Food Safety

Ensuring the safety of food at home is essential for protecting your family from foodborne illnesses. Every year, millions of Australians experience food poisoning, often due to simple mistakes in food handling and storage. Our webpage offers clear, practical advice to help you prepare, cook, and store food safely, reducing the risk of contamination. From understanding the "temperature danger zone" to learning proper hygiene practices and safe food storage, explore these essential steps to keep your home kitchen a safe and healthy place.

Is your food safe? 

Join the City of Kwinana’s Environmental Health Officer as they share essential tips for safe food handling, whether at home or in local businesses. Learn how to prevent food contamination with simple steps like cleaning, separating, cooking, and chilling, and discover the resources available to keep our community healthy and food-safe.

Safe Food at Home 

Each section covers key tips and guidelines to reduce the risk of foodborne illness, from proper hygiene practices to safe storage temperatures. Explore these resources to help make food safety a shared responsibility in our community.

Food Safety – Facts and Myths

Despite the increasing focus on healthy and safe food in Australia, there are still lots of myths about safe food handling practices which can increase the risk of food poisoning incidents.

To help clear things up, we’ve compiled a list of the top food safety myths and the truths we should replace them with.

Myth or Fact: Food that looks and smells ok is safe to eat

The types of bacteria that cause food poisoning don't affect the taste, smell, or appearance of food.

Therefore, you should always stick to the 'use by' date and storage instructions on the packaging. These dates are not just guesswork; they have been worked out by scientific testing to ensure the food is safe.  

Myth or Fact: Food that drops on the floor is safe to eat if picked up within 3-5 seconds

Not true. Floors are often contaminated with harmful bacteria that will immediately attach to food. Food that drops to the floor should not be eaten or mixed in with other foods to be eaten later.

Myth or Fact: I’ve been handling food this way for years without anyone getting sick

You would likely not know. Many food poisoning incidents go under reported or unreported. Each year in Australia, it is estimated there are approximately 4.7 million cases of food poisoning that result in 47,900 hospitalisations, 38 deaths and a cost to the economy of $2.1 billion.

Diagnosis can only be made by a medical professional and involves the affected person submitted a stool sample for laboratory analysis.

Myth or Fact: Cooked food can’t cause food poisoning

This is only partly true. Properly cooked food is unlikely to cause food poisoning, but there are plenty of ways that cooked food can become contaminated after cooking.

This can happen if:

  • food isn’t stored properly
  • food is kept out of the fridge for long periods of time (>4 hours)
  • food is prepared on a contaminated surface or using contaminated equipment
  • people handling the food don’t use good personal hygiene

Certain bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus, also produce toxins that aren’t destroyed by high temperatures. If food is contaminated with bacterial toxins, cooking the food may kill the bacteria, but the toxins will remain in the food.

Myth or Fact: Food poisoning is not serious, it is just an upset stomach

Symptoms of food poisoning usually include some or all of the following:

  • diarrhoea
  • nausea
  • fever
  • vomiting
  • stomach cramps

Although most cases of food poisoning are mild and last only a day or two, some can be far more serious or even fatal. Vulnerable people such as young children, the elderly, people who are immunocompromised and pregnant women are far more likely to contract a food-borne illness and to suffer more severe symptoms.

Pregnant women are 20 times more likely to contract listeriosis, an infection caused by the bacterium Listeria, which can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, preterm birth, infant mortality, blood poisoning or brain infections.

Thankfully this is rare, but with more than four million cases of food poisoning in Australia each year, a few simple actions can cut the risk of food poisoning significantly.

Myth or Fact: Food poisoning is caused by the last thing you ate

It is natural to suspect that the last food you ate has caused your food poisoning, but this is rarely the case. Symptoms can take up a month to develop. Further information can be found on the WA Health Department’s webpage ‘Food poisoning’

Myth or Fact: Food should be allowed to cool completely before putting it into the fridge

No - Bacteria that cause food poisoning can multiply rapidly at temperatures between 5oC and 60oC.

You can allow hot food to stand for 20–30 minutes after coming out of the oven or from the stovetop (roughly when it stops steaming) and then place it in the fridge. It is also important to portion large quantities of hot food into smaller shallow containers for quicker cooling in the fridge.  Hot food should be cooled from 60°C to 21°C in two hours or less, then cooled further from 21°C to 5°C in four hours or less.

Myth or Fact: Raw chicken should be washed before cooking

Although most raw meat will have some bacteria on it, washing will not get rid of them. 

In fact, washing is more likely to spread harmful bacteria onto hands, work surfaces, clothing and equipment through the splashing of water droplets around the kitchen. Thorough cooking will kill any bacteria present.

Myth or Fact: The 'Float Test' – good eggs sink, bad eggs float

There is no way of knowing whether there are bacteria in or on an egg, and Salmonella which can cause food poisoning can be present whether the egg sinks or floats.

Myth or Fact: Bad eggs always smell bad

Eggs can smell and taste fine and still have Salmonella. Also, bacteria on the shell can get into ready-to eat food. Always discard cracked or dirty eggs. Keep hands, utensils and surfaces clean and dry. If an egg does smell bad, don't use it.

Myth or Fact: It is okay to eat mouldy food once the mouldy section is removed.

Mouldy food should not be consumed. Visible mould is usually an indicator that the food is more thoroughly contaminated. Fungi, bacteria and toxins can be present in areas of the food that are not visible, so what looks like a small area of contamination could be much larger.

Myth or Fact: If I peel fruit and vegetables, I do not need to wash them

The peeling process will expose fresh produce to potential cross-contamination by transferring any chemicals and harmful bacteria present to the edible, internal layers of the food. Soil particles and dirt contain contaminants and are often found on fresh produce. It is therefore important to thoroughly wash fruit and vegetables before and after peeling.

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