Concerns before cooking eggs

Eggs are rich in protein. Many of us consumed it, almost everyday, for breakfast. Remember during the MCO period, while we cannot go out often, what is the best food that keep us energetic? Yes, I believe egg is one of the cheapest and the best food for giving us nutrition.

But, do you know that eggs should be cleaned before you crack it to cook or boil it ?

Egg skin might contain dust, mud or chicken feaces. Some of us might not check the cleanliness of the egg before purchasing it. The egg tray might also dirty as it is paper made and couldn't be washed . So, if we are not washing the eggs, the dirts and more dangerous is, the feaces might drop to the pan / pot or contaminate our hands while we are holding the egg. This causes food contamination.

Chicken feaces contains Salmonella. This bacteria causes Typhoid that patient will suffered of stomach pain, diarrhea, vomit and could causing death. So, imagine that if we do not cook the egg thoroughly or the egg skin pieces drop into the egg, the contaminant will stay in it and consumer will have food poisoning after consuming it.

So, first of all we should make sure the eggs does not crack. Cracked eggs should be threw away as the inner part of the egg had been contaminated. Secondly, we should wash the egg before cracking it for cooking or boiling it. Use water that is slightly warmer than the egg's temperature. Avoid cold water entirely. Cold water can cause the pores in an eggshell to suck bacteria from the surface and into the egg where you don't want it. Never immerse or soak the eggs in water for more than 3 minutes. Wash the eggs under running water.  

After washing, let them sit and wipe dry with a dry paper towel one at a time. Place the clean eggs in another clean container or tray.  Do not putting back the egg to the holder. Store eggs pointed-side down to keep them fresh longer. Refrigerate the eggs immediately if you are not cooking them right away.

There have been argument in developing countries about to wash or not to wash the eggs.  But, it is better for us to wash it, considering the hazards of the feaces contents on the egg shell. 

Credit:  1. Sir Sazly Tulih 2. How to Safely Wash and Store Chicken Eggs - The Poultry Site 3. Eggs: To Wash or Not to Wash? - The Prairie Homestead

Home-based Online Food Business in MCO

The most common business which we can transformed during MCO is food business, where almost everybody can do, as long as we can cook nice food. Look around us, many of our friends started to promote their new food products during MCO at whatsapp or facebook. Many of us does not have enough experience in handling food because we were from other profession before MCO. So, there is a question - do we know how to have a proper food handling, for business? Do we overlook the right way of handling food and focus only to earn a living?

We should look into the food handling practices seriously. People who did not concern about food safety would overlook the hazards in preparing food because they think what they are preparing is correct, until food poisoning cases happen...There is a young lady in Terengganu suffered from severe food poisoning (until she pass away) after she consumed the expired food product that she bought online. This incident had raise the concern of Ministry of Health. The ministry is looking into regulating all home-based online food business. All home-based food producer should register with MOH and follow a new food safety guideline.

This guideline is stating the know-how and procedures that a market place owner, admin, food organizer, food owner, food handler, food delivery and consumer that receive foods ordered online should do along the supply chain, to keep the food safety in place. Some of the guideline are basic knowledge from Food Handler Training Course, such as the auto-closed waste bin, the correct attire and the pest control. Thus, if we wish to understand the guideline better, it is best to attend Food Handlers Training Course in advance to understand the food handling principles. After that, it would be easy for us to understand the importance to follow the guideline.
Anyway, the 2009 Food Hygiene Regulations also stated that food handlers should attend Food Handlers Training Course and obtaining certificates. Both certificate and the Typhoid vaccination had become a must in every inspection and the food safety program. Thus, as long as we are food handler, especially when we want to be food business owner, in this MCO, we should have the Food handlers Training Course certificate.

The Home-based Online Food Safety guideline is equipped with a checklist for us to do self-check if we have all the preparations, the practices, the devices for doing the business. The similar checklists also available for food safety program such as MeSTI, GMP and HACCP. Each checklist has Food Handler Training Course as the checking criteria.

Knowledge is power. Only with knowledge, we can build up wisdom to build our food business. Food safety is undeniable in food business. It helps to maintain or grow your food business. Without correct food handling practices, we could lose customers and we might face legal actions from the authority.

Credit: 

1. The Star.
2. Ministry of Health

Concerns about apron

Are you wearing apron when you are preparing food? What kind of apron are you using? short? with pocket? colourful? What are the purpose of wearing apron? Some of us might think that wearing apron is to prevent dirts from sticking our shirts, some might think that it looks great when wearing apron. What is your reason of wearing apron?

