Food storage.

Carefully we read the labels, count calories, fat and sugar content and buy what’s the best for us, believing that this will help us stay healthy. This is a very good and right decisions, but it is also important to store food. Very often, high-quality ingredients can lose their life, all the nutrients, or even harm us if, for example we will place it in the refrigerator too late.

First of all, be careful to prevent the growth of bacteria in food. The best conditions for their propagation is heat (5-63 ° C) and humidity. If they appear in the product they are double the number within 10-20 minutes, which means that one bacterium during the day there will be 7,000,000 of them!

Let’s be especially careful in the case of products such as:

• cooked and raw meat
• dairy
• eggs
• fish and sea food
• cooked rice

Surely your food will be secure with the proper control of temperature:

• in the freezer temperature should be below -18 ° C
• in the refrigerator temperature should be between 1-4 ° C
• food must be cooked at a temperature above 70 ° C
• reheated meals should also achieve a minimum temperature of 70 ° C
• food cooked before can be warm up only once

It not without significance the fact of how and what lies in your refrigerator.

It is important to know which products require low temperatures, and which can “matured” in a slightly warmer climates 🙂 highest shelves and those on the doors of refrigerators are the warmest, usually about 3-4 ° C, and therefore there can hold homemade preserves , jams, mustard, ketchup and cooked meals waiting for reheating. The middle shelves are slightly cooler – temperature about 2-3 ° C and you can place there products which require lower temperatures, but also don’t have long expiration date. These are eg. Meat, eggs, cheese, yogurt, etc. At the bottom of the refrigerator is cold, here, therefore, keep raw meat and fish, which should not come into contact with other food products, to prevent the growth of dangerous bacteria. If you have a refrigerated raw meat and fish not packed by the manufacturer, with the marked expiration date, do not take chances and do not eat them after 2 days.

If you bought eggs, then immediately place them in the refrigerator. Many times I meet with the opinion of the chefs that the eggs taste best if before you will preprae them they are stored at room temperature. Maybe this is true, but health and safety are the most important and therefore if you want to remove the eggs from the refrigerator, do it about 15 minutes before cooking – not longer. If you will not use all the eggs, do not put them back into the refrigerator.

Remember also that to have different cutting boards (preferably glass or plastic, not wood) and knives for cutting dairy products, meat, fish and fruit and vegetables. Wash them immediately after use. In this way you relieve yourself from getting  dangerous bacteria from raw meat for example into the  fruit salad.

Do not forget about hygiene in the kitchen!

While preparing the meal thoroughly wash your hands after each contact with raw animal products. (I wrote about cleaning products HERE)

Take care about the cleanliness of kitchen surfaces and use the appropriate products.

Be sure to have a trash can with a cover the best and if it is opened using pedal, because it will protect your hands from contact with germs.

Of course regularly throw out the trash! 🙂