Day 16: Food Handling ~ More Than 101

A Food Safety Officer from the city's Health Protection Branch came in today to administer the Food Handler Certification exam. As part of the certifcation, the Food Safety Officer covered the following topics in a two hour presentation as a review for our exam: the role of the public health inspector; public health legislation; understanding foodborne illnesses; safe food handling; Introduction to Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), sanitation and pest control.

We discussed the proper practice for putting on rubber gloves. It's important that you wash your hands before putting them on because you don't want to contaminate them with your unwashed hands. Rubber gloves are typically worn when a food service server has a cut or infection on their hand. Improper sizing of gloves are a hazard. They can get caught in machinery and cause serious injury such as loss of fingers or a hand.

When working in the kitchen it is important to clean all equipment on a regular basis. Not cleaning on a regular basis may cause build up of food, dirt, etc. on parts which in turn could cause injury to the person using it. If a piece of equipment is not working properly or you don't know how to use it, you should inform the Chef. These are the two main causes of injury in a kitchen. These are all common sense. Not all people have this characteristic, thus reminders are good for everyone on safe practices.

Health Canada estimates that eleven million Canadians suffer from foodborne illnesses each year. Most cases of foodborne illness can be prevented by using safe food handling practices.

Certification will mean that I will have learned the principles and practices of safe food handling in order to reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses to meet the requirements of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care under the Health Protection and Promotion Act.

I still have one more week of theory and 13 chapters to go in our text book. Then on to the kitchen to take that theory in to practice. I am so looking forward to getting my tool kit. Most of the stuff I already have. But it will be good to be able to leave the tool kit at school. I won't have to carry my heavy text book to and from school each day either.

Homework for this week? I will need to work more on my resume and start my business plan project.