Tips for Keeping Your Kitchen Clean

It is vital to maintain your kitchen space, including workstations and chopping boards, to keep cooking and eating safe as bacteria can develop and disperse.

Worktops

Keeping worktops and chopping boards clean is very essential because they touch the meals you're supposed to eat. Bacteria could spread to food if they aren't correctly cleaned and make you sick.

You should:

• Always wash worktops before you start preparing food
• Wipe up any spilt food straight away.
• Always wash worktops thoroughly after they have been touched by raw food including meat, poultry, vegetables or raw eggs.
• Never put ready-to-eat food, such as washed and ready to eat salad, bread or washed fruit, on a worktop or chopping board that has been touched by raw meat or other raw foods, unless you have washed it thoroughly first.

This is a very efficient way to wash plastic chopping boards if you have a dishwasher. Dishwashers can clean the bacteria at very high heat. If you do not have a dishwasher, carefully clean the chopping boards with warm water and some sort of washing up liquid.

Ideally, it's better to have separate chopping boards for raw food and ready-to-eat food.

Hands

Spreading bacteria throughout the kitchen is very simple from your hands, because we touch so much stuff, from meals to fridge handles, clothes to can openers. You need to keep your hands clean to keep your kitchen clean.

Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water at each of these times:

• Before starting to prepare food
• After touching raw food such as meat, poultry, vegetables and eggs
• After going to the toilet
• After touching the bin
• After touching pets

Thoroughly dry your hands because they will spread bacteria more readily if they are wet. The safest way to do this is to use disposable kitchen supplies or use a towel that you only use to dry hands-not your apron or tea towel.