Poor Personal Hygiene

What is poor Personal Hygiene?

Poor Hygiene = No sense of Cleanliness

Why it happens?

Food handler has no morale and legal responsibility.
Food handlers whom are not in good health and behave with no sense of cleanliness will cause direct food contamination.
Most importantly, food handler does not show any interest in learning how to prevent food poisoning.

How it happens?

There are a couple of categories that show the food handler has no sense of personal hygiene.

• Staff 
• How they handle food 

• hands, skin, hair, nose and mouth and ears, Smoking and lastly, 

• Protective clothing

1. Staff

Everything of poor personal hygiene starts with the staff. If we had poor selection of staff, then would the chances of food poisoning occur at a higher rate.

     Pointers that we should not see or have in our staff (when preparing food):

• Does not have a clean, neat and tidy appearance
• Presence of skin infection
• Poor dental Health
• Hands are dirty, finger nails have nail polish on & nail biting
• Dyed hair and have the presence of dandruff
• Excessive jewellery worn 

• Such as rings, ear studs, necklaces, watches, nose and tongue piercings 

• Might get into the food by mistake, causing harm to the consumers 

•  Cause cuts, choking and even death in some cases 

• Can also enter the respiratory tract upon inhalation, causing the lungs to collapse / get a secondary infection / destruction of lung tissues from retained material 

• Another case would be that these materials enter the digestive tract, Causing esophageal laceration, esophageal perforation, fistula formation and laceration or perforation in the Stomach, Pharynx and intestine.  

• Personal history of diseases or still have diseases, foodborne illness and food poisoning. Such as Salmonella, E.coli, aids and tuberculosis.

• Could be passed from the food handler to other colleagues / consumers

      2.  Hands

We are always using our hands be it going to the bathroom, washing dishes, putting on make-up and so on and so forth. Therefore it is also very important that the staffs have clean hands and they should know what to do after handling raw food or after visiting the washrooms. Bacteria can be passed from the food handler’s hands to cooked food and this can and will cause food poisoning to the consumer. 

     Crucial point to take note of the staff:

• Does not wash his/her hands after contact with raw foods
• Does not wash his/her hands after emptying the bin
• Does not wash his/her hands before entering the room and comes in direct contact with food.
• Scratches hair or other parts of his/her body and comes in direct contact with food.
• Has soiled nails and handles food.
• Does not wear a glove when handling cooked food to serve the food consumer.
• Has a cut on his/her hand and does not wear a glove when handling raw and cooked food.
• Coughs / sneezes into hands, he/she does not wash their hands and comes in contact with cooked or raw food.
• Does not wash hands after visiting the washroom.

• High amount of bacteria such as E.coli on our hand if we does not wash our hands.

• When E.coli is consumed, it can cause severe cramps and diarrhea which might turn out bloody.

Most of the points above is to prevent germs, bacteria and other harmful organisms from entering the food through our hands. This will then result in food poisoning. Also, to prevent cross contamination when handling raw and cooked food. This is a very serious problem that they have to take note as it is a cross contamination. The consumer would end up eating the food and get down with food poisoning.

   3.  Other aspects of the body

After looking at the major parts in personal hygiene, we have to look at other aspects of our body which may affect our personal hygiene. 

     Don't(s) when preparing food:

• Coughs / sneezes into food 
• Bad flu
• Consume gums, sweet or chocolates whilst handling with foods
• Spitting while handling food
• Discharges from ears, eyes or nose should not handle food
• Cut / skin infection and handles food
• Use skin coloured plasters or bandages and comes in contact with food

• Wear a glove and use a bright coloured plaster

• To prevent the plaster from dropping into the food without being noticed and becomes a physical hazard

• Prevent bacteria from the wound from entering the food and cause food poisoning

• Female staff who did not gel their hair up 

• Hair might get into the food, bad reputation for the establishment

• Adjusting your hair while handling food at the same time

• Causes contamination

• Smoking in the food handling area

• Cigarette ends may drop into foods that are ready to serve

• Food contamination can occur  

     4.   Uniform

• Should wear the appropriate uniform when handling food

• Should not be dark coloured uniform

• Will be able to check if the uniform is soiled

• Soiled uniform can cause food contamination  and food poisoning 

• Change out of uniform when leaving food handling premises

• To prevent bringing bacteria in and out of food handling premises

• Bacteria may cause food contamination

• Should not wears slippers to work premises

• Prevent slip & accidents happening in food handling premises