Re: Sterilizing, food handling, sponge corners
From: Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddessattbi.com)
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 11:50:25 -0600 (MDT)
Sigh. I hope I'm not belaboring this too much, but I will stop after this
post.

Just because the health department says it, doesn't make it true. There IS a
difference in eggs based on how they are produced. Ask a free-range chicken
farmer. I will see what information I can find to back up my statement.

The sponge-clipping idea is excellent. I will bring that up at our next
committee meeting.

Again, the bleach is unnecessary. Killing *almost* every germ is not the
healthiest thing you can do. This creates resistant bacteria...that's the
sound of my head banging on the wall that you hear.

-- 
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California
tamgoddess [at] attbi.com
> From: Lynn Nadeau <welcome [at] olympus.net>
> Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Date: Mon, 23 Jun 03 09:24:22 -0800
> To: "cohousing L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: [C-L]_Sterilizing, food handling, sponge corners
> 
> 
> At RoseWind Cohousing, we found the local health department was willing
> to come to us in our common house and do a video, discussion, and card
> issuance for as many of us as wanted to get food handlers' permits. Some
> of us already had been through this, for working in restaurants and such.
> But a dozen members showed up. We paid the fee from meal-money surplus
> (it was about $10 each).
> 
> I was skeptical, as what I'd remembered from such classes was that it was
> mostly about handling meat, which is seldom relevant here. But,
> especially in the question session with the expert, we learned some new
> information. 
> 
> For example, most of us had believed that you didn't have to worry about
> food poisoning from letting soup sit out too long during assembly,
> soaking beans unrefrigerated, or such, if you were going to "boil it
> anyway." Like the boiling or baking would protect you. We learned that
> with some serious sorts of poisoning, although the heat will kill the
> germs, the harm is done by the toxins the germs have emitted - and heat
> doesn't neutralize those.
> 
> We learned that eggs which are anything but thoroughly cooked (solid)
> have, in Washington State, been transmitting serious illness, and that
> this is true whether it's factory-farmed commercial eggs or local organic
> eggs.
> 
> We already knew air drying dishes was best, but with limited counter
> space and only so many dish racks for our DW machine, we DO expedite it
> with dish cloths. So we've bought a stack of white flour-sack dish towels
> and written "dishes only" on them, and even the least conscious folks
> seem to have caught on to that one, and the cloths go into the laundry
> after one meal. 
> 
> Sponges are never recommended by health folks, but we also use sponges,
> for hand washing of some dishes, and for counters and such. We've had
> some luck with a corner-clipping routine:
> The sponges we use are rectangular. A sponge with all its corners is for
> dishes. One corner clipped is for counters, two corners clipped is for
> furniture, three for floor, and beyond that-- pitch it! This means that
> as a sponge gets more used, more corners get clipped, and new ones are
> added at the "whole" end of the spectrum. A visual chart on the fridge is
> a reminder. (We run the sponges through the laundry too - though not the
> dryer.)
> 
> The next thing we have to start doing is making up a bowl of sanitizing
> solution (one teaspoon bleach per gallon, so it's quite weak) for wiping
> counters, knives, etc with during food prep. You need to make it fresh
> each day, as the chlorine evaporates.
> 
> Oh, and that food handling training was fun, because we did it together:
> I don't think the instructor had ever had a room full of people all
> laughing out loud at some of the dumb multiple-choice questions on the
> final test! 
> 
> A last food safety bit: the parent group has been working on training the
> young children not to serve themselves (which often gets grubby hands on
> the food) but to ask someone to serve them. And young children simply
> aren't allowed in the kitchen around meal times. They use the change in
> flooring material as their "line" and are quick to point out to guest
> children that "you can't go on the red part". This serves food safety, as
> well as the more obvious safety issues around hot stuff and knives.
> 
> 
> 
> Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
> Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
> http://www.rosewind.org
> http://www.ptguide.com
> http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our
> photo)
> 
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