If you do not keep good kitchen hygiene this can lead to a multitude of problems. For example, if you do not clean surfaces well you could contaminate uncooked foods, and get yourself sick. If you do not have a hygienic kitchen you could be encouraging mold and mildew growth. There are a lot of problems both physically and emotionally that can come from a kitchen that is not well cleaned. So, the following are some kitchen hygiene tips:

First tip: First and foremost, you want to keep your kitchen areas cleaned daily. This means never go to bed with a sink full of dirty dishes, or pots and pans with leftover food in them littering the counters and tables, and stove top. Instead, do at least a minimal clean up where leftover food is either put in the fridge, or thrown away, and where dishes are rinsed well.

Tip two: Keep cooked food well away from raw food, preferably a long way away, and their containers should have lids on. If you cut up raw chicken, then cut carrots for a salad on the same surface, even if you cleaned it, chances are you have contaminated the carrots. When you have raw and cooked foods in the same area you run the risk of getting cross contamination and thus bigger problems such as food poisoning. So, be sure that in your fridge you reserve specific shelves and drawers for cooked, and others for raw.

Tip three: For a kitchen with good hygiene, you have to have good hygiene. So, make sure you wash your hands before handling food, dishes, etc. Also, make sure you wash up after you have used the toilet.

Tip four: Take the trash out. For a kitchen with good hygiene, keeping a large garbage can full of trash is never a good idea. Instead, have an indoor garbage for things like paper goods, and wrappers, and then have a wet trash for peelings, pits, etc. Then be sure to get rid of the trash to the outside each day, and in the case of the wet trash, after each time you use the kitchen.

Tip five: Keep your wash cloths clean. This is what you use to wash your other surfaces, and to wash your dishes, so they need to be very clean. A good way to clean them is to try boiling them. However, you can wash them in the washing machine and then dry them in direct sunlight.

Tip six: Get into the habit of washing surfaces after each use and then rinsing them off. This is going to keep areas cleaner, and save you time because this way you do not need to apply sanitizers. 

Tip seven: Sanitize your cutting boards, and kitchen surfaces once a week. You do not want to replace cleaning with sanitizing, or vice versa, you want to do both.Tip eight: wash your kitchen walls often. People splatter food, pots splatter food when cooking, you get moisture build up, you get spit from conversation, and much more. So, part of good kitchen hygiene is nice clean walls.

Tip nine: Clean out corners, this means floor corners, the corners of food cupboards, etc. Corners tend to collect stuff, stuff that is not good for kitchen hygiene, so clean them.

Tip ten: Be consistent. If you want good kitchen hygiene, you do not deep clean your kitchen once a week, and let it go to pot the rest of the week, instead you keep it up all week, and deep clean once a month.

Posted by DF on November  9, 2007 07:08 AM | Permalink, Peoria, AZ