Media Release

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

With home cooking becoming more popular, Swan Hill Rural City Council's Public Health Services has urged residents to make food safety a top priority.

“The Food Safety Information Council estimates a fifth of the 5.4 million cases of food poisoning in Australia each year are caused by poor hygiene and below standard food handling and storage in the home,” Council's Health Co-ordinator Melanie Bennett said.

“With this week being Australian Food Safety Week it's a good opportunity to focus on basic food safety while we do our food shopping, cook at home, pack our lunches or enjoy the outdoors with barbeques or picnics during the summer.”

Ms Bennett said that if increased home cooking is prompted by wanting to make the dollars go further, then there are some basic rules that should be followed including:

• If buying in bulk make sure you have adequate storage in the refrigerator or freezer, and enough time to repackage the food so that you can defrost an adequate amount for a meal, rather than attempting to thaw the entire purchase at once. Small food packages will defrost well in the refrigerator, while large blocks of meat or fish pose difficulties as the outside will be defrosted for a considerable time before the core of the product defrosts.

•  Understand best-before and use-by dates particularly if you love a bargain, as foods near their use-by date will be on special, as it is illegal to sell them after the date, and the retailer is wanting to move them quickly. Ask yourself: Are you able to consume the food before it is past its use-by date? Is the product able to be frozen which will extend its safe life? If the answer to such questions is “No”, then resist the bargain temptation.

The best-before date is slightly different as food can be sold and safely consumed after the date. The best-before date is nominated by the manufacturer as the date before which the food will be of best quality to consumer. After this date the food will decrease in quality or nutrition but will remain safe for a reasonable time.

• If using slow cookers to make cheaper meat cuts tender, make sure it is not operating in the temperature danger zone between 5°C and 60°C as food poisoning bugs thrive in this zone.

• Refrigerate or freeze food as soon as it stops steaming – never leave it on the benchtop overnight. Splitting large amounts into meal size containers will help the food chill swiftly.

• Make sure to separate raw meats, chicken and fish from salad vegetables, fruit and other foods which will not be cooked before serving to avoid food poisoning through cross-contamination.

“Cheaper foods are only good value if they are safe,” Ms Bennett added.

“This means we have to understand how to select foods which will meet our schedule for when we will eat them, how to handle and store foods to get a safe life from them, and to know when the risk of eating a food is high as far as food poisoning is concerned.”

 “Underlying good value and safe food are the Food Safety Information Council's basic food safety tips – Cook, Clean, Chill and Separate. These are still as relevant as ever, to avoid being one of the more than 5 million Australians who suffer food poisoning each year,” she said.

The Council's basic food safety keys are:

• Avoid the temperature danger zone – serve hot food steaming hot. Put leftovers into the fridge as soon as they stop steaming. Chill all food as soon as possible after cooking or buying. Make sure your fridge is clean, uncluttered and 5°C or below. Ask for ice when buying seafood.

• Cook chicken, rabbit, sausages, minced meat dishes, hamburgers, rolled and stuffed meats right through, until the juices run clear.

• Separate foods that are raw such as chicken, meat and dirty vegetables from foods that are ready to eat such as salads, cooked meats etc.  Make sure raw chicken and meat are stored below other foods in the fridge to avoid cross contamination.

• Keep cooking utensils and all surfaces your food will touch scrupulously clean to avoid contamination with food poisoning bacteria and viruses.

• Clean your hands. Hands should be washed with soap under warm, running water for 20 seconds and dried for 20 seconds.

More information is available at:  www.foodsafety.asn.au.