Keeping Food Safe
N.H. Celebrates September as Food Safety Education Month
Public health officials estimate that more than 76 million Americans get
sick from something they eat or drink each year. Roughly 325,000 of them
require hospitalization and 5,000 die from foodborne illnesses. In 2002,
the U.S Department
of Agriculture estimated the costs associated with illnesses
caused by only five major food and waterborne pathogens (microorganisms
that can make people sick) at nearly $7 billion.
What’s going on?
Among the many reasons for such high rates of foodborne disease, food safety experts cite the increasing size and centralization of food production and processing systems, global trade, new and emerging foodborne pathogens, demographic and lifestyle changes, changing tastes and cooking practices, and the ever-increasing number of handlers in the human food chain from farm to mouth.
Whatever the causes, “We need to look at food as a system and to all sectors of the food system as sharing responsibility for food safety,” says Catherine Violette, UNH Cooperative Extension’s food and nutrition specialist. “This includes producers, processors, food service providers, households and individual consumers. Although no food is entirely risk free, some behaviors, some foods and some production, preparation and handling practices are more risky than others. Our Cooperative Extension food safety programs try to increase awareness of those riskier behaviors in all sectors of the food system.”
“In healthy people, foodborne illnesses, though unpleasant, tend to be acute and fairly brief,” says Violette. “But they can pose a serious health threat to vulnerable populations such as children, pregnant and nursing women, elderly people and people suffering from chronic diseases.”
Eating out
“American eating habits have changed significantly in the past 25 years,” says Violette. “A generation ago most families prepared and ate most meals at home. Today Americans eat more than a quarter of their meals away from home and spend almost half their food dollars in restaurants.”
“New Hampshire’s economy depends heavily on the tourist industry and restaurants are big business here,” Violette says, adding, “The state has more than 3,200 eating and drinking establishments, employing more than 41,000 workers, with gross sales of $1.6 billion annually.”
In addition to restaurants, Americans also “eat out” in a wide variety of foodservice establishments that include schools, college dining halls, hospitals, nursing homes, senior meal sites, soup kitchens, summer camps, retreat centers, day care centers, small delicatessens, and the takeout counters at many New Hampshire supermarkets.
SAFE and ServSafe® programs train food service workers and managers
Although 17 states currently mandate that food service workers receive formal training and pass a food safety/sanitation certification examination, New Hampshire does not.
But restaurants and other food service establishments have a powerful motivation to educate their workers in food safety practices. “A single incidence of foodborne illness ends up costing a business, on average, about $150, 000,” says Janet Casey, education manager for the N.H. Lodging and Restaurant Association (NHLRA). “A single incident sends a ripple effect through the staff, the entire community and casts a pall over the region’s foodservice industry.”
Responding to the growing need to provide basic food safety training to food service establishments and food handlers, Cooperative Extension developed a signature program called Safety in the Food Environment (SAFE), and has partnered with NHLRA to offer a more comprehensive program called ServSafe ® for food service managers. Both programs offer the latest science-based information and teach the industry’s best practices for keeping food safe.
Safety in the Food Environment (SAFE) is an interactive two-hour training that focuses on three areas of concern for food handlers:
- Good personal hygiene, e.g., proper and frequent handwashing, appropriate
dress and hair covering, covering open wounds, staying away from work
when sick.
- Avoiding cross-contamination of one food by another, via unsanitized
cutting boards, kitchen utensils, towels, workers’ hands, etc.
- Time and temperature principles; e.g., cooking foods to proper temperatures, keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold during holding periods
In the past three years alone, more than 1,800 food service workers have attended a SAFE training. “I offer most of my SAFE classes at the host site, like a restaurant or a summer camp,” says Marilyn Sullivan, an Extension educator who teaches SAFE courses in Merrimack County. “Restaurants sometimes have their entire staff attend the SAFE training—from cooks and wait staff, to bussing staff, greeters, clerks, and managers themselves.”
