Clean work surfaces and fresh ingredients are not always enough to prevent illness. It’s often inconspicuous routines in the kitchen that open the door to germs. You can find out here what you should definitely pay attention to when it comes to hygiene.
A decent knife, fresh ingredients and you still end up lying in bed at night with stomach cramps. Often this is not due to the food itself, but rather to small hygiene and cooking errors that are hardly noticeable in everyday life.
Invisible danger in the kitchen: Where germs really come from
At the front: Cross contamination. When raw meat, fish and vegetables end up on the same cutting board or are processed with the same knife, bacteria migrate unnoticed. Then there is the classic: touch raw food, just “dry” your hands briefly on the kitchen towel and germs from the chicken breast are transferred directly to salad, bread or fruit.
The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) describes this transmission of microorganisms via hands, boards, knives and work surfaces as one of the most common causes of food infections in the household. Typical pathogens include Campylobacter and Salmonella. They are transmitted not only through raw poultry, but also through contamination in other foods that are later not sufficiently heated.
- Cutting everything on one board: Meat, fish, vegetables, bread.
- Stir with the same spoon and taste: Lick it, put it back in the pot and bring germs from your mouth into the entire meal.
- Cooking times too short: Meat, fish or leftovers are not heated sufficiently and the core temperature of approx. 70 degrees is not reached.
- Only treat fruits and vegetables “visually clean”.: Unwashed leaves, berries or herbs may be contaminated, even if they look fresh.
The BfR adds two often underestimated problem areas to this list: kitchen sponges and Dishcloths develop into real bacterial herds after just a few days. Also a wrong one Organization of the refrigerator poses risks: If raw meat is stored above ready-to-eat food, long-term germ transmission can occur through dripping liquids.
This makes it clear: It’s not just “delicate” foods that are risky, but above all the way people work in the kitchen.
The most dangerous thing is often not in the pot, but in what’s around it
In addition to the obvious errors, there are some hygiene pitfalls that are hardly mentioned in many advice texts, but are repeatedly noticed in studies.
“Danger zone” when cooling down and warming up
Most bacteria reproduce particularly well in a temperature range between around 10 and 60 degrees Celsius. Scientists talk about the “danger zone”, which is exactly where many foods are when they cool down slowly or are kept warm while they are lukewarm. The BfR therefore recommends cooling leftovers quickly and storing them in the refrigerator; When reheating, they should become completely hot through and through (at least around 70 degrees in the middle).
Dishes containing rice or pasta are particularly tricky. A specific germ Bacillus cereusforms heat-stable spores that survive cooking and thrive in lukewarm rice. The classic mistake: rice from the night before is left at room temperature for a long time and is only warmed up to lukewarm the next day. A combination that appears regularly in reports (Chip.de/Spectrum) appears to cause food poisoning.
Smartphones and spice mills as “invisible transmitters”
A rather modern but rarely noticed point: While cooking, people are constantly talking about recipes, news or music Smartphone taken in hand. Studies on everyday hygiene show that cell phones are often heavily colonized with germs because they are constantly touched but rarely cleaned. If you cut meat in between, then touch your smartphone and then stir a salad bowl again, you will unnoticed create perfect cross-contamination.
The same applies to Spice mills and jars: Once your hands are contaminated with meat juice, you use the pepper mill and it becomes a permanent transmitter. Specialist institutions such as the BfR therefore recommend not only boards and knives, but also Hands and frequently touched surfaces Clean regularly, especially when handling raw meat and eggs.
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