Britain's kitchens so filthy that they present a health risk

[letmein]

Home cooking may be as popular as ever following the success of celebrity chefs on television. But amateur cooks appear to be less keen on kitchen hygiene.

New research has found that not only are Britain’s kitchens so filthy that they present a health risk, but household chefs are woefully ignorant about food preparation hygiene.

They commonly forget to wash their hands, use dirty tea towels and drip germ-laden meat juices in places they should never be, a survey by the Leatherhead Food Research consultancy has found.

As a result cooks and their dinner party guests are being exposed to a greater risk of food poisoning than they need to be. While this may in some cases be excusable because parents are busy juggling work and children, more often than not it’s because people don’t know the basics, such as that they shouldn’t wash or handle raw meat.

The research – said to be the most comprehensive survey of British kitchens ever undertaken – found that 40 per cent of kitchens contain filthy dish cloths or tea towels; a quarter of people don’t automatically wash their hands before preparing food, and only half wash them immediately after cutting raw meat, while a third admit to wiping their dirty hands around the kitchen before heading for the tap.

“I’m sure we’ve all got friends where you go round for dinner and you look at their tea towel and think: ‘My God, that’s disgusting, why don’t you get a new one?’ We don’t have a tea towel police, but we’re raising the issue,” said Professor Tony Hines, of Leatherhead Food Research

In other cases, many people are unaware of the danger that their lack of basic hygiene poses to their health. Handling raw meat is always a no-no, for example, because it helps to spread germs around – which can cause food poisoning.

“I don’t think people realise that although your mother and your grandmother washed your turkey under the kitchen tap on Christmas morning before they put it in the oven, you shouldn’t do that – the science and evidence has moved on,” said Professor Hines.

“It’s not a problem until you get food poisoning. It’s easy to say: ‘It was the chicken, it wasn’t cooked properly’ – well, the chicken was perfectly cooked. It was because you handled it and cut it up. And then you opened the fridge door and didn’t wipe the handle. And your kids came along and opened the fridge just after you and they got chicken juice on their fingers – and then they licked them and they became ill,” he said.

His colleague Nicole Patterson-Lett added: “If you then wipe your hands over the tea towel, having touched the chicken, and then a bit later you’re doing the washing-up with the same tea towel, then again you’re spreading the bacteria to the plates further. It just spreads. You’re not aware of it, you can’t see it.”

Two-thirds of consumers remove raw meat from the packet by hand – you’re meant to plunge a fork or other utensil into it or else tip it onto a chopping board – while three-quarters hold the meat while cutting it into pieces, rather than holding it in place with cutlery. Half of consumers are unaware that washing meat is bad because it splashes germs around the kitchen.

Only a quarter of those surveyed use separate chopping boards for meat, fish and vegetables, and a third of people don’t keep raw meat at the bottom of the fridge – where it is meant to be to avoid dripping juices over everything else.

Ms Patterson-Lett presented the research findings, which came from a questionnaire completed by 1,551 people, at the Institute of Food Science and Technology Conference in London in the hope that they will generate a debate that will help to improve our kitchen habits.

Professor Hines said kitchen hygiene is a particular problem for older people: “We’ve got an ageing population of people who are more forgetful and people living much longer, and elderly people more susceptible to food poisoning because systems are weaker.

“They might have nursing carers but they can often only spend 10 minutes in the house. It would be great if friends and neighbours kept an eye on their neighbours and the relatives were all aware as well.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/britains-kitchens-so-filthy-that-they-present-a-health-risk-says-new-research-10203176.html

[MB.]

Does Ed Miliband own any of them?

[Marsh.]

me

I don't care about where I drip my meat juices.

[MB.]

That's what the bedroom's for you animal.

[arista]

"Britain’s kitchens so filthy that they present a health risk"


Yes they need cleaners to come in and do a proper job.

[Ammi]

..I would think that this would be the same in any country though, there are people who will think about these things/be more careful etc and thereare some that wouldn't take the same precautions...


'a quarter of people don’t automatically wash their hands before preparing food, and only half wash them immediately after cutting raw meat, while a third admit to wiping their dirty hands around the kitchen before heading for the tap'..it doesn't say what food poisoning cases due to food preparation percentages are though or maybe I missed it...

