"Unveiling the Unsung Heroes of Food Safety: The Food Handlers"

ServSafe Chapter 3: The Safe Food Handler

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Summary

In "ServSafe Chapter 3: The Safe Food Handler," Wekiva Culinary delves into the critical role food handlers play in maintaining food safety. From the potential risks posed by an unwashed hand to the implications of foodborne illnesses, this educational video enlightens viewers on the key responsibilities of food handlers and managers. It underscores the importance of proper hand washing, personal hygiene, and handling protocols, along with strategies to train, monitor, and correct food handling practices. Crucially, it highlights the legal obligations and health guidelines that managers must enforce to ensure a hygienic and safe dining environment for all.

Highlights

Food handlers must wash hands for at least 20 seconds in a designated hand washing sink. 🕰️
Hand antiseptics should only be used after proper hand washing, not as a replacement. 🚫
Dirty clothes can carry bacteria. Changing soiled clothes is essential for hygiene. 👗
Ill food handlers need to be restricted from food contact to prevent contamination. 🤒
Single-use gloves are crucial when handling ready-to-eat foods unless main cooking processes eliminate pathogens. 🥪
Consistent monitoring and training of staff are paramount in maintaining food safety standards. 🎓

Key Takeaways

Handwashing is essential! Always wash your hands for at least 20 seconds to prevent contamination. 🧼
Be aware of foodborne illnesses and symptoms like jaundice or vomiting; they require immediate action. 🚑
Understand the importance of personal hygiene and proper food handling practices to avoid spreading pathogens. 🤲
Use gloves correctly; they're not a substitute for handwashing but an additional safety layer. 🧤
Managers must actively enforce and model good food safety and hygiene practices. 👩‍💼

Overview

Food safety begins with understanding how food handlers can contaminate food without realizing it. Simple actions, such as touching one's face or neglecting to wash hands properly, can lead to foodborne illnesses. This chapter highlights how everyday habits, if unchecked, pose severe health risks, emphasizing the non-negotiable nature of thorough handwashing and personal hygiene to ensure safe food preparation.

It's about more than just washing your hands; it's about maintaining a culture of cleanliness and vigilance in food handling. Continual training and reminders about proper hand washing, changing gloves, and updating hygiene practices are vital. Managers need to model these practices, creating an environment where cleanliness is everyone's priority, supported by regular policy updates and monitoring.

Illness reporting and policies around symptoms like jaundice or diarrhea are essential. Managers must know when to restrict or exclude staff from handling food or equipment, ensuring a healthy work environment. Understanding the importance of personal hygiene extends to every facet of operations from dress codes to equipment usage, ensuring both safety and the reputation of the establishment.

