While cooking at home, using fresh and nutritious ingredients are not the only aspects of healthy eating that keep us healthy -- so does having good hygiene in the kitchen. Food, especially fruits, vegetables, raw meat, and seafood contain bacteria that if eaten, can make you sick. Good kitchen hygiene practices include: washing your hands before cooking; cleaning your cooking space; rinsing raw fruits and vegetables; washing your hands/cooking surface well after handling raw meats. In today’s Nutrition Play of the Day from the Ripken Playbook, you will play the Food Toss to become more accustomed to healthy and hygienic cooking practices.
Materials
- Ball, or an item to toss
- Family members or siblings
Food Toss
- First, wash your hands for at least 20 seconds as you would before cooking.
- With everyone standing in a circle, one person will hold the ball.
- The first person names the ball after a food and then tosses it to someone else who then also names the ball after another food. Continue for one minute while remembering all the foods that were named.
- After a minute, discuss the instances where someone passed the ball after naming a meat or seafood. In the kitchen, this would result in a “cross-contamination,” spreading germs from the raw meat or seafood without any hand washing occurring in between.
- Play again for another minute, except this time, after someone names the ball after a meat or seafood, the person who threw and caught the ball both have to wash their hands to prevent “spreading bacteria.”
For more information about food safety, check out our Healthy Choices, Healthy Children – Nutrition edition and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for more from the Ripken Playbook.