Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Sterilizing, food handling, sponge corners

[Sue Pniewski (SPniewski]

I have to concur that spreading chlorine bleach around in the name of
sanitation is unhealthy and counterproductive.  Not only does it creat
resistant bacteria, provide a health hazard, and make just another bottle of
poison to have to hide from the children, but it also does not allow our
bodies to ability or capacity to create and reinforce our own immune
systems.  If we remove all traces of bacteria and virus from our home
environment, we might as well live in a bubble. As soon as you go to the
store (touching the cart after the last person picked up that bleeding
package of meat and then touched the handle of the same cart), the movies
(where some kid sneeded all over the back of your seat), the bus (all manner
of disgusting fluids exchanged here), school, church, a restaurant, etc.,
you will be exposed to these items, and then your body will not have built
up an immunity.  By the way, as a Food&Bev Director of several big chain
resorts for 12 years, sanitation in the real world isn't anywhere near what
people here are describing.  Most food borne illnesses occurred from
improper storage of food, ( one of the nastiest bacteria grows in potatoes,
if you cook them and don't keep them over 180 deg. while waiting to serve,
it can grow quickly) not from unsanitized plates.  Keep your meats on the
botom shelf, freeze what you can't use in a day or two, use a good
dishwasher (automatic, not your hands), and don't use the meat knife for the
broccoli until it has been washed properly, and you will be safe.  All this
hype about antibacterial this and that is just to make the merchants selling
the stuff $!  People are still getting sick...
Liz- I feel your pain...


-------------------------------------
Susan Pniewski, Esq.
General Counsel
Habitat for Humanity of Jacksonville





-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth Stevenson [mailto:tamgoddess [at] attbi.com]
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 1:49 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_Sterilizing, food handling, sponge corners



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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