Toddler Food Hygiene – Importance in Child Care

Toddler food hygiene is concerned with the care, preparation, and storage of food in order to prevent food poisoning. Most food poisoning is due to eating food that has been contaminated by bacteria. Such an extent that it upsets the stomach and intestines causing gastroenteritis. Gastroenteritis is particularly serious in babies and young children. Toddler food hygiene is therefore of special importance in child care.

Most parents take their child’s food hygiene for granted, but it is essential to remember that you should take the same precautions with adult food when it comes to your toddler’s food. This article will look at different ways to ensure that you are doing your part to ensure that your toddler is eating hygiene food.

The Two Golden Rules of Toddler Food Hygiene are.

Keep the food clean

Most people use the term food safety to loosely describe food safety and toddler food hygiene, but they are not the same. Toddler food hygiene involves practices that reduce the incidence of food poisoning in a population through hygiene. Toddler food hygiene requires several different processes, including food storage and cleaning. Food safety is a subset of toddler food hygiene and addresses food preparation in ways that reduce the risk of food poisoning.

Keep food cold

A toddler food hygiene post was needed to create awareness about food hygiene and how to prevent food poisoning in toddlers. This article mainly focuses on the fact that food is quick and easy to prepare for toddlers, and parents often add different elements to the food while preparing it.

How Bacteria Get into Food

Bacteria are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Food that contains them may look, smell and taste good enough to eat.

Bacteria get into food as a result of contact with:

• Dirty hands
• Dirty sinks and draining boards
• Cloudy work surfaces
• Dirty dishcloths and sponges
• Dirty towels and drying-up cloths
• Utensils-pots, pans, crockery, cutlery, glassware are dirty
• Uncooked meat and poultry
• Coughs and sneezes
• Fingers or spoons which have licked when preparing food.
• Flies
• Septic cuts and sores
• Rats, mice, and their droppings.

Bacteria Thrive in Warm, Moist Foods for toddler food Hygiene

Particularly those containing protein, for example, both cooked and uncooked meat and poultry, gravy, egg dishes, milk, and cream. When such food is kept warm, bacteria present quickly grow and multiply to become a source of food poisoning.

Bacteria multiply by dividing into two, and when conditions are right they can do so every twenty minutes. The new bacteria grow quickly and twenty minutes late they are ready to divide again to produce more bacteria. After several hours, very large numbers will have built up in the food.

Symptoms of Food Poisoning

The symptoms of food poisoning are diarrhea pains in the abdomen. Sometimes vomiting, Illness usually starts something between two hours and two days after eating contaminated food, although it can be almost immediate if the food is badly contaminated, the illness usually lasts for one to two days, but sometimes a week or more.

Treatment

Babies with food poisoning need medical attention. Older children need medical attention if they are not recovering after 24 hours.

Prevention of Food Poisoning

 Keep food cold

Low temperatures prevent bacteria that may be present from multiplying.

Refrigeration

The temperature at which refrigerators are usually kept is between 10 C and 40 C, which is too low for food-poisoning bacteria to grow. Some other types of microbe are able to grow at temperatures as low as this, but only very slowly. This is why food left in a refrigerator for a long time gradually turns bad.

Cooked food which is to be kept for the next day should be cooled as quickly as possible and then placed in a refrigerator. Any bacteria present will not then have a chance to grow and multiply to dangerous levels.

Freezing

When food is frozen, any food-poisoning bacteria or other types of germ it contains are unable to grow. However, they are not killed by the cold and when the food warms up they become active again.

 Keep Food Covered

Food needs to be covered to protect it from dust, dirt, and flies. Dust and dirt are quite likely to contain food-poisoning bacteria. Flies can carry bacteria in their saliva and droppings as well as on their feet and hairy bodies, especially when they come from rubbish dumps and manure heaps in which they breed.

Hands should be washed and then dried on a clean towel before preparing food

Particular care to do this thoroughly should be taken after using the lavatory or dealing with nappies because large numbers of bacteria capable of causing food poisoning live in the bowel.

Keep the Kitchen Clean

Floors, work surfaces, sinks, cooking utensils, waste bin, dishcloths, drying–up clothes, etc. should all be cleaned regularly. Remember, food-poisoning bacteria. Can exist in the dirt, and bits of leftover food lying around attract flies, mice, and rats.

Cover any boils or septic cuts

Germs can also cause food poisoning. Cover them with a waterproof dressing.

Do not sneeze or cough over food

Food-poisoning bacteria often live harmlessly in the nose and throat.

Do not lick your fingers or smoke when handling food

This will prevent bacteria from the mouth from reaching the food.

Keep uncooked meat away from cooked food

Uncooked meat, especially poultry, may contain food-poisoning bacteria which could be transferred to the cooked food.

Keep rats and mice away

Food–poisoning bacteria live in the intestines of mice and rats, and are present in their droppings.

 Keep away from the kitchen when suffering from diarrhea or sickness

The cause may be food poisoning and the bacteria could easily be passed on to other people if you handle food or utensils.

Food-Poisoning Bacteria

Several types of bacteria can cause food poisoning including:

Salmonella

These bacteria usually live in the bowel. They get into food from the excreta of humans or animals or from water that has been polluted by sewage. Illness is caused by eating a large number of these bacteria. If food containing them is thoroughly cooked, the bacteria kill and not be harmful.

Staphylococcus

Bacteria of this type are found in many places including the nose, throat, boils, and pus from an infected wound. These bacteria produce toxins (poisons) as they grow and multiply in food. It is the toxins and not the bacteria which cause food poisoning. The bacteria are readily killed by cooking but the toxins are only gradually destroyed.

Clostridium

These bacteria are frequently found in human and animal excreta and they thrive when they get into the right types of toddler food Hygiene.

When conditions become unfavorable for the bacteria (for example, they become short of water) they produce spores. The spores are very hardy and can survive for long periods of time in dust, dirt, and soil. They may even survive normal cooking processes. When they find themselves in warm, moist food, the spores turn into active bacteria again and multiply rapidly.

Clostridium gives rise to a common type of food poisoning. Bacteria of this type produce toxins when they get inside the intestines. If the food is cooked thoroughly before eating, the bacteria will be killed and there is no food poisoning.

Food safety means that the food we eat won’t make us sick. Food safety is the responsibility of everyone who handles, prepares, grows, processes, or stores food for other people. Proper food handling is essential to keep the food safe for people to eat. Everyone who handles, prepares, grows, processes, or stores food for other people should follow the food safety rules.