STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT FOOD HANDLING

A good hand-washing session should last as long as it takes to recite the alphabet -- about 30 seconds.

That's just one food preparation lesson local high school students learned at the SEMO District Fair on Thursday afternoon.

About 10 students from a culinary arts class at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center met with a food safety expert to talk about food handling methods.

September is Food Safety Education Month, and Cape Girardeau County public health officials want to stress hand-washing and other safety methods to people who work with food.

The health department specifically is targeting high school students because they make up a large part of the restaurant work force.

"The biggest part of what they need to recognize is when to wash their hands," said Nancy Foor, environmental public health specialist for Cape Girardeau County. "We try to stress safe food handling and not cross-contaminating food. A lot of it comes down to hand-washing and hygiene."

Foor said that about 25 percent of all food-borne illnesses can be traced back to hand-washing.

The students were encouraged to ask questions and then were allowed to go around to the food stands at the fair and examine food handling methods.

Their assignment? Write a paper about which stands they would or would not patronize and why.

Student Kelly Aufdenberg said she would not want to eat at a stand that has windows with no screens.

"That's just really bad," she said. "I would never get food from there."

Foor, who does many of the concessionaires' inspections, explained that the stand in question has gusts of air that blow down behind the openings to keep insects from flying into the stand.

Aufdenberg was not convinced.

"I still wouldn't eat there," she said.

Foor said she has heard stories about young restaurant workers who see someone they don't like at the counter and then spit on their food.

"I'm not real sure if it's fact or fiction, but they need to be aware of the illnesses. Some of them are severe enough to cause death," Foor said.

"You learn by mistakes and experience and by other people telling you."