Professor Hines said kitchen hygiene is a particular problem for older people: “We’ve got an ageing population of people who are more forgetful and people living much longer, and elderly people more susceptible to food poisoning because systems are weaker.

“They might have nursing carers but they can often only spend 10 minutes in the house. It would be great if friends and neighbours kept an eye on their neighbours and the relatives were all aware as well.”

..this bit reminded me of one time my OH's nan asked him for a meal and she forgot to put the oven on ..(she was making a roast dinner..)...and she didn't even realise when she was about to serve it completely raw..she had really decreased eyesight which is why she couldn't see that it was raw...

..but yeah, I have many elderly neighbours and it's always good to see that they're ok and not poisoning themselves....

[Ammi]

"Britain’s kitchens so filthy that they present a health risk"


Yes they need cleaners to come in and do a proper job.

..maybe they struggle to get a job themselves or can't work so having a cleaner wouldn't really be something that they could think about...

[Crimson Dynamo]

i am not seeing anyone I know with food poisoning or dropping dead?

[Ammi]

i am not seeing anyone I know with food poisoning or dropping dead?

..that's maybe because you date healthy live people though...

[Cherie]

Not handling raw meat is a bit OTT, bit tricky to get a 30lb turkey onto a roasting dish with a fork :laugh: who wouldn't wash their hands after handling meat :umm2:

[Ammi]

Not handling raw meat is a bit OTT, bit tricky to get a 30lb turkey onto a roasting dish with a fork :laugh: who wouldn't wash their hands after handling meat :umm2:

..the people who don't wash their hands after handling meat..:laugh:..I don't handle meat btw, I wear gloves but that's more because I have a phobia about it but I still have to cook it for le famille....

[Nedusa]

Bring back Domestic Science in schools

[arista]

..maybe they struggle to get a job themselves or can't work so having a cleaner wouldn't really be something that they could think about...

Sure Ammi

No Cleaners for them
then



Sign Of The Times

[Crimson Dynamo]

..that's maybe because you date healthy live people though...

no i just have few friends and rarely eat meat

:hehe:

[Ammi]

Bring back Domestic Science in schools

..it's more or less still there Nedusa and not much different in content to when I was at school, well it's better because it covers hygiene more than I recall it did back in the day...

[kirklancaster]

Bring back Domestic Science in schools

:clap1: If the not-so-young wife on the TV program; 'Back In Time For Dinner' is anything to go by; it's time 'Domestic Science' was mandatory in EVERY school, because she could not operate a basic or 'butterfly' tin opener, could not cook or present the most rudimentary of meals, did not know what 90% of the really common foodstuffs were, was ignorant of fresh vegetables, and was hopeless in every aspect of domestic science.

With a few notable exceptions, my OWN experience of the latest generation of 'young mothers' has NOT witnessed much to cause me to think that the above 'wife and mother' is the exception and not the rule.

[kirklancaster]

..it's more or less still there Nedusa and not much different in content to when I was at school, well it's better because it covers hygiene more than I recall it did back in the day...

This surprises me Ammi. Are you sure that Domestic Science is taught in ALL schools?

[Cherie]

:clap1: If the not-so-young wife on the TV program; 'Back In Time For Dinner' is anything to go by; it's time 'Domestic Science' was mandatory in EVERY school, because she could not operate a basic or 'butterfly' tin opener, could not cook or present the most rudimentary of meals, did not know what 90% of the really common foodstuffs were, was ignorant of fresh vegetables, and was hopeless in every aspect of domestic science.

With a few notable exceptions, my OWN experience of the latest generation of 'young mothers' has NOT witnessed much to cause me to think that the above 'wife and mother' is the exception and not the rule.

What about 'young Dad's' Kirk?

[Cherie]

This surprises me Ammi. Are you sure that Domestic Science is taught in ALL schools?

It's called Food Tech now, it is an option for GCSE though not compulsory, and is not on the curriculum in all secondary schools, food hygiene can be taught at home if I had the choice of my child learning a foreign language or Food Tech I know which one I would want them to choose

[Cherie]

:blush:..the people who don't wash their hands after handling meat..:laugh:..I don't handle meat btw, I wear gloves but that's more because I have a phobia about it but I still have to cook it for le famille....

