M3: Effects of Unsafe Practices When Preparing Food

M3: Discuss the effects of unsafe practices when preparing, cooking and serving food.

If safe practices in a health and social care setting are not being followed then there can be many unpleasant outcomes such as food poisoning, diarrhoea, vomiting and nausea. There are three types of food contamination; biological contamination, physical contamination and chemical contamination. Biological contamination in food occurs when micro-organisms enter the food from different sources such as poor hygiene eg. Not washing your hands. Washing your hands before you handle food and before you touch different foods i.e. raw meat to vegetables can lead to food poisoning. This is very important because if it is not followed then cross contamination will occur causing many problems for both staff and service users. Service users in this case would be likely to get food poisoning whilst staff users would get complains from the service users about harmful food. You can prevent biological contamination by washing your hands every time you touch different foods, cleaning all equipment regularly and keeping the premises clean. Physical contamination is when something like a piece of glass, hair, fingernails, jewellery, paper ect. Fall into the food making it harmful to consume. You can avoid this by wearing appropriate clothing, tieing hair back, wearing a hair net and throwing packaging away ect. Chemical contamination is when you infect the food with a chemical such as bleach or any cleaning product, this can cause vomiting, nausea, and rashes ect. You can prevent chemical contamination by washing hands after contact with a chemical substance, ensuring that chemicals are not spilt into food ect.

Also keeping foods at the right temperatures is very important as if the food is placed at the incorrect temperatures it can cause food poisoning Not storing food properly could influence bacteria to grow faster in the food harming the consumer.

Making sure that the safe practices are...