The save foodhandler

At every step in the flow of food through the operation - from receiving through final service - foodhandlers can contaminate food and cause customers to become ill. Good personal hygiene is a critical protective measure against foodborne illness, and customers expect it.

You can minimize the risk of foodborne illness by establishing a personal hygiene program that spells out your specific hygiene policies, provides your employees with training on those policies, and enforces established policies. When employees have the proper knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward personal hygiene, you are one step closer to operating a safe food system.

How foodhandlers can contaminate food

In previous chapters you learned that foodhandlers can cause an illness when they transfer microorganisms to food they touch. Many times these microorganisms come from the foodhandlers themselves. Foodhandlers can contaminate food when:

They have a foodborne illness.

They show symptoms of gastrointestinal illness (an illness relating to the stomach or intestine).

They have infected lesions (infected wounds or injuries).

They live with or are exposed to a person who is ill.

They touch anything that may contaminate their hands.

Even an apparently healthy person may be hosting foodborne pathogens. With some illnesses, such as hepatitis A, an individual is at the most infectious stage of the disease for several weeks before symptoms appear. With other illnesses, the pathogens may remain in a person's system for months after all signs of infection have ceased. Some people are called carriers, because they might carry pathogens and infect others, yet never become ill themselves.

A deli foodhandler who was diagnosed with salmonellosis failed to inform his manager that he was ill for fear of losing wages. It was later determined that he was the cause of an outbreak that involved more than two hundred customers through twelve different products.

A foodhandler suffering from diarrhea, a symptom of gastrointestinal illness, didn't wash his hands and made approximately five thousand people ill when he mixed a vat of butter cream frosting with his bare hands and arms. Another large foodborne-illness outbreak was caused by a foodhandler who scratched an infected facial lesion and then handled a large amount of sliced pepperoni.

A foodborne-illness outbreak was traced to a woman who prepared food for a dinner party. The investigation revealed that the woman was caring for her infant son, who had diarrhea. The woman could not recall washing her hands after changing the infant's diaper. As a result, twelve of her dinner guests became violently ill with symptoms that included diarrhea and vomiting.

Simple acts such as nose picking, rubbing an ear, scratching the scalp, touching a pimple or an open sore, or running fingers through the hair can contaminate food. Thirty to fifty percent of healthy adults carry Staphylococcus aureus in their noses, and about twenty to thirty-five percent carry it on their skin. If these microorganisms contaminate a foodhandler's hands and they touch food, the consequences can be severe. Because of these factors, foodhandlers must pay close attention to what they do with their hands and maintain good personal hygiene.