For more information, call: ____________________

Date: ___________________

September is National Food Safety Education Month^TM (NFSEM) and federal government agencies are joining with industry and consumer organizations to promote food safety education. NFSEM sponsors will be working to increase public awareness that an invisible cause of foodborne illness -- bacteria -- may move onto food from hands or kitchen utensils and surfaces. With Clean -- Wash hands and surfaces often to prevent foodborne illness as its theme, NFSEM '98 will stress the simple step of frequent washing with hot, soapy water as one of the most effective means of preventing foodborne illness.

Since January, 1997, when President Clinton announced the federal government's Food Safety Initiative, and despite heavy media coverage of foodborne disease outbreaks, research has shown that while most consumers have a good foundation of food safety knowledge, there are some persistent misconceptions as well as confusion about specific food handling practices that result in increasing the risk of foodborne illness. For example, not all consumers understand the importance of proper washing of hands and kitchen surfaces in keeping bacteria and other germs from contaminating food. A 1998 FDA study found that 20 percent of food preparers do not wash their hands and 16 percent do not wash their cutting boards with soap and water after contact with raw meat or poultry, before they handle other foods.

The fact is that after cutting boards, knives or other utensils are used for one food item, they should be washed in hot soapy water before being used for another one. Hands should be washed with hot soapy water for at least 20 seconds before one starts to prepare food and should be washed again after handling raw meat or poultry. And, because harmful bacteria multiply quickly on kitchen towels, they should washed often in hot water.

How significant is cleanliness in foodborne disease prevention? A review of surveillance data for U.S. foodborne disease outbreaks over a five-year period by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that poor personal hygiene was a contributing factor in over a third of those for which contributing factors were reported. Clearly, consumers, as the last stop in the progression of food from farm to table, can play an important role in protecting themselves.

To learn more about safe food handling, come to/call (NAME AND LOCATION OF EVENT/ NAME AND TELEPHONE OF ORGANIZATION) for (ACTIVITIES AND/OR MATERIALS).

^TM International Food Safety Council

^* Distributed July 1998 for use in September 1998 as part of the International Food Safety Council's National Food Safety Education Month.