:laugh: i don't think it is a huge problem though, I think people not washing their hands after using the toilet is more common :yuk:

[Kyle]

It's called Food Tech now, it is an option for GCSE though not compulsory, and is not on the curriculum in all secondary schools, food hygiene can be taught at home if I had the choice of my child learning a foreign language or Food Tech I know which one I would want them to choose

Yeh it was called food tech when I was at school. once we hit year 10 though we could drop it if we wanted.

[kirklancaster]

What about 'young Dad's' Kirk?

Honestly Cherie - I don't really know. I think that with each successive generation there are a number of both males and females who have become more obsessive about superficial appearance than the 'nuts and bolts' of real life for most of us who are not fabulously rich - and that is THE fault of progressively poor parenting skills, **** TV programmes such as TOWIE, and unprecedented conditioning by advertising and the media into believing that the 'WAG' lifestyle is the pinnacle which all should aspire to.

I think it's highly informative though, that on the 'Back In Time For Dinner' program, as bad as he was, it was the DAD who seemed to do ALL the cooking, cleaning, shopping, and other domestic duties in their household - AND THAT has been my own personal experience of those I personally know, but whether this is true of MOST men or indeed young men, I don't know.

[kirklancaster]

Yeh it was called food tech when I was at school. once we hit year 10 though we could drop it if we wanted.

Did boys have to attend this class too Kyle? If so did you 'drop out'? And did most of the girls?

[Kyle]

Did boys have to attend this class too Kyle? If so did you 'drop out'? And did most of the girls?

Yeh, both genders had to do it at my school. I'm not sure what the gender ratio was after our options as I didn't pick it but I personally never knew any lads who picked it. We mostly did P.E and woodwork.

I think it was useful though while we had it. Making stuff to bring home to your mum and dad to try was actually really nice.

[Ammi]

..yeah as Cherie said, Kirk..it's called food technology now and it's not compulsory for GCSE, which many subjects obviously aren't because it would be impossible for every one of them to be...and although it may not be in the curriculum of every secondary school, there are many subjects expanded on and other extra subjects which aren't available at primary level, like drama for instance and that can assist children with low confidence very much indeed...also in the schools that I know and in my area..?...food technology also expands into other subject..like for instance, in Geography the foods of countries studied will be prepared by the children and all food preparation hygiene applied...also in Maths because of the weighing of ingredients part obviously and science in experimenting reactions in certain ingredient combinations ...so there is in many schools quite a bit of focus on it generally...as there is in all parts of hygiene...

..anyway as Cherie also said with languages...different children will be drawn to different subjects to consider at GCSE level and it's great that they have the choices that they do...

[kirklancaster]

Yeh, both genders had to do it at my school. I'm not sure what the gender ratio was after our options as I didn't pick it but I personally never knew any lads who picked it. We mostly did P.E and woodwork.

I think it was useful though while we had it. Making stuff to bring home to your mum and dad to try was actually really nice.

Thanks for this Kyle. Very interesting. (and I love the insight into 'Little Kyle' taking the biscuits and buns he'd baked home to mum and dad and feeling good about it - I remember doing and feeling exactly the same. Innocence and simplicity - it's a shame life eventually fecks us all up.)

[smudgie]

:clap1: If the not-so-young wife on the TV program; 'Back In Time For Dinner' is anything to go by; it's time 'Domestic Science' was mandatory in EVERY school, because she could not operate a basic or 'butterfly' tin opener, could not cook or present the most rudimentary of meals, did not know what 90% of the really common foodstuffs were, was ignorant of fresh vegetables, and was hopeless in every aspect of domestic science.

With a few notable exceptions, my OWN experience of the latest generation of 'young mothers' has NOT witnessed much to cause me to think that the above 'wife and mother' is the exception and not the rule.

Haha, she was Ruddy hopeless.
Cold liver, cold potatoes and veg for the tea,,,leftovers from dads lunch, surely she could have fried them all together and made a fry up, a bit of Bisto gravy would have improved most of the grub she served as well.
We all loved that show, especially my retro mad daughter.

[Northern Monkey]

me

I don't care about where I drip my meat juices.

