Be mindful of good hygiene practices in the home.

Considering what's going on in the world right now with the Covid-19 pandemic I thought I'd take this opportunity to remind you of good hygiene practices that we can include in the home.

Here are a few good practices:

• Wash your hands for 20 secs, now I know this seems like a long time and it is when you’re standing washing your hands, but simply put, you have to!! Make sure you wash between your fingers and behind your hands.

• Make sure you rinse off the soap and dry thoroughly on a clean dry towel or throw away paper towel, otherwise no matter how long you’ve washed your hands for you, will have just re-infected yourself again.

• Just be aware of what you touch such as: door handles, counters, light switches YOUR FACE!!!!

• It may be a good idea to wear disposable gloves (you can now buy these cheap at the supermarket) if your hands are getting sore with all the washing and sanitizing. But remember gloves are just like a second skin. They don’t have magical powers that repels all viruses and germs. Change them every time you would normally wash your hands.

• Make sure you cough or sneeze into your elbow, we all do that anyway but just re-enforce it.

To sanitize your kitchen, bathroom, living room etc. (NOT FOR YOUR HANDS). I use a cheap sanitizer that I make myself. I use all it the time in my house and in both my home kitchen and commercial kitchens. BUT you must get the measurement right! (I got this from another food auditor and the MPI website.) I also spray it on a clean cloth and wipe down all my devices e.g. phone, laptop, iPad, screen, desks etc.

Sanitize Solution:

• 1 teaspoon of bleach (yes, ordinary bleach you buy from the supermarket.)

• 2 Litres of water.

Mix them both together and put it in a clean spray bottle. Keep what you have left over in a bottle you can screw tight shut and keep it to top up your spray bottle. Make sure you label both bottles in case someone accidently drinks from them! You can buy a empty spray bottle from the supermarket they're fairly cheap. Just spray and wipe dry with a paper towel and that will sanitizes everywhere you need sanitized. I use it for everything including walls, door handles, floors etc.

BUT please note this is a sanitizer not a cleaner so if there’s dirt it has to be cleaned with hot soapy water first, then sanitized. Make sure you wipe all areas dry.

If we teach good habits with those around us, then it will become easier.

Let’s get on top of this and just be mindful.

See video below for washing hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PmVJQUCm4E

For Food retailers/handlers: I’m putting together a course with handouts to make sure you know exactly what to do. Let me know if you need more information.