ServSafe Chapter 3: The Safe Food Handler Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 [Music] so today we're going to talk about how food handlers can contaminate food it's important to understand that at every step in the flow of food food handlers can contaminate it they may not even realize it when they do it something as simple as touching the face while prepping a salad could make a customer sick even a food handler who appears to be healthy may spread foodborne pathogens as a
00:30 - 01:00 manager you need to know the many ways that food handlers can contaminate food now there's a number of situations that can lead to contaminating food of course if they actually have a foodborne illness that's obvious if they have wounds or boils that contain a pathogen and a boil looks kind of like a like a giant blister when sneezing or coughing when they have contact with a person who is ill see all you have to do is just have contact with somebody they can give it to you and you can give it to their food if you
01:00 - 01:30 go to the restroom and don't wash your hands obviously these food handlers may contaminate food and surfaces with feces from their fingers which is gross once someone eats food contaminated this way a foodborne illness may result this is called the fecal oral route of contamination when they have symptoms such as diarrhea vomiting or jaundice a yellowing of the eyes or skin that's a really good indicator that they might be able to contaminate food with some illnesses a person may infect
01:30 - 02:00 other people before showing any symptoms for example a person could spread hepatitis a four weeks before having any symptoms with other illnesses a person may infect other people for days or even months after symptoms are gone norovirus can be spread for days after symptoms have ended some people carry pathogens and infect others without ever getting sick themselves these people are called carriers a carrier is someone who has the virus or the bacteria they can make
02:00 - 02:30 other people sick but they themselves never show any symptoms that's an important idea make sure you hold on to it to avoid causing a foodborne illness pay close attention to what you do with your hands here's some common things that you gotta avoid don't scratch your head don't run your fingers through your hair don't touch your ear or your nose touch a pimple you don't don't touch a pimple and then touch my meal
02:30 - 03:00 don't touch an infected wound if it's starting to you know fill up with pus don't touch that and then touch my salad wearing and touching dirty clothes that's something we don't often think about clothes carry a lot of bacteria coughing or sneezing into your hands sneezing anywhere it aerosolizes the bacteria or and certainly don't spit dude if your spit in my kitchen get out just get out
03:00 - 03:30 to keep food handlers from contaminating food your operation has to have a good personal hygiene program a good personal hygiene program also helps everyone feel confident in the cleanliness of the business as a manager you must make sure this program succeeds do not underestimate your role in a personal hygiene program you have a responsibility to create the program and make sure it works
03:30 - 04:00 some things to support a personal hygiene program include creating some good policies some good rules of the road that operate inside your restaurant training food handlers on those policies retraining them regularly hey just because you trained somebody what to do six months ago doesn't mean they're still doing it today they might have forgotten you have to model the correct behavior at all times supervising food safety practice at all
04:00 - 04:30 times you gotta always be on the lookout for what they're doing and then most importantly keeping an eye on the professional magazines and the reports and the stuff that the fda puts out because laws and science change and what we used to do we don't do anymore when we do new things now that's okay proper hand washing and hand care are critical to preventing the spread of pathogens remember hand washing is the single most important part of personal hygiene
04:30 - 05:00 and many food handlers do not wash their hands correctly or as often as they should every day our hands touch surfaces covered with microorganisms that we can't see even healthy people can spread pathogens we have to train our staff to wash their hands and then we gotta monitor them which is just another way of looking over their shoulder and making sure they're washing their hands right hands have to be washed in a sink that's designated for hand washing in our kitchen we only have one sink
05:00 - 05:30 that's designated as a hand washing sink all the rest of the things technically you're not supposed to wash your hands at because we're supposed to monitor food handlers to make sure they're washing their hands at the correct sinks they should never wash their hands in sinks that's designated for food prep or for dishwashing or sinks that are used for discarding waste water okay how do you go about this to wash your hands correctly follow these steps the whole process needs to take at least 20 seconds memorize that number 20
05:30 - 06:00 seconds scrub hands and arms vigorously for 10 to 15 seconds clean the fingertips under the fingernails and between your fingers okay rinse those hands and your arms thoroughly step three step four use running warm water it's got to be at least 100 degrees and then you're going to dry your hands and arms using a single use paper towel or a hand dryer don't dry your hands with a washcloth or even a clean rag
