Survey Shows Food Safety Ignorance

June 27, 2001

Ninety-five percent of the subjects surveyed for a Utah State University food handling study were concerned about food safety, but many were unaware of the precautions needed for safe food handling. The results of the August 2000 study were featured on Primetime Live where cameras were placed in the kitchens of 99 subjects to observe consumer food handling and preparation behaviors. The study was funded in part by a grant from the Food and Drug Administration.

During the study, the average hand-wash attempt was 4.4 seconds. Only 34% of participants washed their hands with soap. Participants most often failed to wash their hands between handling raw meat and ready–to-eat foods.

Other factors that contributed to poor hand washing habits included wearing long-sleeved clothing, jewelry and watches, and misusing gloves. Hands and inadequate hand washing accounted for 51% of cross-contamination cases in the study.

The Partnership for Food Safety Education recommends washing hands using hot, soapy water and rubbing your hands together for 20 seconds before rinsing thoroughly.

Overall, 70% of the subjects attempted to clean the preparation surfaces, but most of the attempts were inadequate. Of the 228 cases where meat directly contacted a surface, those surfaces were clean adequately only 29% of the time. The use of paper towels is recommended in cleaning surfaces instead of cloth towels, which 73% of consumers use. The use of cloth towels can lead to cross-contamination throughout the household.

Nearly all subjects cross-contaminated their ready-to-eat foods, such as salad, with raw meat. Ninety-seven out of 99 subjects cross-contaminated from raw meat or egg to ready-to-eat foods. The majority of the cases were indirect, coming from the touching of the body, face, hair, children or pets. Digging through drawers with unwashed hands and reusing unwashed utensils and dishes also lead to cross-contamination.

According to FDA standards, 42% of the subjects undercooked chicken; 35% undercooked meatloaf; and 17% undercooked fish. The oven temperature function in 82% of ovens was found to be inaccurate (more than 5 degrees F difference from the actual setting).

Additional incidents that qualified as unsafe food preparation methods included subjects not storing meat properly in the refrigerator; kitchen sinks as a source of contamination; limited knowledge of proper food thermometer use; refrigerator temperatures being too high in nearly a third of the home kitchens observed and leftovers not stored properly.