Personal Hygiene- Hair & Nails

It is important to practice hygiene in the kitchen. Hair and nails are part of the various personal hygiene areas in the kitchen. In my post, i have included pictures of suitable hairstyles for both girls and boys. It is important for those with long hair to tie up their hair into a bun. I have included why it is important to do so.
As for nails, it is important to keep them short at all times. I have stated why it is important to do so and illustrated my point with an image to show the correct way to maintain your nails.

Kitchen Hygiene Aspects- Ventilation & Disposal

Apart from personal hygiene, it is important to keep the kitchen clean too. In my post i have included some information on ventilation in the kitchen, why it is necessary to have them and how they should be maintained together with pictures.
As for the disposal area, i have stated why it is important to separate the disposal area from the cooking area, how to maintain the cleanliness of the disposal bins and show pictures of proper disposal bins in the kitchen.

Personal Hygiene- Hand Washing

Hand washing is not just about rinsing our hands, but about cleansing the part that comes into contact with food from most harmful microbes. As a chef, we should all be equip with the proper techniques of hand washing. However, only knowing the correct method is insufficient. We should also be aware of the incorrect techniques for us to identify the rationale between both systems of hand washing, so that we will constantly be able to recognise if we unknowingly washed our hands improperly. Proper hand washing techniques involves thoroughly washing our hands in warm water with soap to kill and/or remove microbes in between our palms, back of our hands, between our fingers, our finger nails, our thumbs and our wrists.

Hygiene Aspect of Food Premises- Building, Material Used, Flooring, Interior Walls and Ceiling

The structure and layout of the kitchen plays another major role in ensuring minimal food contamination. The gist of it is to have a safe kitchen for our chefs that is built from suitable materials that is able to withstand the tough and prolong use of the kitchen that  allows easy identification of grease and dirt to be removed. This suggests that there should be as little crevices and hard-to-reach corners in the kitchen. With that all being said, the building of the kitchen should be safe for users, and minimise the cross contamination between cooked food and raw food. The material used for flooring, interior walls and ceiling should not have crevices or designs that can trap dust. It should also be able to resist the high heat of an Asian kitchen, and be of high durability. Lastly, they should reflect light so that dirt and grease can be spotted easily to be promptly removed.

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!

 

SUMMARY

Personal Hygiene: kitchen hygiene practices

In conclusion, having personal hygiene in the kitchen is a very important component and can affect and also lead to many problems in the kitchen if not taken care of and properly carried out.

and a small recap of hygiene practices...

• Always wash your hands before entering the kitchen premises

• NO eating 

• NO unhygienic practices such as nose picking or scratching of head and handling food after such

• NO SMOKING 

Hygiene aspect of Food Premises : Dry store room and restroom

DRY STOREROOM
Maintaning the dry store room is essential and has great importance especially in the industry. The store room must always be clean and also easy to clean and neat in order to have a fast and easy accessibility to food items which will help increase product flow.

Food must ALL be dated and first in first out technique MUST be applied.

Shelves must be corrosion resistant metals and all items must be stored in an orderly fashion.

RESTROOM

The washroom should always be maintained in a clean and sanitary condition, it is to be ensure that the toilet is dirt-free and that no unpleasant odour can be smelled.

Always ensure that there is a sufficient supply of toiletry needs such as toilet paper, or items such as a sanitary bin for the women. Sanitizer and paper towels or a blow dryer. All these items are essential in order t maintain a=our personal hygiene in order to reduce contamination in the kitchen.