06:00 - 06:30 if you're not careful you can contaminate your hands after you've washed them it's a good idea if possible to use a paper towel to turn off the faucet if you have a faucet with a twist knob or to use it to open the door when leaving the restroom or entering the kitchen that way that your clean hands aren't touching anything now in our bathrooms at school we don't have paper towels we only have the hair air dryer so you can just imagine you go into the bathroom you
06:30 - 07:00 wash your hands they're nice and sparkling clean and then you walk into the kitchen and your hand touches that doorknob and you know that everybody in the whole world has touched that doorknob and it is not clean problem i have to wash your hands again when should you wash your hands well obviously if you go potty wash dang hands because you have to wash your hands before prepping food or working with clean equipment and utensils you also gotta wash your hands before putting on gloves
07:00 - 07:30 food handlers have to wash their hands pretty often um after you've handled raw product if you've touched your hair or your face or your body or your clothing or your electronics like your cell phone if you touch stuff you gotta go wash your hands again everybody in our kitchen could wash their hands more often and still not wash their hands enough hey you sneeze you cough you spit go wash your neck hands i'm gross so when else should you wash your
07:30 - 08:00 hands well if you've been eating or drinking or chewing gum uh if you've been handling cash or garbage a funny story true story in terms of bacterial load cash and garbage are about the same if you've been using chemicals and cleaning uh you've got to wash your hands if you've been using an electronic device you've got to wash your hands that means your cell phone anything anything at all including animals so you know if somebody comes to your restaurant with a seeing eye dog and you pet it and then go make
08:00 - 08:30 somebody's salad let's just talk about antiseptic creams for just a quick second a question can i use an antiseptic cream or hand sanitizer in place of washing my hands hand antiseptics also known as hand sanitizers are liquids or gels that are used to lower the number of pathogens on skin if you use them they have to comply with the code of federal regulations also known as the cfr and the food and drug administration the
08:30 - 09:00 fda standards only use hand antiseptics after hand washing never use them in place of it you got to wait for a hand antiseptic to dry before you touch food or equipment all right corrective action is when we see something happen and we got to fix it if we see a food handler who is not following proper hand washing procedures we've got to correct that situation immediately if they've touched food or food contact surfaces with unclean hands we've got to
09:00 - 09:30 do three things we have to dispose of the contaminated food we've got to clean potentially contaminated equipment and utensils and then we've got to retrain these guys or coach them they're not following the proper hand washing procedures and that could get people at our restaurant sick in addition to hand washing hands need other care to prevent the spreading of pathogens okay we got three things here that's going to bother some people fingernail length we've got to keep
09:30 - 10:00 fingernails short and clean long fingernails are hard to keep clean and can rip gloves they can also chip and become physical contaminants fingernails have got to be kept trimmed and filed this allows nails to be cleaned easily ragged nails are just freaking hard to keep clean they can also hold pathogens and break off which is which is gross false fingernails um i do not wear them they are impossible to keep clean they
10:00 - 10:30 can also break off into food however they can be worn if you wear a single use glove nail polish no i do not wear nail polish it can disguise dirt under the nails and it can flake off into the food once again though if you have nail polish you can continue to work in a restaurant as long as you wear single-use gloves that you of course change frequently
10:30 - 11:00 so you got a boo-boo on your finger ah me too there is a way to continue working even if that uh boo-boo has gotten infected now here's how you know it's infected it'll get swollen and it'll contain plus which is you know sort of gross looks like a pimple if you have a an infected wound or a boil they have to be covered if they are open or draining to prevent pathogens
11:00 - 11:30 from contaminating food and food contact surfaces because that draining wound on your hand if it gets into food that's that's that's oh that's just how an infected wound or boil is covered depends on where it's located if the wound or boil is located on the hand or wrist cover it up with an impermeable cover like a finger cotton impermeable just means that liquid can't get through it examples include things like bandages
11:30 - 12:00 and finger cods place a single use glove over that so you put on a band-aid you put on a finger cut then you put a glove on over the whole thing if the wound or boil is located on the arm you need to cover it up with an impermeable cover such as a bandage the wound has to be completely covered if the wound or boil is located on another part of the body like on your neck or your shoulder just cover it with a dry durable tight fitting bandage it's
12:00 - 12:30 extraordinarily unlikely that it would cross contaminate food if it's on your neck the only real problem would be is if you touch it and then you touch food which brings us around to gloves uh single-use gloves those are the gloves that we just used for one time then toss away uh it's the disposable gloves that we all know and love you gotta use those when you're handling ready-to-eat food if you're handling ready-to-eat food like somebody's sandwich single-use gloves
