When you own a restaurant or hotel, it’s not just the great taste that you want to ensure when serving the food to customers, but also the safety of the people eating at your place. While we all ensure to follow the best safety practices, food handling certificate online ensures additional layer of safety with all the knowledge and skills that are mandatory for a specialist in the industry.
Despite the awareness programs and food safety measures, there are various myths that need to be taken care of. So, in this blog we bring to you the facts behind the common myths about food safety.
Myth: If it looks and smells fine, it’s safe!
Fact: This is very common among the people to check the quality of the food simply by its smell. But it’s not always the safest measure you can take as the food that smells good, doesn’t always mean that it is safe to eat. There have been various incidents when people fell sick after eating the food items that smelled good. Specialists claim that Pathogenic bacteria can cause illness and it does not always cause the same change in food that spoilage bacteria, yeasts, and molds do. This means that you can be eating the food with Pathogenic bacteria while not having any kind of foul smell.
Myth: You should always rinse raw chicken before cooking it.
Fact: While it is a very good habit to always rinse the chicken before cooking, but this is not the only way you can ensure the safety of your meat items. According to specialists in the industry, when you rinse the meat items with water, you are simply splashing bacteria all over your sink and food prep area. While it will remove the bacteria from the meat item, but then they will be all over the cooking areas, which can cause trouble to your customers. You need to be sure about the best cleaning methods with a food handling course online.
Myth: when you let the food sit out to thaw, it kills all the bacteria.
Fact: This is half true and half myth. While cooking will destroy foodborne bacteria, but there are certain types of bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus that are found to produce a toxin as it is multiplying. It is found to reproduce at temperatures from about 50°F to 120°F. So, when you cook a meat item that is contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria will be killed but the toxin, which is extremely heat stable, remains. Since this is the toxin that will make you ill, you need to treat it before you start cooking. You need to have proper knowledge about the cooking with food handler certificate online.
Myth: After the food is thawed, it must be either used or thrown away.
Fact: If you have ever got a food safety course online, you would understand that this is a complete myth about cooking foods. While this may be clearly a quality concern, but the fact is that it is not a safety concern. According to the specialists, the thawing is the overall dangerous part about freezing food, thawing it, and then cooking. When the food is properly and carefully thawed, there seems no reason a food cannot be refrozen once thawed.
Myth: This food is local, organic, or natural, so it’s safe.
Fact: People have been eating local and organic foods for decades and there have been various incidents about food poisoning. It’s not only the matter of modern days. All that matters here is the safety measures taken during the cooking process and handling it. So, one must be safe while handling or cooking food.
We just busted the common food safety myths out there. We hope this information helps you make better decisions about cooking food items. Remember it is about the safety of the people who trust you.