In a perfect world, no one needs to be concerned about food sanitation and safety. In the real world, however, diseases are awaiting to grow and develop at any opportune moment.
Therefore, when baking cookies at home, I pay particular attention to the following areas:
- Properly restraining hair, short fingernails and preferably without nail polish.
- No smoking, eating, or chewing gum while baking, even cookies.
- Securely covering cuts or lesions on fingers and hands with bandages and wearing gloves.
- Washing hands before handling cookie ingredients and after using the restroom. Refraining from touching hair, face, or other body parts while mixing and preparing ingredients.
How Cross Contamination Affects Food Sanitation and Safety
- Do not use ingredients that have been spoiled by yeasts, mold, or infested by pests. Yeasts and mold grow well in acidic food with low water content such as jelly, jam, syrup, honey, cheese, sour cream, applesauce.
Molds produce toxins that can cause food-borne illnesses. Freezing temperatures can prevent or reduce the growth of molds but do not destroy them. Heat can kill molds and their spores, but can not destroy their toxins.
- Avoiding chemical contamination by using only food-grade utensils and equipments to prepare and store cookies.
Don’t use a saucepan made from copper, lead, brass, zinc, cadmium, and antimony, to prepare lemon curd for coconut macaroon sandwiches. The acid in citrus fruits will leach these toxic metals from the saucepan and become contaminated.
- Always washing hands before and after separating eggs because they are considered potentially hazardous food. Harmful microorganisms can rapidly grow in raw eggs or in food that has been contaminated with them through improper handling.
- Inspecting each cookie ingredient to assure that there is no physical contaminants such as hair, dirt, broken glass.
Proper Storage of Cookie Ingredients to Insure Food Sanitation – It is important to keeping shell eggs refrigerated at 45 degrees F. (7 degrees C.) or below, dry ingredients such as flour in a dry, cool place to discourage pest infestation.
In the United States, the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) commits to promoting food sanitation and safety. It requires individuals who plan to enter into the food preparation and service industry to complete 16 hours of classroom training and pass a national comprehensive examination. After passing this exam, each candidate will receive a certificate that is valid for 5 years.
National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF). Third Edition, 2004. ServSafe Essentials.