:clap1: :joker:

[arista]

"Yeh, both genders had to do it at my school."


how nice Kyle

[Kyle]

"Yeh, both genders had to do it at my school."


how nice Kyle

I wasn't talking about sex Arista.

[Kizzy]

Why wouldn't both genders have to do it, is it expected that only girls are conditioned into the drudgery of the kitchen, in the TV experiment the mum of the family was the main wage earner so who would she automatically be expected to be a domestic goddess too?
It's not a gender issue, it's just better understood now how bacteria behaves and things like dishcloths, tea towels and washing raw meat is better understood as a way to cause and spread bacteria around your kitchen.

[Cherie]

Why wouldn't both genders have to do it, is it expected that only girls are conditioned into the drudgery of the kitchen, in the TV experiment the mum of the family was the main wage earner so who would she automatically be expected to be a domestic goddess too?
It's not a gender issue, it's just better understood now how bacteria behaves and things like dishcloths, tea towels and washing raw meat is better understood as a way to cause and spread bacteria around your kitchen.

Am I the only one who hasn't seen this programme :laugh: if the mother was the main breadwinner that would explain why the Dad did the bulk of the housework then :shrug:

[Kizzy]

Yes it would, he enjoyed it too he was a real foodie. They had to live due to the rules of the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's she was tied to the kitchen for 5hrs a day in the 50's and 60's and wasn't allowed a short part time job until the 70's she looked like she'd have a breakdown :laugh:

[kirklancaster]

Why wouldn't both genders have to do it, is it expected that only girls are conditioned into the drudgery of the kitchen, in the TV experiment the mum of the family was the main wage earner so who would she automatically be expected to be a domestic goddess too?
It's not a gender issue, it's just better understood now how bacteria behaves and things like dishcloths, tea towels and washing raw meat is better understood as a way to cause and spread bacteria around your kitchen.

My question was perfectly reasonable seeing as how I belong to an era when Girls were still taught Domestic Science at school and boys were not, and seeing as how, in my children's schools, mixed-sex 'Food Technology' classes were NOT part of the curriculum - so I have no direct knowledge of the subject. Is it not perfectly reasonable of me therefore, to ask the very Forum Member who enlightened me to the fact that Domestic Science was still taught in schools as 'Food Technology' to elaborate?

Further; my perfectly reasonable question was not motivated by any personal opinion that it should be "expected that only girls are conditioned into the drudgery of the kitchen" and I'm afraid that notion must spring from the deepest, darkest prejudices of your own mind, because I am neither 'sexist' nor a 'misogynist'.

What is more, I would not regard duties in the kitchen as "drudgery" but rather enjoyable necessities - from cooking to cleaning, but then again I'm not your sort of 'modern' woman, and not even a woman at - all being a man.

As for your point that "in the TV experiment the mum of the family was the main wage earner so who would she automatically be expected to be a domestic goddess too?" I believe you - again - are drawing your own wrongful inferences from what I actually stated, because my point was that she was (as Smudgie so perceptively writes) totally "Ruddy hopeless" irrespective of whether she was the main wage earner or not.

Being the "main wage earner" does not negate or excuse the fact that as a mother - let alone a wife or the fact that she's a woman - this woman quite evidently had never learnt even the rudiments of using a tin opener, cooking ANY kind of meal OR doing ANY kind of cleaning. Nor was she familiar with the most common types of foodstuffs.

Are we to presume that from being a little girl and through her teenage years her parents NEVER gave her ANY type of even the most basic instruction in these necessary skills? Because if so, that just PROVES my point about poor parenting being a contributory cause to each successive generation being less schooled in Domestic Science than the last.

Or do we presume that the woman in question never bothered to learn these traditional rudimentary skills because she had the incredible FORESIGHT to KNOW that one day she would be EXCUSED having to bother with such 'drudgery' (despite being a mother of two) because she would be the MAIN WAGE EARNER'?

I do not find any reason for this response post or anything reasonable in it, and whilst I agree that this is "not a gender issue" I fear that you and only you are trying to make it appear that I was making it one.

[Crimson Dynamo]

girls at my school got home economics and we got metalwork and woodwork

made sense

[Vicky.]

Yeh, both genders had to do it at my school. I'm not sure what the gender ratio was after our options as I didn't pick it but I personally never knew any lads who picked it. We mostly did P.E and woodwork.

