Cross Contamination

Contamination or pollution is almost around all of us. We always contaminate ourselves without being aware what we did already. In this article we will know what Cross contamination means, to what extent is easy to occur, causes of cross contamination, easily ways to avoid cross contamination and in the end of the article there will be food safety course guide.

Cross contamination could be simply defined as bacterial transfer from place to another; this can be from person to person or object to object. Cross contamination in hospitals could make very serious problems due to viruses and bacteria transfer from rooms and/or person and spread throughout the hospital causing severe outbreaks. Food can be contaminated from other sources or utensils used for food preparation; in fact foods are susceptible to be cross contaminated throughout the entire preparation processes so food workers should be wishful enough to avoid the problem; these could be cutting board, knives, spoon etc….Another very important factor in spreading cross contamination are the gloves used by the workers. For bakery products; cross contamination can occur when gluten free products come in contact with non gluten free products. Also wheat flour is very risky where it can stay airborne for many hours in both bakery and at home and contaminate surfaces, utensils, and uncovered gluten-free food. 

Therefore we could dedicate that cross contamination could occurred everywhere and the harmful organisms can exhibit their bad effects tainting the healthy conditions of foods as well causing food poisoning.

There are more than phase for cross contamination; biological, chemical and physical.

Biological contamination is when harmful bacteria transferred from dirty objects to clean ones; chemical is when either liquid chemicals or residual attached to food products which mainly occurred throughout machine production, while physical contamination is when some foreign bodies come in contact with the food items; all these phases could cause severe problems or even serious outbreaks.

Although cross contamination is widely spread and present almost everywhere, but it seems to be easy to avoid it by follow some precautions, whether you're food handler or just end user you can avoid spreading harmful organisms.

*- Only use clean utensils and equipments when prepare foods.

*- All used utensils and equipments should be cleaned and sanitize before re use.

*- Prepare only one item at the time.

*- Avoid bringing raw food to be in contact with cooked foods.

*- Remember that the effective cleaning and sanitization reduce effectively the harmful bacteria responsible for Food poisoning.

*- Always remember that our hands are the only tools  from our bodies that come in contact with the food, so very risky tools that cause cross contamination which lead to sever illness.

*- Avoid talking, coughing or sneezing during food preparation (more than eighty percent of all known illnesses are spread from hand to mouth therefore wearing musk is better).

*- Always wash your hands with warm water and soap before, during and after food preparation.

    Remember that cross contamination causes many dangerous illnesses; therefore many countries asking food handlers to pass food safety courses before hiring them. Due to the increased risks in food safety, (WHO) provides all the necessary advices either for private sectors or governmental authorities to avoid the diseases.