12:30 - 13:00 please there are some exceptions if you're washing produce you wouldn't do that you've got a giant sink full of ice cold water and you're washing a bunch of romaine lettuce wearing gloves makes no sense and you're not going to handle it with ready-to-eat ingredients for a dish that's going to be cooked i don't need to wear gloves when i'm handling flour that i'm putting into bread you do not use gloves in place of hand washing okay pay close attention to this
13:00 - 13:30 if you have dirty hands and you put on gloves in the process of putting on the gloves your dirty hands made the gloves dirty wash your hands before putting on gloves you can never wash gloves and reuse them it doesn't work and they have to fit you got to make them fit baby there are some rules about gloves um when you're you know getting some gloves for your restaurant uh there are four guidelines
13:30 - 14:00 they have to be approved for food service because there's lots of different gloves out there some gloves are good for cleaning some gloves are good for like policemen use for whatever i don't know why police are wearing gloves but they have them those aren't food grade we want food grade gloves they should be disposable single use one time because you're never going to wash them and reuse them that's also disgusting it's important that you have multiple sizes so that everybody in your staff can find gloves that fit them and keep in mind that some food handlers
14:00 - 14:30 and customers are sensitive to latex they may even be allergic to it it's important that you have gloves that are from other materials on hand okay so let's talk about how to actually use gloves when using single-use gloves there are some guidelines you need to wash your hands before putting on gloves when starting a new task you don't need to re-wash your hands each time you change gloves as long as you are performing the same task and your hands have not become contaminated so
14:30 - 15:00 if you've been making sandwiches all day long and you're changing gloves every four hours like you're supposed to every four hours every four hours like you're supposed to um you don't need to re-wash your hands you're just gonna change gloves and keep going but if you're switching from handling raw chicken to making someone's sandwich you do need to wash your hands it's important that you select the correct glove size gloves that are too big are not going to stay on the ones that are too small are going to tear or rip hold gloves by
15:00 - 15:30 the edge when putting them on avoid touching the glove on the outside as much as possible and once you put them on before you begin cooking check the gloves for rips or tears this is something that you don't often see happen uh checking the gloves to make sure they don't have any tears is important never ever blow into the gloves to open them up never roll the gloves and make them easier to put on and for god's sakes don't wash them they're single-use gloves
15:30 - 16:00 there are times when you have to change gloves once they get dirty obviously if you're changing tasks if you're changing tasks if you're going from handling raw chicken to making a sandwich you got to change gloves and you have to wash your hands uh in between if you're interrupted if somebody says hey you got to take this phone call and you go over and you talk on the phone and then you put the phone up and then you go back to cooking you have to change your gloves before you go back because your gloves have now touched
16:00 - 16:30 that phone gross after handling raw meat seafood poultry and before handling ready to eat foods just in general and here's that number again four hours every four hours of continuous use the gloves have to be changed bare hand contact okay well do we always have to wear a glove mostly food can become contaminated when it has been handled with bare hands this is especially true when hands have not been washed correctly
16:30 - 17:00 or have infected cuts or wounds for this reason do not handle ready to eat foods with bare hands now ever you should always have on a glove if you serve a high risk population there are some exceptions though it's acceptable to handle ready to eat food with bare hands in two situations if the food is added to it as an ingredient to a dish that does not contain raw meat seafood or poultry but it's going to be cooked to the bare minimum bacteria killing temperature which is 145 degrees
17:00 - 17:30 so in other words if you're making pizza you don't have to have gloves on when you put on the cheese if you're adding an ingredient to a dish that does contain raw meat seafood or poultry and this is going to be cooked to the minimum internal temperature of the raw items which for most things is 155 to 165. you can you can for example i don't have to wear gloves when i'm putting seasoning on a chicken breast because the chicken itself is going to
17:30 - 18:00 get cooked to 165 degrees it's going to kill everything some regulatory authorities allow bare hand contact with ready food the state of florida does if your jurisdiction allows us like florida we have to have specific policies in place to protect staff health we've got to train our staff really well in hand washing and personal hygiene practices and monitor them to make sure they're doing it
18:00 - 18:30 [Music] welcome back let's talk about personal hygiene if you're wearing dirty clothes or neglecting to shower um the people that come to your restaurant are probably not very happy but there are real food safety concerns too not just your stinky self keeping food safe means paying attention to personal hygiene the entire staff everybody has to know the basics so let's talk about personal cleanliness pathogens can be found on your hair and skin
