Five Star Rating

[Bound2Please]

12 minutes ago, Katie said:

More importantly.....do they wash their hands and have the proper facilities to do so? None of the above will matter if they fail to do this simple task! 

I have banged on about the the basics rather that the stars for ages Katie. I would rather know that basics are complied with than decoration of the kitchen, paper work upto date. Like you said none of that or the 5 stars matters if some one in the kitchen uses the loo then serves your food without washing hands thoroughly. Oh i forgot . The pen pusher can see that hands are always washed as they are there 24/7 ticking off forms for the star rating to updated daily. Rant over

Charlie

[Katie]

1 minute ago, Bound2Please said:

I have banged on about the the basics rather that the stars for ages Katie. I would rather know that basics are complied with than decoration of the kitchen, paper work upto date. Like you said none of that or the 5 stars matters if some one in the kitchen uses the loo then serves your food without washing hands thoroughly. Oh i forgot . The pen pusher can see that hands are always washed as they are there 24/7 ticking off forms for the star rating to updated daily. Rant over

Charlie

Well said Charlie, sometimes it's the old adage "all fur coat and no knickers" more germs are  spread by dirty hands than anything else! Even worse ... those that wear gloves and think that negates the need to wash  .. sorry,  work  hat on. 

 

 

 

 

[Polly]

I will go with 4 stars at a push, never less.

[littlesprite]

If people were given the choice would they go for a 5 star hospital or 3.

[TheQ]

For those who are interested and may visit Horning Sailing Club, and it's group of unpaid volunteers has achieved 5 stars

[Malanka]

From a non professional perspective.

Maybe some investigation of the difference between a 5* and a 1* rating would be good. Remember fail is closure of the establishment not a 1* rating.

Failure to properly cook food that has been stored correctly is by far the biggest cause of recognised food poisoning cases  (Nominally Salmonella from meat products or Bacillus  poisoning from rice). But not the most prevalent cause of tummy bugs.

From the professional perspective

I'm also not really shocked by how much faith you all seem to place in hand washing and disinfectant spraying. Having conducted courses in how to wash hands correctly to prevent cross contamination almost 99% of the folks I have trained almost always fail first pass. Yes that's right most people don't know how to wash their hands correctly. And whilst I'm on the topic what's the last thing you touch after washing your hands... Oh yes the same taps you turned on before washing your hands...OOPs. Elbow taps should be mandatory and the wearing of gloves standard, which I really hope it is.  ( I know it's not)

The most contaminated place in a toilet or bathroom is surprisingly not the toilet that accepts bodily fluids and waste, but the cold tap of the associated hand washing sink. If anyone wants to know how much (many layers) toilet tissue one would have to use to prevent DIRECT transfer to the hands PM me and I'll tell you. Remember immediately after doing the business you pull up the pants contaminating them and flush the loo (getting everyone elses bugs as well as your own on your hands) and open the stall door, then hopefully proceed to the sink and do what's right. Unfortunately routine (normal without training) hand washing removes virtually non of the organisms that grow on you naturally and only up to roughly 80% of the ones you just picked up. This is because non medically or otherwise trained folks actually miss a huge area of both hands when using their customary washing technique taught for generations. Its easy to show using UV visible dye actually.

Luckily all this contamination that inevitably makes its way via food and other ports of entry into our bodies doesn't actually do much, as it's not it's presence that's the issue it's when it's allowed to grow unchecked for a while it becomes an issue. Hygiene standards are designed to reduce all the subsequent risks steps aknowledging they are actually present. Disnfectants help, sanitizers (Ugh hate that word) much less so. The problem is most establishments don't actually know how to use them effectively which is not usually how it says on the tin (unfortunately). Anyone imagine establishments waiting the pre-requisite twenty to thirty minutes for these things to work to their potential? Me neither.

The rapid and uncontolled spread of Noro viruses (Winter Vomiting disease) which is one of the most prominent causes of tummy bugs (not food poisoning) on ships and in hotels and restaurants just tells us how good 5* ratings actually are at preventing such things...Chocolate fireguard anyone! To be fair they weren't designed to but you get the idea. Remember in some EU countries pork Tarare is a delicacy. Wouldn't touch it with someone elses barge pole personally but each to their own. 

In reality unless there has been prolonged and  major breaches of food hygiene standards and common sense in terms of storage or incomplete cooking, ones chances (probability not possibility) of a food poisoning episode from eating out are surprisingly low even from establishments with a 1* rating.

