The 4 Cs are four simple and practical guidelines that will help you to keep safe from food-borne diseases in your kitchen

The Four Cs of Food Safety

June 04, 2024

The ‘4 Cs’ are four simple and practical guidelines that will help you to keep safe from food-borne diseases in your kitchen (before/during and after food preparation for hot and cold dishes and snacks), and they are the 4 Cs of the first letters of the following steps:

Cleaning

Clean kitchen surfaces thoroughly with water and soap before and after preparing food, and ensure sanitizing it all.
After handling raw meat, poultry, seafood and other raw foods always wash hands with water and soap for 40-60 seconds and wash utensils and food preparation surfaces thoroughly. Remember to avoid any contact between cooked or ready-to-eat food with raw food.

Cooking

Follow the healthy recipes and appropriate cooking methods for food preparation in particular the cooking time and temperature. It’s important to pre-heat the oven properly before baking.
During the cooking process ensure that the food temperature has reached the recommended range before serving, and the food is well cooked especially the meat, seafood and poultry. Medium or rare cooked meat, poultry or seafood are risky to be consumed. To ensure that they are well-cooked insert a thermometer inside the cooked flesh and pierce it with a knife to in which any juice that runs out should be clear, not bloody.
Avoid serving rare or medium cooked food.
Avoid drinking raw milk if not boiled. It should be pasteurized or lifelong (sterilized). It’s also important to avoid consuming raw or undercooked eggs.
Don’t prepare your dishes very early to mealtime, or keeping it at room temperate, as this will make the germs to multiply and cause food poisoning. Therefore it’s important to keep the cold food such as salads in the refrigerator and the hot food at hot holding temperature in the oven and keep it covered.

Cross-contamination

Food poisoning and other food-borne illnesses are caused when harmful germs exist on one food are spread by hands or kitchen tools to other foods. Proper hygiene for the hands and kitchen utensils help prevent cross-contamination.
Always keep raw food separate from cooked and ready-to-eat food, and designate chopping boards, knives and other utensils for raw and cooked foods.
Wash your hands and utensils thoroughly with water and soap before and after preparing raw food.

Chilling

After cooking hot food avoid keeping it immediately in the fridge or freezer, which may lead to food poisoning later. Cool it first by keeping it at room temperature for a short period of time (one or two hours after cooking), and its recommended to divide it into smaller portions and placing them in wide plates on top of shallow containers filled with cold water.

Important food safety notes

Food safety is a journey that starts at the supermarket and it’s necessary to buy only safe food after checking its production and expiry dates. Buying frozen or and refrigerated food should be last.

When reaching home store the food in the appropriate places, such as kitchen shelves for dry foods or canned away from chemicals or cleaning materials or medications or in humid cabinets. It’s essential to use the rule of first-in-first-out. Refrigerated or frozen food should store immediately in the refrigerator or freezer and make sure that the cooling temperature is appropriate.

Food leftover after meals should be covered, dated, labeled and kept in the refrigerator and can be used within three days of refrigeration. Reheating that food should not be for the whole portions, but should be for the portion to be consumed, in which the reheating temperature should be high and equal to cooking temperature. The food while reheating should be stirred to ensure that the hot temperature reaches all of it, keeping in mind that any food remains after should be discarded and not to be refrigerated again.