Surely you have heard of food poisoning outbreaks of different kinds, both at restaurants and in residential settings. Food safety handling requirements are of the utmost importance, and there are many safety precautions that need to be taken.

Obviously, the number one concern is clean hands and good personal hygiene. Certain food items must also be washed before being prepared. When handling food, gloves should be worn at all times. If these aren’t disposable gloves, then you must ensure they are clean. Disposable gloves are preferred, especially in a restaurant setting where food is being quickly prepared and served.

Serving utensils, such as tongs and spoons are also used in a restaurant setting. The sheer volume of food handled requires that there be more rules and regulations when dealing with food in a commercial environment. Also, this has much to do with it being a public place, where people are handling other people’s food and not their own.

However, good measures need to be taken in a home environment as well so that food poisoning and cross contamination doesn’t occur. You have to remember as well that the food you are preparing came from somewhere else, so there is always the risk of contaminated food entering your home.

Certain foods are at a higher risk than others. For example, when buying chicken, it is imperative that you wash the pieces of chicken before you begin to cook them. This is especially true if you are buying leg quarters or something a little less sliced, diced and prepared than individual pieces.

You also have to watch with different ways to cook items, and you have to make sure you follow directions and instructions to ensure that food is fully cooked. If not, your risk food poisoning from this as well.

Food storage is also a major step when it comes to safe food handling practices. If food isn’t stored properly, it can become spoiled or contaminated, and it can make you sick when brought back out to cook and consume.

You might not have all the utensils at home that people would have at a restaurant, but you still can handle food safely. Perhaps you don’t want to use gloves in your own kitchen. That is fine, but your hands need to be clean and sanitized, and you need to utilize supplies, utensils and cleaning products accordingly.

Furthermore, when it comes to using disposable gloves in a restaurant setting, many people can tend to use them for too long. This defeats the purpose of using the gloves to promote cleanliness in the first place. You have to switch them out every so often.

Always think about the type of food you’re preparing and what is necessary to keep you and your family or your customers safe from beginning to end. A food poisoning epidemic can ruin your day and be very serious, and when it comes to restaurants, it can even shut you down for a time until you can prove that food is being properly handled.