So rest easy and don't panic about food standards and ratings , we are hard to poison and our digestive tracts and our immune systems are great things. Fiona and I are both professional microbes and we employ in our house the well known contamination detector prominently displayed on our faces. We sniff it. An art long since banned in micro labs but one which I learned many moons ago. 

For lighter amusement. The Milk Marketting Board standards agency arm (remember them?) used to employ a test of the freshness of milk which involved making a cup of tea with it. Needless to say it was called the T test. Little globules of fat floating on the surface of the tea indicates bad or old (contaminated milk) Would still taste ok but defo contaminated.

These days its a hugely expensive machine (50K+) which takes a lot longer than making a cup of tea to do much the same job... Ho hum...Welcome to the 21st century where everything is much better, I know this to be true my millenial son tells me so.

I hope you found this post informative and mildly amusing. Time to go back to work now...

 

If you've read this far you deserve the answer and its at least 12 layers of soft and gentle.. Or one of IZAL if you remember that stuff.

[Hockham Admiral]

Fascinating stuff, Malanka.         

(I've just binned my trusty old marigolds!)

[Malanka]

LOL oops it should read failure to cook foods correctly that have been stored incorrectly. Fat fingers ...

[Malanka]

Hi John

When I was a student I lived in a house with five other budding microbiologists, the place was a tip....We figured we would allow autogenic succession (or basic lazyness) to clean everywhere including the sink and the loo (we had learned about it so of course had to try it). What that entails is no washing or cleaning products down the loo allow it to come to whats called a steady state population needless to say it was stinky for two weeks but after that sweet as a rose. Landlord wasn't too happy nor the female guests who stopped by from time to time. After a while it does work.

 

I once produced a 40,000+ word thesis on disinfectant testing and use. Before the days of home computers I had to pay for it to be professionally typed.

 

The last line in it says a lot I thought at the time.

From memory it was decades ago.

What better way to make money than to persuade someone to buy your product because you tell them they "need it" then tell them to flush it down the loo and go buy some more.

Putting it down the loo creates the circumstances where nasty niffs can be detected when one stops using it. Hey presto go get some of that nice "lemony fresh" loo stuff.

Made my supervisor smile and annoyed the hell out of the provider of the disinfectants I used but hey was good for a laugh.

 

M

 

[Malanka]

Here's a link to the NHS site on Noroviruses too for those interested.

 

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Norovirus/Pages/Introduction.aspx#prevention

 

M

[finny]

I regard the star rating as no more a guide to how raw food management storage and cleaning standards are applied in that kitchen .what i find interesting is the fact most view the rating to the standard of the meal put on the table - i have eaten i five star rated places and had dreadfull meals yet i have eaten of street vendors and fully enjoy 

iam also still here alive and kicking .......i think ?

 

finny

[MauriceMynah]

Thank you Malanka, poetry to my ears. (both your two main recent posts.)

If it looks right, smells right and final test, tastes right, It's probably right.

Two points I'd make., Firstly, in the past I have purchased food from a well known supermarket that I've opened before it's "use by" date only to find mould growing on it. Not a lot but enough for me to notice. I didn't eat it.  I did however eat the one I'd bought days before from the same store which although passed it's 'use by' date was not mouldy, smelt (and tasted) fine, and guess what, no problems. Which one would you have eaten given that you were hungry?

My second point is that a few years ago, I had some guests staying with me on my last boat. The first thing the lady did (after cleaning the cabin) was to go through my stores chucking out any thing passed it's 'use by' date or it's 'best before' date. That was until she found a large unopened slab of chocolate that was just passed the 'Best before' date. She couldn't bring herself to throw it away and just said "This needs eating pretty soon!". She ate it.

[Malanka]

Hi My friend,

 

Just to be pedantic unless of course you read out my post aloud. You mean poetry to your eyes... Funny old language isnt it.

 

Just a bit o fun....

[Hockham Admiral]

We were on a ship a couple of years ago and had a Noro virus outbreak as we left So'ton. Then another one in the Pacific..... I clearly remember the Captain broadcasting almost hourly for everyone to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds.

This coupled with crew members who would only allow you into the restaurants after they had sprayed your hands. Also no self service during the outbreaks.

It did work, though.    

 

[Malanka]

The spraying the hands thing doesn't really work as alcoholic hand sanitizers are not effective at rendering the Noro virus inactive. Makes people feel good though. The reason it doesn't work is the virus is not what is called an enveloped virus which is an outer layer of mamalian tissue which forms around some viruses when they bud off from the host cell, when this happens enough the cell dies and we all feel like horrible when this happens a lot. (feeling like you have the flu) This envelope is usually linked to the infectivity of the virus and so disrupting the envelope renders the virus inactive. Non enveloped viruses are MUCH harder to render inactive as they have a hard outer shell (there are technical words available but wouldn't mean anything) so their infectivity is not easily disrupted as they do not have this soft outer layer.

