Is your kitchen a potential Covid-19 crime scene?

The kitchen in most houses is the social centre of the home, and now more than ever, with more people self-isolating, it’s really coming into it’s own. It’s the one communal area of the house that is getting a lot more contact and foot and hand traffic.

Please indulge me for getting on my soapbox here for a moment.

I’m the kind of person you’ll always find in the kitchen at parties! As a self-confessed fastidious clean freak, along with many others, when you think about it, this really is our time to shine… and wipe, and rinse and spray and get-into-the-nooks and..... well you get my drift here.

If you think about your kitchen as a germ crime scene, then let’s make the most of our time at home, make it fun by snapping on the gloves, arming ourselves with anti-bac spray and getting all CSI on it!

Covid-19 is, in many ways a contact virus. It cannot only spread via person-to-person transmission, but also via the surfaces and objects we touch. One of the ways to stay on top of things is to anoint a Coronavirus Czar. Someone that no one likes to mess with at home, who’s across all the latest information and can be really motivating when it comes to setting and following Covid-19 kitchen rules. The kind of family member who enjoys organisation, cleaning and anti-bacterialising and cannot sit through an entire episode of hoarders without getting twitchy.

At this moment, there is no current evidence that COVID-19 is transmitted through food. Having said that, extra care should be taken with hygiene to reduce the risk of food born illnesses.

Importantly, you want to try and stay in good health at times like these and keep your immune system strong. You can read more about immunity here.

The World Health Organisation suggests that if you’re eating meat then cooking it well is best. All raw meat can contain microorganisms and bacteria that can cause food poisoning. This can help prevent cross-contamination.

Keeping your fruit and vegetable intake up can be challenging during lockdown. If you’re cutting or grating fresh produce such as tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries, a study shows that viruses such as Norovirus and Hepatitis A can be transferred from contaminated produce and onto knives. If you’re planning on using the knife again to cut another ingredient, it would transfer the virus from the knife to another food source. This highlights the importance of cleaning knives between uses to prevent cross-contamination in the kitchen.

Here are my twelve tips to good hygiene practices when preparing and handling food:

• Wash your hands before handling any food, and even when you are touching and preparing raw and then cooked foods
• Wear durable nitrile gloves when cleaning your kitchen, handling chemicals cleansers, and disposing of waste products. 
• Clean your knives between use
• Ensure you’re cooking meat thoroughly
• Use separate chopping boards for uncooked meats and vegetables
• Cover your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing. Then re-wash your hands
• Avoid contact with other family members in the kitchen if they’re showing any symptoms
• Think forensically! Regularly clean and sanitise workbenches and equipment, clean frequently touched surfaces such as door handles and light switches. Don’t forget all the knobs and knockers and handles, the ones on the stove or where you pull out your drawers
• Use clean utensils for eating and drinking, maybe try and have your own set and use those
• Use a hand sanitizer
• Pop a note on the fridge explaining that everyone needs to wash his or her hands before and after dinner!
• If you recycle, empty the food waste bin more frequently to avoid build up which could attract pests
• And finally, walk the perimeter with your disinfectant spray gun and squirt with abandon

Coronavirus is destroyed by hot water, so if you're using a dishwasher, set it to above 60 degrees and use sanitisers in the kitchen and that should do the trick.

If you do happen to have an upset stomach or food poisoning, our Love Your Gut powder  and Capsules are anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-parasitic and will help to gently cleanse the gut and remove bad bacteria, heavy metals, waste and toxic substances.

Happy Cleaning! And by the way if you need them and are keen to make your own cleaning products, you can find some cleaning recipes over here.