Culinary Arts: Safety and Sanitation Tips for the Kitchen

Safety and sanitation in the kitchen are vital to keeping yourself and your customers healthy. This not only includes keeping vermin out of your workspace and making sure you can pass any health inspection that is sprung on you. If you're studying towards your degree in culinary arts, you might be familiar with some tips, but all of them deserve careful consideration.

Keep an Eye on your Materials in the Kitchen

Materials in the kitchen may be crucial to a successful operation, but they can take your ticket times into the stratosphere and even cause costly injuries if they are stored haphazardly. Storing materials out of the main triangle of your food prep area unless they are being actively worked with is a necessity.

Remember, a cluttered work space quickly turns into a dangerous one. Anything that topples can become a tripping or even burning hazard, as well as wasting valuable materials that could be necessary for the next order.

Liquid Safety Tips

Since liquids are a serious hazard and mopping is often impractical during the rush times when spills happen the most, ensuring that you have non-slip floor mats in place keeps a spill from becoming a dangerous slipping risk. Slips and falls are dangerous on their own, but adding in hot food makes the situation even worse.

Check the Temperature!

Temperatures are a subtle way your customers may be food poisoned without realizing it. With latency periods of as little as a few hours, you may get home at the end of the day to find your customers leaving scathing online reviews if you are not careful. Purchase an infrared thermometer, which has a laser you can point at several areas of each heating surface, freezer, and cooler.

The cooler temperature should always be well under 50 degrees Fahrenheit, as 50 is the turning point at which bacterial growth accelerates rapidly. The freezer should naturally be lower than 32 degrees, and the lower the better. You generally want your stove and the inside of your oven to be well over food prep temperature on their solid surfaces when the appliance is on. Most foods need to reach 212 degrees to initially kill bacteria, and then to be kept at 160 or above until they are served so that bacteria cannot grow.

Scrub and Cover Your Hands

Covering your hands may sound strange when you are expected to wash your hands every 30 minutes to an hour, but sometimes this is a wise idea nonetheless. When you are cleaning, covering your hands can prevent the transfer of harmful bacteria. If you have a wound of any type, cleaning it can stave off infection.

If a wound may be mildly infected, such as if there is redness or swelling near it, cover it up to avoid having a bandage contact food and to keep any infectious bacteria from transferring. Do not assume that the cooking process will kill all bacteria, as some may survive the heat. The best way to prevent bacteria in food is to never let it in.

Mind the Dress Code

The dress code in the kitchen might be casual, but there are some good ideas for safe and effective food prep. For starters, anything flammable should be tucked back carefully. Hair should be contained in a hair net or another kind of rigid hat that keeps hair out of food. Any loose clothing that could potentially catch fire should either not be worn or should be secured.

Clean Those Surfaces

Cleaning kitchen surfaces may seem like a simple concept, but every surface needs at least wiping down on a nightly basis with effective antibacterial cleaners. The entirety of the sinks, the back splash, the faucets, floors, and every other surface needs to be tended to, as food can splatter during cooking. When in doubt, clean it, and work from the top downward in case of crumbs. Being "too careful" is fine.

Properly Position Potential Flammables

Any source of heat can be a fire hazard, and that is not just cooking surfaces. Are there towels, packaging, or napkins too near heating vents? Are you storing oils, used grease, sugar, or anything carbohydrate-based near or above flames? Any of these can become hazardous easily, especially during the evening rush.

When Cleaning Materials Become a Problem

Food poisoning is not always bacterial, as chemicals used to clean are also poison. If one of your staff makes a mistake, cleaning materials can enter the food being prepared and cause your customers to become sick. Thoroughly rinse during cleaning, and stow cleaning materials during open kitchen hours to prevent this from happening.

Taking Things to the Next Level

Do you love cooking so much you would like to make your profession? Include ECPI University's Associate of Applied Science degree in Culinary Arts in your research. This degree will help you learn both cooking and how to operate a commercial kitchen, which will help you earn a living while doing what you love. Contact an ECPI University admissions representative to learn more and see if this is could be the next step in your culinary journey.

It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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