Week 1: Personal Hygiene
Week 2: Cleaning Immobile Equipment
Week 3: Surface Washing
Week 4: Cleaning Front of the House
Week 5: Handling Garbage and Solid Waste

This week's class focuses on the importance of good personal hygiene.

1. Begin with a 15-minute discussion of personal hygiene and how it affects food safety.
Discuss with your employees the three types of hazards to safe food: chemical, physical and biological (germ) contamination. Ask participants to come up with examples.

Chemical contamination

• cleaning solutions and other operational chemicals
• MSG and other food additives and preservatives
• Hair spray, perfumes and other personal care items

  Physical contamination
  

• Hair, fingernails, jewelry, and other personal physical items
• Nails and staples and other packaging materials
• Chips from cookery, glass, pieces of plastic, and other possible contaminants during food preparation

  Biological contamination (germs)
  

• foodborne pathogens
• bloodborne pathogens
• pathogens passed on from person to food
• fungi
• contaminants that are contained in the food itself (example: blowfish)
  

2. Discuss the role of good personal hygiene.

Stress to employees that most foodborne illnesses are the result of biological contamination resulting from poor personal hygiene. Discuss ways employees can use good personal hygiene to ensure that they are serving clean, safe food.

• Wear appropriate hairnet and kitchen coat or apron when dealing with food.
• Shower or bathe and wear clean clothes to work every day.
• Remove all jewelry.
• Report illnesses or injuries to manager.
  

When?
• before and after handling any food.
• after using the washroom.
• after touching your hair or clothing.
• after sneezing or coughing.
• after eating or drinking.
• after smoking or chewing tobacco.
• after taking out the trash, bussing tables or moving from front-of-the-house to back-of-the-house activities.
• after washing dishes or handling equipment.  

How? It's a five-step process.

• Use warm water to moisten hands.
• Apply soap.
• Rub hands together for 20 seconds, reinforcing in between fingers, washing up to mid-forearm, and fingernails. Hint: 20 seconds is longer than it sounds. Sing two choruses of "Happy Birthday." That takes approximately 20 seconds!
• Rinse thoroughly.
• Dry with disposable paper towel or air dryer.

What not to do
Emphasize to employees that after washing their hands they should never:

• Wipe their hands on their aprons or clothing.
• Do anything to contaminate their hands, like touching their body or door handles.

5. Have your employees do one of the food-safety games provided here.

6. Optional: Show the 10-minute "Personal Hygiene" video from the National Restaurant Association's ServSafe program.