Resources for help getting food during quarantine and safe handling of food

[JemPD]

@JemPD We heat up everything now to a high heat just to be safe. Bread, milk etc. The bread does go a bit funny. Probably don’t need to, but makes me feel less worried incase there’s a tiny chance of it being in the food.

yeah I putting bread rolls in the oven & have eaten nothing else uncooked for a few wks now, but I miss my cold meats & slices of toast. a slice of cooked meat such an easy protein to grab when barely able to stand up, & nuts/seeds while loved, are expensive & so high in calories.

I opened the door this morning to find my friend standing about 2ft away! she just appeared... bless her she'd been putting my rubbish in dustbins for me (I left outside my door & she swung by as part of her exercise/walk. It was in my porch & I was just going to put couple of letters for her to post on the mat. Because I knew she'd been in the porch (which is open to the street but enclosed on 3 sides) I was holding my breath when I opened the door, & then she appeared & spoke to me.... from 2 ft away! Before she said the second word I had slammed door in her face & didn't breathe till the door was shut, but am now panicking in case anything 'blew in' - she was in London a wk ago!

 

[Esther12]

I've been in even less contact with other people than normal, but some of you are making me feel very lackadaisical. I don't want to wipe down my groceries - surely I can trust our supermarkets to screen all workers and sterilise all goods!?

Pray for the lazy ones.

 

[Invisible Woman]

a slice of cooked meat

This is what the European Food Safety Standards have to say-

https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/coronavirus-no-evidence-food-source-or-transmission-route

Not terribly specific.

Isn't processed meat packaged in a protective environment? By which I mean it's not necessarily just air in the pack.

Edit - here's a bit about the "air" or gases they use when packaging processed meat -
http://www.airproducts.co.uk/microsite/ie/map_selector/results/CookedandProcessedMeatProducts.htm

 

[JemPD]

I really don't know about these things. I make my own bread. Unsliced bread in a film wrap might be safer. Cold meat - no real idea. We are tending to cook meat well.

thanks. I think i'm going to do without for now. I quite like pumpernickel brot so will stick with that -which has a really long shelf life so can easily leave for 10days before opening.

Also I assume that the part baked rolls that you have to put in the oven at 200degress for about 10mins... surely the heat be enough to kill it?

 

[lunarainbows]

@JemPD lol that sounds like what my mum does. When the post people come, they put the items outside our door in a box and we won’t even open the door while they’re there. Today my mum opened the door and I said, “why did you do that?!” But it turned out he was already 6 feet away by that point. Sometimes I feel I may be worrying too much but with this coronavirus, at least by taking these precautions I feel completely safe within my home. Especially as being bedbound I can’t actually wash my hands, sanitise myself like others can.

 

[Invisible Woman]

Also I assume that the part baked rolls that you have to put in the oven at 200degress for about 10mins... surely the heat be enough to kill it?

No guarantees, but these bread products go through a very automated industrial process. Unlike the posher artisan breads, they don't have much by way of human contact. Apart from ingredients being hoicked into great vats the rest is pretty much automated as far as I know. Including packaging.

 

[JemPD]

I've been in even less contact with other people than normal, but some of you are making me feel very lackadaisical. I don't want to wipe down my groceries - surely I can trust our supermarkets to screen all workers and sterilise all goods!?

Pray for the lazy ones.

This is what the European Food Safety Standards have to say-

https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/coronavirus-no-evidence-food-source-or-transmission-route

Not terribly specific.

Isn't processed meat packaged in a protective environment? By which I mean it's not necessarily just air in the pack.

Edit - here's a bit about the "air" or gases they use when packaging processed meat -
http://www.airproducts.co.uk/microsite/ie/map_selector/results/CookedandProcessedMeatProducts.htm

I don't trust either of these. I certainly don't trust supermarkets, well I trust the supermarket, I don't trust all the people working there - that's like saying (before corona) that surely everyone washes their hands after visiting the loo... they dont. And in any case the delivery driver handles some of the items when he takes out of the truck/things fall out of bags etc. I only have to listen to the people around me to know that many people aren't taking things nearly seriously enough. I dont want to wipe my groceries either, & perhaps if i'd fetched them myself & seen the checkout person use sanitiser before she touched them... well then I might not but in a delivery I have no idea who has touched it & what they touched before hand. Virus is coming off people well before they are symptomatic, & I cant get any more severe as will have no one to look after me, so I doing what I can. It also means I feel safe inside my home.

I dont trust EFSA.... just because there is no evidence of something doesn't mean it's not happening. I'll believe it when they've actually done the studies to test it & found it safe, not when they deem it safe because no studies have been done yet. That's like a friend of mine in a neighbouring town believing there is no virus in her town yet because no confirmed cases.

 

[JemPD]

No guarantees, but these bread products go through a very automated industrial process. Unlike the posher artisan breads, they don't have much by way of human contact. Apart from ingredients being hoicked into great vats the rest is pretty much automated as far as I know. Including packaging.

yes that's what I thought IW between the automation & the baking... well.... it's impossible to be completely certain, I mean it can blow in through an open window cant it so... but I not keeping them all closed all the time, that's not healthy either

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

My guess is that toast and baked preprepared rolls will be fine. The heat goes up way above what most biological structures survive. Was thinking of eating sliced bread cold.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I don't want to wipe down my groceries - surely I can trust our supermarkets to screen all workers and sterilise all goods!?