I think it was useful though while we had it. Making stuff to bring home to your mum and dad to try was actually really nice.

Our school was extremely sexist and girls never had the option of woodwork, and lads didn't get the option of food tech :bored:

[RichardG]

Yeh, both genders had to do it at my school. I'm not sure what the gender ratio was after our options as I didn't pick it but I personally never knew any lads who picked it. We mostly did P.E and woodwork.

I think it was useful though while we had it. Making stuff to bring home to your mum and dad to try was actually really nice.

Our teacher used to eat our food. We would take it out of the oven and stick it in the fridge, then at the end of the day when we had to pick it up to take it home it was half eaten almost every time. :laugh:

[Kyle]

Our school was extremely sexist and girls never had the option of woodwork, and lads didn't get the option of food tech :bored:

Sounds really unfair that. Would you have wanted to do woodwork if you had the chance? What about health and social care? Was that restricted to just the girls?

Our teacher used to eat our food. We would take it out of the oven and stick it in the fridge, then at the end of the day when we had to pick it up to take it home it was half eaten almost every time. :laugh:

Haha seriously?

[Vicky.]

Sounds really unfair that. Would you have wanted to do woodwork if you had the chance? What about health and social care? Was that restricted to just the girls?



Nah I was never into woodwork but a few of my mates were and proper kicked off when they were told they couldnt do it for GCSE and they had to drop it for yr10

We never did health and social care

[Kizzy]

My question was perfectly reasonable seeing as how I belong to an era when Girls were still taught Domestic Science at school and boys were not, and seeing as how, in my children's schools, mixed-sex 'Food Technology' classes were NOT part of the curriculum - so I have no direct knowledge of the subject. Is it not perfectly reasonable of me therefore, to ask the very Forum Member who enlightened me to the fact that Domestic Science was still taught in schools as 'Food Technology' to elaborate?

Further; my perfectly reasonable question was not motivated by any personal opinion that it should be "expected that only girls are conditioned into the drudgery of the kitchen" and I'm afraid that notion must spring from the deepest, darkest prejudices of your own mind, because I am neither 'sexist' nor a 'misogynist'.

What is more, I would not regard duties in the kitchen as "drudgery" but rather enjoyable necessities - from cooking to cleaning, but then again I'm not your sort of 'modern' woman, and not even a woman at - all being a man.

As for your point that "in the TV experiment the mum of the family was the main wage earner so who would she automatically be expected to be a domestic goddess too?" I believe you - again - are drawing your own wrongful inferences from what I actually stated, because my point was that she was (as Smudgie so perceptively writes) totally "Ruddy hopeless" irrespective of whether she was the main wage earner or not.

Being the "main wage earner" does not negate or excuse the fact that as a mother - let alone a wife or the fact that she's a woman - this woman quite evidently had never learnt even the rudiments of using a tin opener, cooking ANY kind of meal OR doing ANY kind of cleaning. Nor was she familiar with the most common types of foodstuffs.

Are we to presume that from being a little girl and through her teenage years her parents NEVER gave her ANY type of even the most basic instruction in these necessary skills? Because if so, that just PROVES my point about poor parenting being a contributory cause to each successive generation being less schooled in Domestic Science than the last.

Or do we presume that the woman in question never bothered to learn these traditional rudimentary skills because she had the incredible FORESIGHT to KNOW that one day she would be EXCUSED having to bother with such 'drudgery' (despite being a mother of two) because she would be the MAIN WAGE EARNER'?

I do not find any reason for this response post or anything reasonable in it, and whilst I agree that this is "not a gender issue" I fear that you and only you are trying to make it appear that I was making it one.

It was a general response to the topic, and dwelling too much on that programme isn't really relevant to the discussion as the OP seems to focus more on the science behind contamination. In this area we know a lot more than we did previously, it is that this is becoming a much bigger problem than it ever was. Thinking back to stories relating to life threatening conditions connected to campylobacter and helicobacter pylori in the media that's the overarching message.

[arista]

I wasn't talking about sex Arista.


I know K

[arista]

girls at my school got home economics and we got metalwork and woodwork

made sense


Yes Bloody Right LT