18:30 - 19:00 actually that's not a very accurate statement pathogens are on your hair and your skin right now there is a greater risk of these pathogens being transferred to food and food equipment if the food handler does not follow a personal hygiene program everybody who comes to work at your restaurant has got to take a shower or bath first period food handlers that are wearing dirty clothes are not just going to give a bad
19:00 - 19:30 impression of your restaurant dirty clothing carries pathogens too and those pathogens can cause foodborne illness pathogens can be transferred from clothing to the hands and then right onto the food being prepared so it's important that you set up a dress code and make sure that all of your staff follow it we're going to talk about some of those guidelines right now hey clean clothes are good you should clean them change soiled uniforms including aprons
19:30 - 20:00 as needed to prevent contamination so if you got it on an apron in my kitchen and you've been prepping raw chicken for the last hour and you go and switch from prep and raw chicken to going and making somebody's rolls i'm gonna yell at you changing a dirty apron is important if possible the cdc and the fda recommend changing into your work clothes at work
20:00 - 20:30 and storing street clothing and personal belongings outside the cooking area like we keep all of our backpacks and whatnot outside the cooking area that's because the fda requires it backpacks jackets electronic devices keys personal medications make sure everything that you might touch is stored in a way that can't contaminate food food contact surfaces or linens in that word linen it's just referring to all of the cloth things that we use wash claws
20:30 - 21:00 pot holders aprons your chef coat keep dirty clothing that is stored in the operation away from food in prep areas i do this by placing dirty clothes in a non-absorbent container or washable laundry bag this includes all of your linen dirty aprons chef coats uniforms if you are wearing an apron and you leave the kitchen you've got to remove your apron and store it in the kitchen if you're taking out the trash don't
21:00 - 21:30 take out the trash with your apron on if you're going to continue to work with food that's gross and never ever ever ever wipe your hands on your apron that's man never eat drink or chew gum when you're prepping or serving food obviously because here's a reason when you are chewing gum or when you're eating small droplets of saliva that contain thousands of pathogens can aerosolize tiny little
21:30 - 22:00 microscopic little pieces of your spit when you're chewing gum go out all over the place uh for this reason you're only supposed to drink chew gum eat and specifically designated areas and you can never eat drink or chew gum when you're prepping or serving food when you're working in a prep area or you're working in areas that are used to clean utensils and equipment so if you're on dish duty you can't have a
22:00 - 22:30 drink back there now you can have a drink in the kitchen there is a one situation where you can have a drink in the kitchen if it's in a covered container and preferably with a straw or even a sip lid top that can be closed um you have to handle your drinking container really carefully to prevent contamination from hands the container exposed food utensils and equipment only drink from covered cups with lid
22:30 - 23:00 and straw or if it has one of those flip top sippy things i don't know what those are called hey ever gotten hair in your food it was gross wasn't it pulling that hair out of your mouth it's important that you wear a clean hat or other hair restraint when in food prep areas it keeps hair from falling into food or food contact surfaces in addition you shouldn't wear hair accessories that could become physical contaminants
23:00 - 23:30 the only hair accessory that you can use safely when cooking is the kind of thing that's going to keep your hair out of your eyes and out of food hey while we're speaking about hair uh false eyelashes don't wear those they fall into food if you've got a beard or some good facial hair going on you know you're experimenting on facial hair you need to wear a beard restraint those are kind of cool looking you should wear one [Music]
23:30 - 24:00 so let's change gears for a second and let's talk about the policies for reporting health issues you have to tell your staff to let you know if they're sick this includes newly hired staff who have not started working yet and people that have been there for a long time you have to do this the local health board may ask for proof that you've done this and you can provide it in a couple of ways presenting signed statements
24:00 - 24:30 in which staff have agreed to report illness like a contract if i get sick i'll let you know chef baits another way is by providing documentation showing staff have completed training which includes information on the importance of reporting illness that's what you're doing right now when the health board comes and asks me does all the students who are working in your kitchen know they get sick they have to let you know i say they sure do they completed that during
24:30 - 25:00 servsafe training in their first year posting signs or providing pocket cards that remind staff to notify managers when they're sick signs are really helpful this is a sign that is literally from the state of illinois because staff have to report illnesses before they come to work they should also let you know immediately if they get sick while they're there at work because when food handlers are sick you may need to restrict them from working
