Kitchen safety

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote on kitchen safety. The article was originally to cover just a single, more focused topic: how you can sanitize wet kitchen sponges by zapping them in the microwave for a minute. (Be careful: make sure they’re wet when you zap them, and realize they will be hot after the zapping.)

I wanted to make the article even more useful, so I researched and wrote this part about the NSF, formerly the National Sanitation Foundation.

Kitchen safety

Good kitchen hygiene includes more than the offbeat pairing of appliances and cleaning tools. It includes investments in products that make it easier to work with food safely. How do you find such products? Look for the logo of NSF International, a non-profit company founded in 1944 that inspects new food products for safety. They also issue food-handling guidelines that companies in the U.S. and abroad adhere to.

How does NSF determine if a kitchenware product is safe? Says Nancy Culotta, NSF’s Vice President of Retail Food Safety, “We conduct physical tests to make sure the utensils are easily cleanable, (that is, tight-fitting and without recesses where food could accumulate), and also to ensure the material won’t chip or abrade and find its way into the food.”

Where can you find NSF-certified kitchenware? Culotta mentions department stores, big box retailers and specialty retailers such as JCPenney, Williams-Sonoma and Costco, among other stores. Look for the NSF logo when you go shopping.

But makers of some NSF-certified products sell just to commercial customers, so you won’t see them in stores. Your best bet will be to purchase them online through a distributor. We’ve listed distributors for such products.

Countertops
Avoid plastic laminates and natural stone, including granite. Stone can have pores that hold bacteria. Ceramic tiles are also out because of the grooves between the tiles.

Instead, seek stainless steel and other solid, non-porous surfaces, which can include stone that’s coated with a non-porous material.

Cutting boards
The same is true for cutting boards: take Grandma’s old wooden cutting board out of commission and buy a board with a smooth, non-porous surface. Epicurean Cutting Surfaces makes such boards. For even better kitchen hygiene, get two boards: one for meat and poultry and one for vegetables. Available at Amazon.com.
 
Plates
The NSF-approved Super Melamine plates by G.E.T. Enterprises are available at www.abestkitchen.com/store/melamine.html.

Oven mitts
Orka silicone oven mitts by Isi are waterproof, stain resistant, washable in the dishwasher, and can withstand temperatures of 500 degrees. Available at Amazon.com.

Dishwashers
The Bosch 300 Series Integra Dishwashers, besides being energy efficient and quiet, have special features related to cleaning and safety. They adjust water temperature and cycle duration according to the load size and amount of food to be cleaned off. They can detect leaks, pump out the water before flooding occurs and then shut down. Find the dealer nearest you by using the online dealer locator on their web site (boschappliances.com)

Knives
Dexter-Russell’s line of Sani-Safe knives bears the NSF logo. The handle of these knives is slip resistant, durable, easy to grip, and joined seamlessly to the blade, making it more difficult for bacteria to grow.
 
These knives are available at cutlerymania.com and also offline. See Dexter-Russell’s site for a page that shows an offline distributor nearest your zip code.

Pots and pans
NordicWare.com sells NSF-compliant pots and pans to the end consumer (and you don’t have to buy in bulk). On their site’s main page, click the Cookware link, then look for the subcategories that mention NSF, such as “N.S.F. Certified Restaurant Cookware.”

The aforementioned products help you keep a kitchen safe from harmful bacteria, but they won’t do all the work. Follow FDA guidelines for handling food safely. Cook meat to an internal temperature of 160 degrees (165 for poultry). Don’t rely on rules of thumb here, like the absence of blood on a toothpick stuck into a chicken. Buy a meat thermometer.

Refrigerate all food — including warmed up leftovers — immediately. Do not let food cool off first. Toss any food left at room temperature for over two hours.

Taking some precautionary steps toward a safe kitchen lets you focus on what really matters: enjoying the food.

For more information:
NSF International: www.Nsf.org
The FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition: www.cfsan.fda.gov
The Partnership for Food Safety Education: www.FightBac.org