Hand-washing: A Healthy Habit to Ensure Safe Food Processing and Consumption.
Hand-washing
is one of the most important practices to prevent food poisoning
while preparing food for yourself, for your family, and for the public. It is a
practice to be adopted in any form of food processing and consumption. Briefly we will look at its importance in the food industries, catering and street food industries, and among consumers.
Handwashing
in the Food Processing Industries
For
the food processors in the industries, standard food sanitation procedures like
hand washing must be followed duly. It is important to note that handwashing before
and after using gloves is very imperative in safe food processing. Food
companies (small, medium and large scale) whose workers or direct food handlers
do not form the habit of washing hand regularly and properly will end up not
achieving the entirety of food safety in her process, especially while handling
the finished products. The usage of gloves does not automatically prevent germs;
when it is not used properly, will pose a high risk of food contamination. This
is because you can contaminate the gloves from your hands when you put on
gloves and contaminated gloves can spread germs to your hands when you remove
the gloves. Therefore, ensure proper hand washing before and after using gloves
to prevent the spread of germs and cross contamination.
Handwashing
for food caterers and street food vendors.
Knowing
that the caterers and street food vendors who prepare most food eaten by average
Nigerians are neither regulated nor audited for food safety measure, it is
important to spread the vital news about handwashing to this sector. Food
safety issue should be an important aspect of every caterer because with the increasing
rate of social media usage and engagement, it takes only one sick client in a
social media platform to ruin your business. Hence, in addition to maintaining other
food safety measures as mentioned by The
Global Food Safety Resource, it is important that your workers and food handlers cultivate the hand washing
habit to ensure safe food for all. One way to start is to install handwashing
facilities in your establishments.
Handwashing for Consumers
Since the food safety measure in the entire
food supply chain is geared towards the health and safety of the consumers which
are the end users, it is very important for these end users to maintain the
very food safety culture and hand washing habit to achieve the whole aim of
food safety in the food supply chain. Food safety can only be achieved if all
the actors in the food supply chain plays their correct role in ensuring safe
and wholesome food consumption. Therefore, it is important for all consumers
(you and me) to wash their hands properly before and after food eating or during
food preparation in the kitchen or anywhere. You can also take a look at one of
our articles, The
Role of Consumers in Food Safety.
Steps to wash Hands Properly
There are procedures to do a thing in a right way, and for proper handwashing, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has stated the five steps to washing hands in the most effective ways to prevent the spread of germs.
- Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), turn off the tap, and apply soap.
- Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
- Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice.
- Rinse your hands well under clean, running water.
- Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them
Please share your thoughts about the importance of handwashing in the comment section. Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing.
Chinaza Arinzechukwu
Nice one, what about the use of hand sanitizers, can it effectively replace the use of water in circumstances Where water may not be readily available?
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