Summary - Mandy's

SUMMARY

Personal Hygiene - Attire

The chef attire is a very important component of a chef. Maintaining a clean set of chef uniform daily means that we are able to maintain good personal hygiene. How to keep your attire clean and hygienic at all times? Before entering the kitchen, we will have to wash our chef uniform daily with detergent and maybe weekly with bleach to keep it clean and white. To maintain the attire clean at all times is to remove your apron and hat when you are out of the kitchen to prevent bacteria or dirt from dirtying your uniform.
Why do we have to keep our attire clean at all times? It may cause cross contamination when preparing the food and this will cause germs to contaminate the food/ ready- to - cook food which can cause food poisoning or food borne illnesses.

Let's look at the individual components of the chef uniform.

1. The purpose of the chef hat is to prevent hair or fringes from falling out into the food that you are preparing, which is a physical hazard .
2. The apron is the easiest to get dirty but it could be maintain by removing it when outside the kitchen and it's purpose is to protect the chef jacket from getting dirty.
3. The chef jacket should be maintained clean by washing everyday with detergent.
4. The chef pants should also be wash everyday to maintain its hygiene.
5. The socks should be changed daily and the shoes can be maintain by cleaning with a wet/ dry cloth as food or sauces may drip/ drop on the shoes.

It is important to keep your chef uniform clean daily before entering the kitchen.

Hygiene aspect of food premises - Hand washing station & Food Contact station

Hand Washing station

The hand washing station is an important place to be maintained in order to keep your personal hygiene up to standard too. The hand washing station should not be use to wash food in order not to cross contaminate the food with the detergent/ hand soap. It should also be maintain clean and order.

Requirements :

• It has to be make sure that it is equipped with warm and cold running water and liquid soap and a disposable paper towel or a warm air dryer. A common cloth of drying hands should never be shared as it may cause bacteria to grow and cross contamination to happen.
• The hand basin should be located at the entrance of the kitchen to allow us to wash our hand to maintain our personal hygiene before handling food or equipments in the kitchen.

Food Contact station

The food contact station is the station where raw food and cook food are prepared. Mise en place are also done there, thus, it should be maintain clean and tidy between all tasks. There shouldn't be any food pieces or debris on the table left overnight that could attract pests, it should be clean with a yellow cloth when there are spills or food pieces on the table. It would be best to be clean between tasks.
An appropriate food contact station should be

• safe
• durable
• corrosion - resistant
• non-absorbent
• smooth
• easy to clean / maintain

It has to also be sufficient in weight and thickness to withstand repeated cleaning and to be able to resistant to scratches, scoring, pitting, etc.

Maintain Personal and Food Premises Hygiene is our responsibility to keep the food that we are preparing clean and safe for us to eat!