I don't know if you are being facetious @Esther12 but supermarkets will have no idea whether their workers are free of virus. They may be in the infective prodromal phase. Nobody is being tested at present. Goods are not sterilised as a rule. Some packaged foods are irradiated to kill bacteria but anything with a shelf life not in a tin is unlikely to be sterile. We are taking food as a potential source of virus very seriously.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

It may be relevant that most procedures for keeping food safe in terms of infection revolves around the assumption that bacteria cannot reproduce on it. So meat that has been handled cannot be left wet at room temperature. Most of the bacteria that cause serious disease in tiny doses have been eradicated (typhoid, cholera) But viruses do not need to replicate to cause harm. So we have to think like we did when visiting a tropical country where typhoid was still endemic 40 years ago. Fruit needs washing. Most other things need cooking at 100 degrees.

Up until now the risks in many parts of many countries have been small. The problem at the moment is that if virus has been picked up by food processing workers quite a distance away in time and space we just don't know about it and the virus is now quite widespread.

I suspect now is the time to be most vigilant. In two to three weeks very likely things will be clearer and also safer. Today we just bought milk and yoghourt and some tomatoes that will get cooked through. Otherwise we are living off stores.

 

[Invisible Woman]

I'm somewhere between @Esther12 and @JemPD in all this. Plus I have to factor in having a husband who has his own ideas.

I really don't want to catch it, but I have no idea what will happen if I do. Allergies aside I'm lucky my lungs are okay. I might have a very different attitude if they weren't.

If I get it and it affects me like the flu then I'll be flattened - by ME relapse rather than the virus. IF it affects me like the flu.

If I push myself beyond my current capacity for activity, I will be clobbered by an ME relapse.

I also think there's a level of mental comfort & sense of control that most people need, it's just some individuals are at different ends of the scale.

Edit - left out the word different in the last sentence so edited to add.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

One thing I would like to see is everyone in shops or banks wearing masks and gloves for everything. Even credit cards should be touched as little as possible with gloves. ~Checkout staff should wear gloves and masks. I have not been in a shop for a week but my wife did not see them on show in the Co-op.

 

[Invisible Woman]

I will say that in my time I have occasionally been behind the scenes in a few reputable food processing plants in the UK.

The standards of hygiene are very high as are the consequences legal & financial consequences for a company that doesn't maintain them.

 

[Mij]

The grocery store I went to last week set up plexiglass between the cashier and customer. They all wore gloves. There was only a tiny slot opening to scan my grocery card (to recieve shopping points) where he scanned the barcode while I held the card. After I paid with my CC, another employee wiped down the screen.

 

[Mij]

I also cut in line without realizing because there was a 2 metre distancing green tape on the floor, and I didn't see the tape or the people standing in line. They politely told me to get to the back of the line.

 

[Perrier]

Is anyone out there still eating salads? I'm washing the lettuce in a large basin with dish soap and then rinsing and rinsing and rinsing. I hope this is OK. I sure love a daily salad.

(I had a bit of scary event today; the postman rang the doorbell and wanted money for some duty for a pkg from the USA. I was not prepared: no mask, no gloves. I tried to keep away from him. But shouldn't the chap be wearing a mask? He did wear gloves. I will not repeat this: mask and gloves are in the vestibule. And I have tried to be so careful: haven't been anywhere since March 12th, and no stranger has crossed the threshold. )

 

[Wonko]

I dunno, I leave them alone for 12 days and they start doing all sorts of odd things.

It's now 12 days since I was out, and 15 since I was in a shop of any description. This is far from an unusual length of time for me to not go out but I'm sure things hadn't changed much after previous periods of not checking up on the world for a while.

@Perrier I have stopped eating salads or any fruit or veg that doesn't come enclosed in a bag - but this may be coz I'm far too lazy to wash and dry a lettuce - the paper towel usage alone.....

 

[Perrier]

I dunno, I leave them alone for 12 days and they start doing all sorts of odd things.

It's now 12 days since I was out, and 15 since I was in a shop of any description. This is far from an unusual length of time for me to not go out but I'm sure things hadn't changed much after previous periods of not checking up on the world for a while.

@Perrier I have stopped eating salads or any fruit or veg that doesn't come enclosed in a bag - but this may be coz I'm far to lazy to wash and dry a lettuce - the paper towel usage alone.....

Dear Wonko, you need a lettuce spinner: it's wonderful!!!

 

[Mij]

Is anyone out there still eating salads? I'm washing the lettuce in a large basin with dish soap and then rinsing and rinsing and rinsing. I hope this is OK. I sure love a daily salad.

(I had a bit of scary event today; the postman rang the doorbell and wanted money for some duty for a pkg from the USA. I was not prepared: no mask, no gloves. I tried to keep away from him. But shouldn't the chap be wearing a mask? He did wear gloves. I will not repeat this: mask and gloves are in the vestibule. And I have tried to be so careful: haven't been anywhere since March 12th, and no stranger has crossed the threshold. )

I'm eating steamed kale only at this time.

Wearing gloves doesn't protect you or him once he touches an infected surface. In fact it might give him a false sense of security because once he touches his face he's contaminated.