7 STEPS OF HAND WASHING

Hands are the part of our Food Handlers’ body which always contacting food. Thus, food handlers should always wash hands, especially each time before handling food. Well, do you know that actually there are 7 steps in hand washing? Let’s check if you / your food handlers practise these steps.

Step 1: Apply adequate soap in hands with clean water.  Remember to use liquid type soap. Solid type soap would accumulate contaminants from the previous soap users. After applying soap, it’s better to turn on the water tab using elbow, as our palms are dirty would contaminate the water tab. So, it is good if food business owner to install longer water tab handle.  Some hand washing equipment has water tab that is being turned on by stepping with foot or pressing with knee. 

Step2: Scrub both hands for a thoroughly soap application.  Some people just ignore this step. They thought by getting wet their hands is enough to wash hands. Actually, it is not.  This step could remove contaminant on the palm.

Step3: Scrub each finger and the crevices. This step helps to remove contaminants that is hided in between fingers.

Step4: Scrub finger nails at both palms to remove dirt at adjacent nails. Food Handlers should make sure their finger nails to be cut as short as possible to avoid dirt hiding in the crevices between finger nails and the fingers.     

Step5: Using finger nails to scrub the rear side of each hand to remove dirt at the back of hands.

Step6: Turn on water tab by elbow and rinse hands with clean water. This step removing all contaminant that had been washed away by soap. Having done that, turn off the water tab by elbow again.

Step7: Dry hands with paper towel or hand dryer.  Some document sharing to dry hands with clean towel. I do not really agree that as the towel would eventually dirty as a result of the dirt accumulation from the previous users. So, I prefer using paper towel to dry hands and to throw the towel in the waste bin.  Hand drying is another hygiene method which we can implement too.

Washing hands with these 7 steps take at least 20 seconds. This is an effective way to clean our hands and to prevent us from contaminating the food while we handle them.

Let’s practise the steps today!