Food safety

(From The National Culinary Review,  official magazine of the American Culinary Federation, September 2000)

The personnel of catering industry — chefs, kitchen supervisors and restaurant managers — are doing their best to fight the war on food- borne illness.

Unfortunately, many people are still poisoned by food and most worry about becoming sick, while many restaurant employees recommend not eating where they work.

One way to prevent customers from becoming ill due to food handling in your restaurant is to adopt a food safety plan that is based on a broader understanding of how food is contaminated.

How can food safety norms be violated?

                       Sometimes cooks have no time to take breaks and they have to eat at their workstation,

which is a violation of sanitation rules.

                           Often, cooks are too tired to clean and sanitize properly.

 Restaurants depend on cooks to be at work. Consequently, cooks come to work sick, often with their symptoms masked by heavy doses of cold and flu medicine but with virus or bacterium still present.

                           Time and temperature norms of keeping foodstuffs are not observed properly.

                                     Management sometimes pressures cooks to produce large quantities of tasty and

attractive food in shorter time.  

Food Safety Statistics. According to the centres for disease control, between 1998 and 2001, overall rate of food-borne illness dropped from 51.2 cases per 1 million people to 46.9. Many people, however, still contract food poisoning:

                           76 million Americans suffer from food poisoning yearly

                           325,000 are hospitalized,

                            5,000 die,

                           odds are that 1 in 4 people will suffer food poisoning and 1 in 840 will be hospitalized.

According to some survey:

                           4 in 100 people say they worry about contracting food poisoning,

                           32 per cent say they have experienced food illness,

                           10 per cent know of someone else who has been sickened by food.

To prevent the danger of food poisoning all the cooks have to be familiar with time and temperature control, good employee hygiene, safe food handling procedures, cleaning and sanitizing

techniques.

VOCABULARY

to experience  испытывать procedure             метод, порядок  technique       метод hygiene       гигиена to sicken       заболевать

Look at the pictures and express your opinion on the following:

1.  What is the way to prevent customers from becoming ill due to food handling?

2.  How can food safety norms be violated?

3.  How many Americans suffer from food poisoning yearly?

4.  How many of them are hospitalized?

5.  How many Americans die from food poisoning yearly?

6.  What do all the cooks have to know to prevent the danger of food poisoning?

7.  Do you agree with “5 Keys to the Food Safety” which Kansas Department of Agriculture suggests?

Find in the text the following word combinations:

вести борьбу с заболеваниями, связанными с отравлением пищей; отравиться пищей; уберечь клиентов от заболеваний, связанных с пищевыми отравлениями; план безопасного питания; быть нарушенным; рабочее место; нарушение санитарных норм; симптомы, скрытые высокими дозами медицинских препаратов против простуды и гриппа; правила хранения продуктов; принуждать поваров; подхватить пищевое отравление; страдать от пищевого отравления; испытать пищевое отравление; чтобы предотвратить опасность пищевого отравления; должны быть ознакомлены; гигиена служащих; техника уборки и санитарной обработки.

Describe the picture below. There are some tips under the picture, use them to make a short essay about Food Safety and how it is presented in our daily life.

 (150-200 words)

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