Food Safety Education Month is under way, and the Mobile County Health Department is using the September observance to press a message aimed at home cooks and commercial kitchens alike: most foodborne illness is preventable, and the practices that prevent it are ordinary ones.
September is National Food Safety Education Month, an opportunity for individuals, families and food-service professionals to take an active role in preventing foodborne illness. Safe food handling begins long before a meal reaches the table. Washing hands, preventing cross-contamination, cooking foods to safe temperatures, refrigerating perishable foods promptly and properly cleaning and sanitizing food-contact surfaces are everyday actions that can help protect the health of the community.
“National Food Safety Education Month is an opportunity to empower individuals and communities to take an active role in preventing foodborne illness,” said Dr. Kevin Michaels, Health Officer for Mobile County. “Food safety is a shared responsibility. Whether preparing a meal at home, operating a restaurant, serving food at a community event, or caring for children and older adults, each of us has an important role in reducing risk.”
What the Health Department Does Year-Round
The observance is a month long, but the work behind it is continuous. The Mobile County Health Department’s Inspection Services division works throughout the year with retail food establishments, mobile and temporary food units, and other regulated facilities to promote safe practices and help prevent illnesses associated with contaminated food and beverages. The department also conducts inspections and provides education designed to support compliance with state and local food-safety requirements.
That combination of inspection and education is deliberate. An inspection captures conditions at a single moment; education is what carries good practice through the shifts and days when no inspector is present. Regulated facilities in a county the size of Mobile range from large institutional kitchens to single-operator mobile units and the temporary stands that appear at festivals and fundraisers, and the risks differ accordingly. A permanent restaurant has walk-in coolers, three-compartment sinks and dedicated handwashing stations. A temporary unit at an outdoor event may have to construct all of that from scratch each time it opens.
Foodborne illness can result from a variety of unsafe practices, including inadequate handwashing, cross-contamination between raw and ready-to-eat foods, improper cooking, unsafe cooling or holding temperatures, and failure to clean and sanitize equipment and work surfaces. Education and routine refresher training help food-service employees recognize these risks and take practical steps to prevent them.
The Local Numbers
As of September 5, Mobile County had reported provisional cases of several enteric diseases, including 86 cases of campylobacteriosis, 35 cases of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), 17 cases of shigellosis, 11 cases of cryptosporidiosis, five cases of cyclosporiasis, 11 cases of vibriosis, and one case of listeriosis. These figures reinforce the importance of safe food and water practices throughout the community.
Two qualifications are worth keeping in mind when reading counts like these. First, they are provisional, meaning they reflect what has been reported and entered to date and are subject to revision as investigations close and laboratory results arrive. Second, reported cases of enteric disease are widely understood to represent a fraction of actual illnesses, because most people with a short bout of diarrheal illness never seek care, and those who do are not always tested. The figures are best read as a signal of what is circulating rather than a census.
Enteric diseases are those affecting the intestinal tract, and while they share a route of transmission, their sources vary. Some are most often associated with food, others with water or with contact between people, and several can travel by more than one path. That is why public health guidance pairs food handling with handwashing and water safety rather than treating them separately.
Four Principles: Clean, Separate, Cook, Chill
MCHD encourages residents and food establishments to keep these four food-safety principles in mind:
- Clean: Wash hands with soap and water before, during, and after preparing food. Clean and sanitize utensils, cutting boards, countertops, and food-contact surfaces.
- Separate: Keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from foods that are ready to eat. Use separate cutting boards and utensils when possible.
- Cook: Cook foods to appropriate internal temperatures and avoid serving foods that are undercooked.
- Chill: Refrigerate perishable foods promptly, maintain proper cold-holding temperatures, and cool prepared foods safely.
The four-word framework has endured because it maps onto the four points where things actually go wrong in a kitchen, whether that kitchen serves four people or four hundred.
Clean
Handwashing is the least glamorous and most consequential step. Effective washing means soap, running water and enough scrubbing time to lift soil and organisms from the skin — including the backs of the hands, between the fingers and under the nails — followed by a thorough rinse and drying. Hand sanitizer is a supplement, not a substitute, and is notably less effective against some of the organisms that cause diarrheal illness.
