15th June- 21st June 2009

Food Safety week is an opportunity to highlight the importance of safe hygiene practices to avoid food poisoning, it is based around the 4 C's: cooking, cleaning, chilling and cross contamination. Take a look at our top tips around the 4 C's:

Cooking:

• Ensure food is thoroughly cooked before eating, specifically raw meat.

Cleaning:

• Clean any surfaces and utensils after coming into contact with raw foods.
• Clean your fridge regularly. Mop up any spills as soon as they happen.

Chilling

• Fridge temperature should be no more than 5°C and your freezer temperature should be -18°C or below.
• Avoid overloading fridges, if a fridge is overpacked with food it is harder to keep the temperature down, try to buy food little and often to avoid overpacking fridges.
• Leave food in the fridge until it is needed.
• If you have any left over food, cool as quickly as possible and refrigerate. It is important that you do not put hot food in the fridge as it will increase the temperature and create a better environment for potential harmful bacteria to grow.
• Hot food should not be put in the fridge. Cool down leftovers as quickly as possible (within 2 hours of cooking), this could be done by splitting into smaller portions, moving to a cooler area, or putting in a shallow dish and standing in water. Once cooled refrigerate and use within 2 days of storing. Never reheat foods more than once.
• Check the label on pre-packed food to see if it is suitable for home freezing. If so, freeze as soon as possible after purchase. The star marking panel on food labels will tell you how long you can store your food, depending on your type of freezer.
• When freezing home-cooked foods, use clean freezer bags and label them with the date and description of the food.

Cross-contamination

• When preparing food ensure that you keep raw and ready to eat foods separate, and use different utensils.
• Follow all storage instructions and storage times, check labels on food jars to see which ones should go in the fridge after opening.
• Store raw meat and poultry in covered containers at the bottom of the fridge to prevent raw foods coming into contact with cooked and ready to eat foods.
• Keep pests out. After opening packets of dried foods (e.g. flour, rice and breakfast cereals) reseal them tightly or transfer the contents into storage jars.

Take a look at our other sections on food safety to familiarise yourself with specific food safety requirements during pregnancy.