About the Author:  I have spent the last 30 plus years in the Food Service Industry and have held many food safety certifications.  I would like to take my professional experience and transform it to home use.  We will start our journey at the very beginning.

Food Safety starts with food shopping.  Always plan to go straight home after food shopping. The time food spends out of the refrigerator all adds up to an hour to two hour shopping trip.   Time and temperature abuse is a large problem.  My personal belief is to shop at the large chain store and not at the small Mom and Pop store.  Large chain stores have   multi-million dollar brand names to protect so they spend a lot of time and money on food safety.

I always purchase my non-perishable goods first and then purchase my refrigerated and frozen items last.  Why?  Because time and temperature are key to food shopping and are commonly abused.   Food has been time and temperature abused anytime it has been allowed to remain for too long at the temperatures favorable for the growth of micro-organisms.

Another time and temperature are abused is food left out of your fridge like when my teenager makes a sandwich and forgets to put back the mayonnaise or sandwich meat back in the fridge.

The greatest danger to food safety are food born illnesses.  A food born illness is a disease that is carried or transmitted to people by food.  Each year millions of people become ill from food born illness although the majority of cases are not reported. 

Here are the most commonly reported causes of food born illness.
     >failure to properly cool foods
     >failure to cook and hold food at the proper temperature
     >poor personal hygiene

Look for my next article on food storage.

Chef Bill 

The Hooksett Community Kitchen provides free meals to anyone wishing to attend every third Monday of the month from 5 pm to 7 pm.