Kitchen Safety Tips

Kitchen Safety Tips

This is an overview of what Chef has found to be the most common ways people can get hurt in a kitchen, and the ways you can avoid being hurt, or hurting a friend.

A busy kitchen on a professional level is a dangerous place indeed, with many sharp edges, hot pans and fire, breakables and burnables, oils and acids, and a lot of people working very fast. The level of cooperation in a good fast professional kitchen is incredible, and the attention to safety, both your own and your co-worker's, is all pervading. Here is some of the most valuable knowledge regarding kitchen safety that I have learned.

No matter who you are, or your skill level, this site is worth a quick look-through to remind yourself of the basics, and to check and make sure you have not missed anything. You may also want to use it as you teach your children or beginning employees to work a kitchen.

Probably the two most dangerous characteristics of a kitchen are: Knives and Other Sharp Edges, and Fires and Other Hot Things. These both have been given their own pages. In addition I have a page on General Kitchen Safety page which covers "Food Poisoning, Spoilage and Temperature Control," "Chemicals" and "Slips and Falls."

Knife Safety

Here are some tricks that will help you keep from being hurt when you work with your kitchen knives and the other sharp edges around the kitchen..

• Keep your knives sharp. If your knife is sharp, it will slide easily through what you are cutting, with little force involved. If the knife is dull, you have to force it to do the cutting, and if you slip a little, there is all that force that makes the knife glance off anything in its way, and often cut the heck out of it.
• When you are using a knife, don't cut with the edge toward you or your fingers. If you slip, the blade keeps going toward you, and can easily get you. Pay a lot of attention to where the edge of your sharp blade is pointing, and make sure it can not get you if you slip a bit.
• Don't leave sharp knives loose in a drawer. Not only will banging around in a drawer ruin the good sharp edge you have on your knives, someone for sure will reach in the drawer and come out with a handful of knife, and it will probably be you.
• If you are working with or handling a knife, and you drop it, stand back and let it fall, don't try to catch it. This sounds elementary, but lots of instincts say catch it, and that can really hurt.
• If you have a dirty knife, don't toss it in the dishwater. There is a good chance the dishwasher, which may be you, will come up with a handful of sharp knife edge. Banging around in the dishwater will also ruin a good edge. Wash the knives separately.
• When you are working with a knife, and you lay it down, don't lay it down with the edge pointing up. It is hard to see the edge, and someone will put their hand down on it, making lots of blood.
• Any kind of broken glass is incredibly sharp and dangerous. Clean it carefully up, and make sure you don't leave pieces of it in the sponge for the next guy who grabs the sponge to find. Don't just toss broken glass in the trash bag to bite the guy who picks up the bag, wrap it in old newspaper or something, and if there is a lot of it, warn all concerned. Don't ever break glass on purpose and toss it in the trash bag you are going to throw over your hip.

Fire and Hot Oil Safety
in the Kitchen

Here is some very important knowledge that can help you keep from being hurt when you work with fire and other hot things around the kitchen.

• "The Fat is on the Fire, Beware..."

This is an old and well known saying that means that things are happening, important things that you should pay attention to. This is most literally true around kitchens. Most kitchen fires, and lots of the restaurants that burn down, burn because someone started heating fat or oil and forgot about it. The oil gets hotter and hotter, smokes a bit, and then bursts into flame, and it makes great fuel! A cardinal rule in the kitchen: when "The Fat is on the Fire", PAY ATTENTION!

• Deep Fat Fryers

In addition to being fire hazards from the oil, deep fat fryers have other dangerous traits. One thing to pay particular attention to is never, ever get a glass of water, a drink, or any other liquid that is not cooking oil where it can spill into the fryer. If it does, it turns into steam instantly, and can violently spray hot oil in all directions.

Watch the electrical cord carefully. Don't leave it where something might snag it, and dump the load of hot oil about. I had a friend once who left the cord to his deep fat fryer across a doorway, and there were kids in the house. One of them ran through the door, and the cord dragged all that hot oil right at him.

Also, be careful even when you add food to a deep fat fryer. If the fat is too hot, or if there are pockets of liquid in the prepared food, the hot fat can spray about.

• Steam is Invisible, and Very Dangerous

Steam is often thought of as the cloud of visible vapor that comes out of a teapot. Wrong! The visible part is just the part of the steam cloud that has cooled down to under the boiling point of water and is visible as a cloud of condensed water droplets. Real, live, dangerous steam is water vapor that is above the boiling point of water, often way above it, and escaping confinement. It can be highly pressurized and moving very fast, and is almost invisible as it escapes its confinement. It causes real nasty burns. Be particularly wary of pressure cookers, steam pipes, water into super heated envoirments, and boilers.

As a small, operant reminder of steam, always remember that it will rise out of a boiling pot of water when you take off the cover. Remove the cover far side first so the rising steam doesn't scald your hand.

• Here are some other Burn Safety tips to remember:

If you take a hot pan or a cover from the fire and put it on a counter, leave a hot pad on the hot lid or utensil as a warning to the others in the kitchen that it is hot. (And tell them this is the way this message is conveyed.) In many kitchens a dusting of flour on the utensil is the warning that it is fresh off the fire and hot.