25:00 - 25:30 with exposed food utensils and equipment sometimes you even have to send them home which in servsafe is called excluding you have to exclude sick employees from coming to work at all this is especially important if they have the following symptoms vomiting diarrhea jaundice sore throat with fever an infected wound or a boil that is open and draining unless they've got it covered up really well staff also have to tell you if they've
25:30 - 26:00 been diagnosed with an illness from one of these specific pathogens the norovirus hepatitis a shigella spp the shiga toxin producing e coli salmonella typhi and non-typhoidal salmonella they've got to tell you if they live with someone who has been diagnosed with any of these illnesses except non-typhoidal salmonella if a food handler is diagnosed with an illness from any of these pathogens
26:00 - 26:30 you actually have to tell people you actually have to call the health department and say hey um i got a kid in my class and he told me that he just got infected with a norovirus i have to call them because the norovirus is so contagious it can spread like wildfire uh we're not going to completely trust that our employees are going to actually tell us they're sick because maybe they desperately need money and they're coming into work even though they're ill so we've got to keep an eye out and look for signs of illness there's some specific things that we're
26:30 - 27:00 going to look for if they're throwing up obviously if they're making excessive trips to the bathroom excessive trips to the bathroom probably because they have diarrhea or they feel like they're going to throw up yellowing of the skin eyes and fingernails you know jaundice keep an eye out for somebody with yellow eyes yellow fingernails that's a bad thing if they have cold sweats or chills that means they probably have a fever and if their nose is running or they're
27:00 - 27:30 sneezing a lot there's two of these two terms restricting the staff which is prohibiting them from working around food or food contact surfaces means that they might be sick but they're not contagious and we they're not going to get you know they're not going to spread their illness in the workplace i can put them to cleaning my dry storage or or mopping the floor i don't have to send them home but some illnesses uh i have to exclude them which means they can't be in the building uh please understand that for most
27:30 - 28:00 illnesses like this that fall into this category calling the health department is your best bet they'll help you to figure out what to do now we're going to go over some of the very specific things that you have to do with staff illnesses if they have this symptom then this is what we're going to do if the food handler has a sore throat and a fever uh if my waiter comes and says i've got a sore throat i think i'm running a fever then i don't have to send them home for a
28:00 - 28:30 sore throat and a fever i just have to make sure they're not working with food now if i'm serving a high risk population like we're in a retirement home or a hospital they have to go home for those kinds of people that if i work in a hospital or a retirement home or an elementary school um i need to get a written release from their doctor that says they're okay to come back to work and they are not contagious so sore throat and fever restrict them
28:30 - 29:00 from food exclude them if you have a high risk population if the food handler has one of these two symptoms vomiting or diarrhea then we know they probably have one of the big six because those are the two most common symptoms with those guys no don't don't be you know out you go don't even come into work exclude them from the operation if you've had been vomiting or had diarrhea you have to have one of two requirements met one of two
29:00 - 29:30 before they come back to work no symptoms for 24 hours or they have to go visit their doctor and the doctor says you're okay to come back to work so vomiting and diarrhea out you go you can only come back if you've had no symptoms for 24 hours or a note from your doctor so you've got a waiter and he's turned yellow you got a chef and he's got yellow eyes and yellow fingernails uh this is a little bit more complicated
29:30 - 30:00 they that that person first of all kick him out of the building go home go home feel better god bless you go home as soon as they leave the building you need to call the health department go one of my cooks has jaundice very clear case of jaundice what should i do and they're going to get involved the health department will get involved they have to stay out they have to stay out of the building for at least seven days and before they
30:00 - 30:30 come back they have to get a written release not just from their doctor but also the health department this happened to me a very very long time ago in my early 20s i got sent home i had to go see the doctor i ended up in the hospital and um i wasn't able to come back until i was not contagious anymore you know cost me a whole lot of money but i was sick sick sick sick sick sick if they've been diagnosed doctor has
30:30 - 31:00 said you have this thing and you have the symptoms then we send them home and in this case we're not waiting for a specific period of time we're going to talk to their doctor and get a note from the doctor saying they are safe to come back to work or from the health department saying the health department will say hey this guy who had norovirus is safe to go back to work we want to basically cover our own butts we want to make sure that somebody else is willing
31:00 - 31:30 to take the responsibility if they come back to work and get people sick it wasn't my choice it was their choice and that's it the four situations that we have to look at when we're either excluding or restricting people from our restaurants [Music]