Basics of Food Safety (Part- Food Contamination)

Hello!
Dear Colleagues! I did some hard-work for you, to help you understand the videos on food safety. As some of us find it difficult to understand the accent of a Foreigner specialist so here is the extract of "video" on food safety presented by Chad Water American Environmental Specialist, which was shown to us by our honorable Teacher
Dr Nayyar Raza Kazmi .This is the extract of video-1 on Food Contamination., I will also present the extracts of other videos as and when I get time. Chad Water says,
that there are many reasons to learn about food safety but the two most important reasons are, there is high mortality and morbidity due to food-born illnesses. For Example in the USA the Annual figures are as follows.
Annual Report of Food Born Illnesses in USA
76 Million Illnesses
235,000 Hospitalizations
And 5,000 Deaths
2nd reason for learning food safety is that it is very much cheaper to train the food staff than to treat the diseases related to food.
The Costs of food-born disease are
• 10-83 Billion Dollars is spent annually to treat these diseases.
• Lawsuits
• Increase insurance premiums
• Employee’s Low Morale
• High Turnover of the employees in the organizations
• Negative media attention

This video is intended to help us in learning the basics of food safety, and how can we prepare food safely in our establishment.
It further shows us that there are 3 main categories of food contamination i.e.
1. Chemical
1. Physical
3. and Biological
Chemical Contamination
Chemical contamination is caused by harmful chemical through improper storage or excessive concentration.
Physical Contamination
It is usually the contamination of food during preparation with fingernails, hairpins,
Metal shavings hair parts of equipments etc.
Biological Contamination
It is of the following 5 types.
1. Bacteria
2. Viruses.
3. Protozoon.
4. Parasites.
5. Fungus and Yeasts
Viruses:
These organisms require a living host for reproduction, and cause diseases like Hepatitis “A” and Norovirus. Norovirus is very dangerous, it can easily be spread and cause many people to become sick at a time. The infected person can spread it up to two weeks, so personal hygiene is very important
Not Hepatitis B and C are not food-born illnesses


Parasites
They are found in, Pork, Fish and Wild Game.
Cooking and Freezing at specific temperature can control parasite inflected diseases.
Protozoon.
These are Giardia and Cryptosporidium. They require living host like animal and human for replication
Fungus and Yeast
They do not typically cause food illness but are responsible for typical food Spoilage. Unlike bacteria they require an acidic environment with low water activity.
Bacteria
It is the only single most important source of food contamination. This micro-organism does not require a living host but can reproduce on their own and can grow anywhere . The bacteria require protein and carbohydrate to reproduce.

Note: “Bacteria and Viruses can be easily killed
By freezing, cold holding and hot holding”

For bacterial contamination you must remember the Word “FAT TOM”
• “F”= Food containing protein and Carbohydrate are easily contaminated with Bacteria, for example sea food, poultry, meat. cooked plant food like rice , potato and pasta
• “A”= Acidity prevents bacterial growth
• “T”= for temperature. Bacteria can readily reproduce between the temperature ranges from 41 to 135 Degrees Fahrenheit. This range is called danger Zone
• “T”= the 2ND T stands for Time. Most bacteria require a specific time to reproduce which is usually 4 hours. So if the food is placed in the danger Zone for a period of 4 hours then there is highly likelihood that it will be contaminated.
• “O”= Stands for Oxygen, which means that some bacteria require Oxygen for reproduction and are called Aerobic While other do not reproduce readily in the presence of Oxygen and are Called Anaerobic Bacteria.