“I adapt the SAFE curriculum to meet the needs of different client groups,” Sullivan says. “For example, I just completed a training for people who work in food pantries. Because they do only minimal food preparation, I shifted the primary focus to safe receiving and storage practices.”
Sullivan says managers place high value on the SAFE programs because their content reinforces what state and local health inspectors and they themselves require. “Managers tell me they’ve not only observed increased awareness of food safety principles among workers who’ve attended a SAFE program, they’ve also seen cooks and wait staff reminding each other to wash a cutting board or check a temperature,” says Sullivan. “Managers like those peer exchanges.”
ServSafe ®, a program developed by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, intended primarily for food service managers, offers a much more comprehensive introduction to food safety. UNH Cooperative Extension partners with the N.H. Lodging and Restaurant Association to offer ServSafe ® trainings throughout the year at various sites statewide. Busy managers or food service workers can even take the course online.
“Depending on who offers the training and the methods they use, ServSafe® is delivered as either a one or two-day course,” says Alice Mullen, a family and consumer resources educator in Hillsborough County. “The course can involve written materials, videos, hands-on demonstrations and exercises, such as having people practice calibrating thermometers.”
“ServSafe® students take a certifying exam at the end of the course and must receive a score of 75 percent or better to pass. “The certification is good for five years, after which they must recertify. ServSafe® certification is a good marketing tool for restaurants and also for yourself, if you’re seeking work in the food service industry.”
“People often come into this course thinking they already know a lot about food safety,” says Mullen. “But at the end, they’ll come up and tell me they’ve become much more aware of the opportunities for cross-contamination and begun washing their hands a lot more frequently, or changed practices in their restaurant so they cool hot foods down more quickly for storage.”
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP): Food safety education for fruit and vegetable growers
“In New Hampshire, we’ve trained an interdisciplinary team to conduct voluntary farm food safety audits.” says Violette. “Using a checklist, the team evaluates all aspects of the operation, from production and harvesting to post-harvest handling, storage, and practices in the sales area if it’s a direct-marketing operation.” After the evaluation, growers receive a copy of the completed checklist and a letter summarizing suggested changes to improve food safety. The GAP program is free and confidential.
Nada Haddad, Rockingham County’s agricultural resources educator, has worked on teams conducting the voluntary audits. “The audits have been very successful,” she says, “but not every grower asks for an audit, and time prevents us from visiting every farm.” So Haddad has added food safety education to the agenda during her popular “twilight meetings,” when anywhere from 30 to 150 growers gather late in the day to hear speakers, discuss the latest horticultural research, share information and socialize.
“We used to focus almost exclusively on crop production: soil fertility,
pest management, and so forth,” she says. “Because more and
more growers have moved to direct marketing, we began adding a marketing
component. Recently, I’ve invited [family and consumer resources
educator] Claudia Boozer-Blasco to talk about food safety issues. It’s
been well-received.”
For more information about the GAP program, contact the family and consumer
resources educator or the agricultural resources educator in your UNH Cooperative
Extension county office.
Growers can also update their own food safety knowledge from an extensive series
of online fact sheets.
Food safety in the home
Many of the same causes of foodborne illnesses in restaurants and other food service establishments also apply in the home, at picnics and potlucks, on camping trips and during power outages and other emergency situations.
Cooperative Extension to family and consumer resources educators sometimes offer food safety workshops for consumers, at senior centers, public libraries, schools and health promotion centers. As Alice Mullen sometimes does during SAFE and ServSafe trainings, she might put in an appearance as Gert, “a cooking show chef who does everything wrong from a food safety perspective.” Although Gert often brings down the house, Mullen says, “She also offers people a way to see a range of risky food handling behaviors being practiced.”
Because science advances and new foodborne pathogens keep emerging, “best practices change,” says Mullen. “Consumers should make sure to update their knowledge of food safety and food preservation practices.” Keep abreast of the latest food safety information with this large collection of fact sheets that cover best practices for the home, on outings, during emergencies and power outages, when cooking for large groups, and for home food preservation.
For more information