 

Alcoholic hand sanitizers disrupt the envelope of enveloped viruses which is why they work for flu. Which is an enveloped virus.

 

If you want to look into this stuff which I loved which is why I became a microbe in the first place there are lots of good things on the interweb and it's one area where wikki is more reliable than others. (too many of us nerds correcting mistakes)

 

The duration of hand washing isn't the issue its how one does it. If you hold your palm out facing down most people fail to wash the triangular shape formed from the wrist (narrow bit) to the thumb knuckle and first finger knuckle (wide bit of the triangle). Any surfactant will strip the virus of an envelope if it has one, so soap works ...Granny was right..

 

See I gave the secret away now...

 

M

[Polly]

Talking about bugs.....I am grumpily laid up with yet another cold 'gone to my lungs' . I never get away with just a sodding head cold, and I now get twitchy if anyone has a sign of a cold near me...short of Japanese face masks, (flippant comments wil be noted!) any ideas for microbe dodging?

[SteveO]

Hot Lemsip with a tot of cooking whisky in it is a good morale booster Polly.

Talk of "delicacies" such as pork tartare reminds me of stories that my dad tells about his mother. When dad and his brothers came in hungry and pestered my grandmother for food, she would send them away with a raw pork sausage each to chew on. That wasn't anywhere foreign and exotic, but Halifax in Yorkshire. Dad is a very fussy eater, but he loved the raw pork sausages.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Malanka]

Bacterial lung infection or viral?

 

Former plenty latter nothing.

 

M

[Polly]

Omg! They wouldn't survive that today, they would know they needed to get a tummy upset.

Yes I did the lemsip  but minus the whisky. Some things are too horrible even as medicine! 

[addicted]

I firmly  believe an awful lot of bugs are picked up off a supermarket trolley, we always keep antibacterial wipes in the car and have good wipe  of hands, car door handles etc. when we come out of the supermarket after stowing the trolley.

 

 

Carole

[ChrisB]

Well there will not be any nice food at the Ingham Swan for quite a while. I tried to get to Broadsedge that way from home this morning. I had not heard the news and was listening to ELO on the cd player. The road was closed the Ingham Swan has been completely destroyed by fire. Very sad, a very old building.

[Hockham Admiral]

Please post any more remarks about the Ingham Swan on the new thread about this awful tragedy.

[Hockham Admiral]

2 hours ago, Malanka said:

The spraying the hands thing doesn't really work as alcoholic hand sanitizers are not effective at rendering the Noro virus inactive. Makes people feel good though. The reason it doesn't work is the virus is not what is called an enveloped virus which is an outer layer of mamalian tissue which forms around some viruses when they bud off from the host cell, when this happens enough the cell dies and we all feel like horrible when this happens a lot. (feeling like you have the flu) This envelope is usually linked to the infectivity of the virus and so disrupting the envelope renders the virus inactive. Non enveloped viruses are MUCH harder to render inactive as they have a hard outer shell (there are technical words available but wouldn't mean anything) so their infectivity is not easily disrupted as they do not have this soft outer layer.

Malanka, Hi

Mary-Jane understood this (she's a BIologist) but for simple "Pull-back-go-up-Gor-Blimey" pilots (like me) would you please put it into simple English?        

[Malanka]

Ok some viruses have jelly round them. Kill jelly no virus. Some are hard like crystal have to break crystal to inactivate virus.  

 

Hows that ? 

 

M

[Timbo]

Following stroke number 7, about ten years ago, at the tender age of forty-one, they admitted me for three months to a geriatric unit until I orchestrated an escape. The amount of hand sanitizer the ward went through was amazing. The patients were actually drinking the stuff!

Sell by Dates.

When first made redundant Uncle Albert had a job driving a large van delivering freshly boiled and pickled beetroot from the farmer's processing plant delivering stock to all major supermarkets from Liverpool to Hull along the M62 corridor over night. He would pull into the supermarket delivery bay with a van full of product all processed in the same batch and the supermarkets would ask if he could label 'so many boxes for sell by this week, and so many for the next week and so many for the week after'. 

Ellie is manic about sell by dates, she must throw hundreds of pounds in money of food away every month, and there is nothing wrong with it.