Cleaning and sanitizing are also two different operations, a distinction that professional kitchens are trained on and home kitchens often blur. Cleaning removes visible soil and food residue. Sanitizing reduces the microorganisms that remain on an already-clean surface. Applying a sanitizer to a dirty surface accomplishes little, because organic material interferes with the chemistry. The order matters: wash, rinse, then sanitize.
Separate
Cross-contamination is the transfer of harmful organisms from one food, surface or hand to another. The classic case is raw poultry juices reaching a salad, but the mechanism is broader — a knife used on raw chicken and then on tomatoes, a cutting board wiped rather than washed, a plate that carried raw steak to the grill and then carries the cooked steak back.
Practical separation runs from the grocery store to the plate. Bag raw meat, poultry and seafood apart from produce. Store raw items on the lowest refrigerator shelf so nothing drips onto ready-to-eat food below. Dedicate cutting boards where possible, and never reuse a marinade that held raw protein unless it is boiled first.
Cook
Appearance is an unreliable guide to doneness. Color and texture can suggest a cut is finished when it is not, and a thermometer inserted into the thickest part, away from bone and fat, is the only dependable check. Widely used federal guidance sets minimum internal temperatures of 165 degrees Fahrenheit for all poultry and for stuffing and leftovers reheated for service, 160 degrees for ground beef, pork, veal and lamb and for egg dishes, and 145 degrees for whole cuts of beef, pork, veal and lamb followed by a three-minute rest, and 145 degrees for fish. Ground meats carry a higher target than whole cuts because grinding distributes surface organisms throughout the product.
Chill
Bacteria multiply fastest in the range between roughly 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, commonly called the danger zone. The longer food spends there, the more opportunity organisms have to reach numbers capable of causing illness.
That is the reasoning behind the familiar two-hour rule: perishable food should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours, and no more than one hour when the surrounding temperature is above 90 degrees — a threshold that matters a great deal at Gulf Coast tailgates, church picnics and outdoor events for much of the year. Refrigerators should hold at 40 degrees or below and freezers at zero, and an inexpensive appliance thermometer is the only way to know for certain.
Cooling large batches deserves particular attention, because a deep pot of soup or a full pan of rice can stay in the danger zone for hours as it cools. Dividing hot food into shallow containers, breaking large cuts into smaller portions and using ice baths or ice paddles all speed the process. Thawing follows the same logic: in the refrigerator, in cold water changed regularly, or in the microwave with immediate cooking to follow — not on the counter.
Who Is Most at Risk
Foodborne illness is unpleasant for most healthy adults and dangerous for some groups. Young children, adults over 65, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems face a higher risk of severe illness and complications. Michaels’ remarks specifically included those caring for children and older adults among the people with a role in reducing risk.
That risk profile explains why certain foods carry standing cautions for vulnerable groups, and why kitchens serving schools, day cares, hospitals and senior living facilities operate under heightened expectations. Listeriosis, one of the diseases in the county’s provisional counts, is a particular concern in pregnancy and for immunocompromised people even though it is rare.
For Food Establishments
“Strong food-safety practices protect customers, employees, families, and businesses,” Michaels said. “Training, accountability, and attention to the basics can prevent illness and strengthen public confidence in our local food-service industry.”
The business case is straightforward. A single outbreak traced to an establishment can cost far more in closure, remediation, legal exposure and lost reputation than a sustained training program. Operators looking to use the September observance productively can treat it as a natural checkpoint: verify that thermometers are calibrated and in use, confirm cooling and cold-holding logs are being kept, review sanitizer concentrations, check that handwashing sinks are stocked and unobstructed, and refresh staff on the policy for reporting illness — a sick employee handling ready-to-eat food is among the most common paths to an outbreak.
MCHD’s Inspection Services division is available to assist food establishments with food-safety education and sanitation guidance. Operators who want help reviewing procedures, training new staff or preparing a temporary unit for an upcoming event can reach the division through the Mobile County Health Department.