Always have at least a couple of fire extinguishers available and learn how to use them. Get some professional training in this, the people that service your extinguishers can probably arrange a bit of training, and you should get as much as possible. A good quick person that knows what they are doing can stop a fire in its tracks with an extinguisher. Someone who doesn't know what they are doing around a good, quick kitchen fire can easily get themselves killed.

For an added layer of security, especially if you have children who cook, or have a history of forgetting things, there are some excellent kitchen fire suppression systems available. One that I might recommend is the Guardian III. The Guardian III is a unique, state-of-the-art residential range-top automatic fire suppression system for your home. For more information, visit their site at: Guardian III. Use your "Back" button to return here.

Don't let the pan handles on the stove stick out over the floor. Not only can curious kids get to them, but they can snag on clothing ect and spill. Turn them to the side, but make sure their handles do not extend over adjacent burners.

In a professional kitchen, someone should always be trained in first aid. This is also a fine idea for any cook. Always have a first aid kit on hand. Keep it well stocked and know how to use it. Burns are one of the worst hazards in a kitchen. For small burns, an aloe plant is good to have around. For more serious burns, your first aid kit should have professional quality burn medications on hand.

General Safety Around the Kitchen

Probably the two most dangerous things around the kitchen are: Knives and Other Sharp Edges, and Fires and Other Hot Things. Both of these have their own pages. Here we will try to cover the rest of kitchen safety.

First Aid

There can always be a mistake, and someone in the kitchen, preferably you, should be trained in at least basic first aid. Contact the American Red Cross for a class or two, it is one of the most valuable things you can do for you and your friends.

Food Poisoning, Spoilage and Temperature Control

Keep foods either hot or cold. The bacteria that cause spoilage and food poisoning grow best when food is luke warm. Be especially careful with raw poultry, seafood and foods with a base of eggs, such as mayonnaise or egg salad, or bread, like stuffings or puddings.

• Make sure the temperature in your refrigerator is 40 degrees or under. Get a good thermometer for the fridge, keep it in there where you can see it, and check it often.
• Keep shrimp, lobster, oysters and such in the refrigerator on ice. Ideally, put the seafood on top of the ice, and the ice in a colander or other bowl with holes in it so that when the ice melts it can drain into another container.
• When you want to refrigerate a hot dish, first leave it for a bit in a cool spot with the lid ajar so that it can cool down before you put it in the refrigerator. If you put a hot dish in before it cools, it will warm up the refrigerator, endangering everything else in there.
• A soon as you have served a stuffed bird such as a turkey, remove the stuffing that is left in the bird so that it can cool down faster.

Chemicals

In addition to the foodstuffs, there are a lot of chemicals in the kitchen compliment. Here are some that are pertinent to safety:

• Drain cleaners, bleaches and strong acids can be dangerous. Never mix different types of these products, explosions or dangerous gasses may result. Make sure these are always used strictly according to the directions on the package, and make sure that the containers are properly sealed when not in use.
• Carbon monoxide results from incomplete burning of fuel. Monoxide poisoning can result from improperly adjusted or poorly vented gas appliances. Have your's professionally checked occasionally. Also, never use charcoal briquettes or the like to cook or heat indoors.
• Volatiles, such as cleaning fluids, gasoline, kerosene and such are often flammable, can easily cause fires and explosions, and should never be stored in a kitchen.
• Pesticides such as bug killers, roach poison and rodent bait should be considered dangerous. If you get them on your hands, wash them off. When you use them, make sure there is no uncovered food they can get into. Be sure they are not accessible to children or pets. Store carefully, and preferably not in the kitchen.
• If you must store cleaning chemicals and other possibly toxic non-food items in the kitchen, always store them on shelves below foodstuffs, so if they leak, they can't get into your food.

Slips and Falls

Soapy water, grease and oils, and things like the traditional banana peel are standard in kitchens and are all slippery. Here are a couple ways to keep slips and falls to a minimum.

• If you spill something on the floor, clean it up. Keep a mop or such handy for this purpose.
• Often when you are working in the kitchen you are moving fast. Don't leave boxes, stools, bags of groceries or anything else out on the floor where they can trip up a fast moving cook.
• Glazed floor tile is beautiful, but dangerous. Not only does glazed tile guarantee that anything breakable that is dropped on it will break, but a thin coating of oil or soapy water can make it slick as ice. If you have a choice, avoid glazed tile for kitchen floors.

Safety around Kitchen Electricity

Keep your eyes on the electricity in your kitchen, it can electrocute you, or burn your place down if it gets loose.

• Keep an eye on all electrical cords. Watch for any breaks or cuts, or frayed areas where the cord passes over an edge or something has sat on it. Repair any damage you find.
• Don't overload circuits by using multiple plugs, extension cords or the like. If you have old wiring, it is often a good idea to get it checked by a professional for load carrying capacity.
• Don't use appliances near the sink or other water. If one falls in, it can electrocute anyone nearby. If you must have a wall socket near the sink, make sure it has a "Ground Fault Interrupter" type socket assembly