Food safety at home

Play it Food Safe

Clean, separate, cook and chill this summer.

Hot summer months call for enjoying delicious foods with your family and friends, but also bring a risk of food poisoning.  Although we tend to blame the last place we ate out, statistics show the majority of food poisoning occurs in the home.  Food poisoning is a serious illness and more than a minor stomach upset. It can be life threatening particularly to young children, pregnant women, the elderly and anyone with a suppressed immune system.

Foods like meat, chicken, seafood, rice, eggs and fruit and vegetables are more likely to carry these harmful bacteria if food is not prepared, cooked, chilled or stored properly.

In recent years, Western Australia has seen a rise in food-borne illness from two types of bacteria - salmonella and campylobacter.

In partnership with the WA Department of Health, we are running a “Play it Food Safe” campaign from 16 November 2020 to 31 January 2021 to reduce the number of food-borne illness cases by changing behaviour and culture around food preparation and storage.

This campaign is a timely reminder for the community to prevent food borne illness ahead of the warmer summer months and calls on people to "Play it Food Safe" by following these four simple tips:

• Clean hands, utensils and bench tops with hot soapy water during and after use.

• Separate foods such as raw meat, cooked meat, eggs and fruit and vegetables to prevent cross contamination in the fridge and when cooking.  Use separate utensils and chopping boards.

• Cook foods, especially eggs, chicken and mince all the way through to kill bacteria.

• Chill perishable foods below 5^oC.  Foods left out in the danger zone, between 5^oC and 60^oC for more than four hours should be thrown out.