importance of food handling certification. The business owner or manager must provide the team with food safety training and education so that the employees are equipped with the knowledge about proper food handling. It only takes the right type of knowledge to ensure the safety of the customers. A comprehensive food handling training program can help employees understand the reasons behind maintaining safe food handling habits as well as the best ways to avoid them so that proper food safety can be ensured.

The Probe It online food safety course provides food handlers with valuable knowledge that is needed when working with food. The online course includes various realistic scenarios, games and review questions to ensure the material was understood. Learn how to be mindful of bad habits and more by registering for the online course today. Click here for more details.