This week we have studied restaurant food safety. The children have learned how the handling of food can prevent or spread foodborne illness.
We have watched videos from No A? Walk Away, which you can review with your child at home at noawalkaway.com. Each of the four videos is just a few minutes long, but summarizes the important information from each area we studied.
Unfortunately, we did not have the time to complete all of the extension activities included on the website. We encourage you to do some of the additional activities with your child at home. This will help reinforce the material we studied and introduce them to additional helpful information.
Hopefully, your child will be sharing with you some of the important tips we have learned this week. We hope you will encourage your child to incorporate these restaurant food safety habits when you eat out as a family. They are:
- Checking restaurant food safety inspection scores before ordering food.
- Leaving a restaurant whose food safety score is below an “A”. (You are up to 10 times more likely to become infected with a foodborne illness when eating at a restaurant with a lower score.)
- Washing hands thoroughly with soap and water while being careful to touch surfaces with a paper towel to avoid picking up new germs.
- Asking for clean utensils if utensils fall on the floor or other unclean surface.
- Returning to the kitchen hot food that is not hot or cold food that is not cold.
- Taking leftovers home within two hours of when the food is brought to the table and placing them in a refrigerator.
- Eating leftovers within 4 days of bringing them home.
- Re-heating restaurant leftovers until they are at a safe temperature.
Thank you for supporting our unit on restaurant food safety.