The actual purpose of wearing apron is to prevent dirts from our shirts to contaminate the food. As our shirts will be sticked with dirts, ash and bacteria wherever we are. Bacteria are anywhere, as long as there is oxygen. Thus, food handlers should wear apron to prevent the contamination to the food. There are some concerns about apron which food handler should take note.

Food handlers should wear light colour apron so that they could easily identify the dirts. Dark / black colour apron is not allowed as food handler would find difficulty noticing the dirts on it, if they is. So, it is better to wear white, yellow or orange apron. Then, the supervisors / QCs in food processing could inspect easily.

Do not rub hands or anything with the apron. If apron is dirty, it will contaminate the food while preparing. So, always keep the apron clean. Do not bring it outside the processing plant or bring it together to the toilet. We must understand that toilet is the most dirty place in the food processor. Hang it in a suitable place, when food handler to go out or to the toilet.

Did you or your crew wearing apron immediately when health officers are about to do inspection. Yea, it is not good. We should educate our workers the right ways in wearing apron. So that they can build a habits practise wearing apron everyday, while preparing food. If habits being built, we would not be panic when health officers is coming to your premise to do inspection.

There are aprons with pocket. THIS IS NOT A PROPER apron to be wore. When we have apron with pocket. We will likely to put in our hands (no matter washed or not) into the pockets. May be we are putting money, paper, pen, calculator, other stuff while working. The pocket would trap the dirt, our sweating. It is also difficult to be washed. So, people putting in hands and pulling out, putting things in it and taken out. There will be many dirts remain in the pocket. Just imagine, when we pull our hands into the pocket, we are risking ourselves against the contamination.

Apron is an important cloth to prevent the contamination to the food. Thus, we must make sure the apron is used correctly, to avoid the contamination to the food.

Credit: Sir Sazly tulih

HACCP - A food safety assurance program for manufacturers

HACCP ( Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) is an international recognized food safety assurance program for medicine and food manufacturers. Food exporters should obtain this certification in order to export to countries like China and USA.

The program is about identifying the potential biological, chemical and physical hazards in each processing steps and to initial control procedures for each hazards. There are several benefits of applying HACCP -

1. Reduce risk

HACCP able to determine hazards and control before product non-conformance and wastage occurred.

2. Increase stakeholders, customers and local authority's confidence

The systematic food safety management gain confidence of stakeholder.

3. Passport to export

HACCP had been a mandatory for exporting foods to USA, US and China. Since 2009, China had requested Malaysia seafood manufacturers to implement and document HACCP program before they are allowed to export to China.

4. Obtain Health Certificate faster. (export)

HACCP certified exporter could obtain Health Certificate in 3 days compare to manufacturer without HACCP certified exporter that need about 21 days. Non-HACCP certified exporter do have to send the products for lab analysis and obtain test reports. The good result of test reports is needed to get Health Certificate, while HACCP certified exporter could skip this step.

HACCP is not a stand alone program. It is formed by pre-requisite program which consist of elements such as cleaning and sanitation, personal hygiene, pest control, traceability etc. When the program is implemented and controlled, a HACCP plan can be built up based on the 7 HACCP principles -

Principle 1: To conduct a hazard analysis of every processing steps in process flow.

Principle 2: Determine critical control points (CCPs) from each identified hazard. If the hazard needs control measures to avoid food safety issue, then the step is a CCP.

Principle 3: Establishing critical limits. If the steps are confirmed to be a CCP, set the limit (maximum tolerance) of the measures that coudl avoid food safety issue.  For instance, if the CCP is the bacteria growth and the control is to keep low temperature, do set the temperature limits of the product, say <5oC. This is to state that the product temperature should be controlled to less than 5oC to avoid food safety issue.

Principle 4: Establish monitoring procedures. After setting the limits, we can set up procedure on HOW to control to the level that below the limit.

Principle 5: Establish corrective actions. Setting actions to be done when there are non-compliance in the control procedures. 

Principle 6: Establish verification procedures. This is to check if the procedures is done correctly.

Principle 7: Establish record-keeping and documentation procedures.  All records & statements, procedures should be documented, at least 2 years, or depending on the shelf life of the product.

HACCP is a systematic and robust food safety assurance program. Organization that implementing this program would be able to reduce the food safety issues. The controls are more precise than GMP or MeSTI.

Credit: 

1. Safe Food Alliance
2. Food safety & quality division, Kedah State Health Department
3. US Food & Drug Administration.
4.Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA–LINCOLN
5. LLOYD'S REGISTER MALAYSIA