Food Safety At Home

Here’s a simple question – how are the principles that are enforced on business applied in my own home?

1. Potentially hazardous food must be stored below 5°C: Given that most domestic fridges don’t have a temperature display, then the answer will be “probably”. Since I have the luxury of selling temperature loggers, I can know for sure. And so the definitive answer is “mostly”. So it excludes when the kids leave the door open, when we load it up with the shopping for the week, and when someone has been playing with the thermostat.
2. Potentially hazardous food must be transported below 5°C: Not a chance. But fortunately the 2 hour rule may come in to play. Chances of it making it into the fridge within an hour – highly likely. Chances of the ice-cream melting – moderate.
3. Potentially hazardous food must be cooled from 65° to 20° within 2 hours, and to 5° within another 4 – since no-one measure it, no-one would actually know. The reality is that most of the time we are talking about small amounts of left overs, so it should be fine. But then I know we do our bulk casseroles/curries/soups and put a big pot in the fridge to cool down. Not too good.

So far it’s looking very marginal.

Then there is the crash and burn…

1. Prepared food being left out for indefinite amount of time
2. Left overs left on the stove top until someone remembers before going to bed
3. Left overs in the back of the fridge for a day or two too long

But then the good news – you are very unlikely to poison someone who will take you to court. Mmmm.