Kitchen Safety

There are a few hazards in the kitchen to keep in mind as you start you cooking-at-home journey. But once you know what to expect, they are easy to manage and avoid!

Clean Surfaces & Hygiene:

Contaminated hands and surfaces can spread food-borne illness, which can make someone seriously sick. But with just a few steps it’s something you can avoid completely!

THE number one tip for kitchen safety: wash your hands! For 20 seconds with water as hot as you can stand:
- get your hands wet
- add soap and lather, scrubbing up your wrists, around your finger nails, and on the backs of your hands and thumbs.
- rinse with warm water
Be conscious of touching your hair, your face, your eyes once your hands are clean;
If your hair is long, tie it back before you begin working.
Do not mix cutting boards that have been used for meat without first washing them thoroughly. That goes for your knives as well.
Get your food hot - both when you cook it the first time, and when you reheat it. (Read more on kitchen thermometers from our friends at K-State Extension!)
Contaminated food doesn’t necessarily smell or look different, so learn more about food storage and handling.

Heat & Fire

First, only use dishes in the microwave or oven that are marked as safe for that purpose. Often times, this is printed on the dish. Watch for plastic handles, which won’t survive high heat.
Remember adding hot things to a cold or room temperature container can sometimes cause the container to crack or break. Avoid adding very hot liquids to cold containers by heating the container first by filling it with warm water.
Open lids away from you when you’re cooking on the stove, as steam (which is hotter than the boiling water) will rise when you open it.
Keep pot handles positioned so they can’t be bumped as you walk by, and they are not over another source of heat.

When you’re working with heat, fire is a possibility. One thing to remember in the kitchen is that you should never add water to a fire caused by grease or by electricity.

To extinguishing a grease/oil fire, your goal is to smother the flame. You could:

cover the pan with a lid;
use baking soda
use a fire extinguisher

If the fire is happening in an appliance, unplug it and keep the door closed - the lack of oxygen will smother the fire.

A final element of kitchen safety is working with knives - that’s episode 3!