Making home-cooked meals for you and your family is a great way to stay healthy. That is unless you don’t maintain proper hygiene practices while preparing and cooking your food. Bacteria can easily build up in the kitchen and affect your food, especially in homes with pets and young children. This can lead to unpleasant problems like food poisoning.
We’ve got some simple tips to keep bacteria at bay while preparing food in your kitchen.
Wash your hands before and after handling food
You easily spread bacteria through contact with other people and objects. You will have bacteria on your hands even if you don’t realize it, so make sure you always wash them before handling any food. Then, wash your hands after handling food before you move onto the next step or a different food item. This is especially important when it comes to handling raw meat.
Wipe down surfaces
Bacteria will also be lingering on your kitchen surfaces. Wipe these down with antibacterial spray or simply with water and dish soap before and after preparing food. When using cutting boards, make sure you use a different one for raw meat than you use for other types of food. Plastic cutting boards are better than wooden ones for raw meat because they are not porous.
Don’t keep garbage in the open
When it comes to throwing away food waste and other things in your kitchen, make sure you either use a closed bin or garbage disposal. Open-top bins or just leaving food waste in an open container on the side will allow bacteria to spread into the air, potentially contaminating your food and surfaces.
Choose your kitchen countertops carefully
Some kitchen countertop materials are better than others when it comes to preparing food hygienically. As a general rule, the more porous they are, the less hygienic they are. This is because porous countertops can absorb things like meat juices, making it harder to properly clean your surfaces of all bacteria and contaminants.
This is why commercial kitchens mostly have steel countertops; because it is non-porous and very easy to clean. Wood, on the other hand, is a more porous material and, therefore, less hygienic. Tile can also cause problems if you don’t properly clean the grout lines between tiles.
Natural stone has varying levels of porosity depending on the material. For example, granite is less porous than marble, making it a good choice for your kitchen countertops. But you can seal your natural stone countertops to make them effectively non-porous and much more hygienic.
If you need new natural stone kitchen countertops or are looking for more tips on looking after your countertops, then contact Amanzi Granite today. We’re here to help you get your dream kitchen and bathroom countertops around Kernersville, Winston Salem, Greensboro, and High Point.
