Partnership for Food Safety Education

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Linda Beech Amps Up Don’t Wing It in Kansas

People in Ellis County, Kansas, will have a hard time missing information from the Don’t Wing It (DWI) food safety campaign thanks to Linda Beech, their local family and consumer sciences extension agent.

Don’t Wing It Is Ready for Action
Linda has been busy spreading the newly released consumer food safety information ever since participating in the Don’t Wing It webinar in April. This well-designed approach to poultry handling information, plus the new research, packaged together especially for BAC Fighters, makes it easy to spread the word.

Science Sells
She especially values the science behind the program – for example, the research on how people handle shopping carts in a way that can spread harmful bacteria, and the potential concentration of Campylobacter in just one drop of chicken juice, which is enough to make you sick.

Linda says that these point-by-point science references help her to teach in a way that people take seriously.

Spreading Don’t Wing It
She has written articles on how to prevent foodborne illness using the information in DWI for her local paper’s print and online versions. Linda has also posted on Facebook and spoken about Don’t Wing It on local radio. She featured DWI in the general county extension newsletter as well as one focused on seniors. Her mini-cable TV show about DWI reaches up to 10,000 subscribers in a three-county area. She uses the #DontWingIt hashtag in her Facebook posts about her own chicken BBQ!

Recipes with Food Safety Prompts
Linda is using the research on the success of adding food safety steps into recipe directions to beef up the recipes she uses in her newsletter. She convinced others in county extension of the value of this as well.

Facebook Comments Show Results
The comments to Linda’s posts on the extension FB page show how her outreach raises food safety awareness:

  • Ok, I’m convinced… No more giving my chicken a bath.
  • Great job, Linda! While I already follow most of food safety practices in your video, including cleaning the shopping cart handles, I never really connected OTHER PEOPLE’s drippy chicken packages not in a plastic bag to food safety in MY kitchen. This raises my awareness about what I should do to be responsible about food safety. Other things I do, not in your video…….I sanitize the front corners of my shopping cart, because sometimes I pull the cart instead of always pushing it; and I place meat packages in the bottom basket of the cart in the store when I have a 2 tier cart, similar to storing chicken on the lowest shelf in the fridge.

Linda’s newspaper column can be found here.
Her cable TV video is here.

Check out more Don’t Wing It resources.

Share your story with us.

Basem’s Story Solidified His Learning

One of the best ways to solidify the new strategies you learn is to apply them and teach them.

Basem Boutros is a CFSEC2017 scholarship student who explains how he applied his new learning from the conference to a story in his life and made his new learning permanent.

 Basem sent us his story:

The 2017 Consumer Food Safety Education Conference drew to my attention to several aspects that contribute to food safety behavior.  In this brief story, I see that I experienced a goal of food safety behavior change, self-regulation, without even realizing it!

Self-regulation refers to controlling oneself through self-monitoring.

In the past, I worked in a restaurant as prep cook/line cook and there were food safety standards in place that we all, as a back-of-the-house staff, were committed to.

Much of my job required the preparation and handling of raw chicken. One time, while I was preparing to put chicken wings in the mixing bowl to bread them, I checked the box and found that the wings were slimy and emitted an obnoxious smell.

I let the chef know and he recommended disposing of them. I felt like if it had not been for the pre-check I did, as a result of self-monitoring,  many people may have gotten sick!

That’s my learning story.

Go BAC Fighters!

Basem Boutros is specializing in food safety as a PhD student in Hospitality Management at Kansas State University.       

Kansas State University’s Fight BAC Class

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Stephanie Castillo Teaches First and Second Grade Students the Core 4

Stephanie Castillo with Kansas State University taught food safety to first and second grade after school students this autumn. Her “Fight BAC Class” teaches food safety basics, such as hand-washing practices, to after school program kids. First, she begins her lesson with an illustration of the fast growth rate of illness-causing bacteria with a marble multiplication experiment .  After a short break for “germ tag” and a healthy snack, Stephanie and the students talked about the importance of  hand washing; hands should be washed with warm water and soap for twenty seconds every time before you eat and every time after you use the bathroom. The kids concluded that it is better to wash with warm water and soap but to use hand sanitizer when water and soap is not available. They were sent home with a food safety quiz to do alongside their parents.

Kansas Students Take on Food Safety Bad Guy

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Teaching pre-school and early elementary children about healthy habits can be challenging.  In Cowley County, Kansas, I engage children with a puppet show, hand washing activity, and taste test at “Dinosaur Diner.”  During the 30 minute presentation, students learn about the benefits of eating a variety of foods, the importance of food safety, and personal hygiene.

The program features “Dino,” an alligator puppet who loves dinosaurs.  “Dino” is concerned that his fellow alligators might someday be extinct because they do not eat a variety of foods.  Dino’s goal is to open a restaurant and invite all alligators to be customers.

The children also meet “Chef,” who greets participants with a handshake while reviewing expectations for food safety. However, “Chef” informs the children there is a “bad guy” in the room! The “bad guy” (the BAC Puppet from the Partnership for Food Safety Education) uses a spooky voice to talk about germs and how bacteria will make the students feel “ucky and yucky!”

Students get rid of the “bad guy” by pretending to wash their hands and counting to 20.  “Dino” praises the children for their hand washing skills but reminds them they must use real soap and water to kill germs.  I utilize UV disclosing lotion and a black light to demonstrate the effectiveness of their real hand washing skills.

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The final activity is a taste test of dinosaur dip with a slice of raw sweet potato. “Chef” has participants give a thumbs-up (they like it) or thumbs-to-the-side (please change the recipe) after the taste test.  No “thumbs-down” are accepted because if might make “Chef” cry!

The presentation has been offered for PreK-2nd grade classrooms for the past three years.  Last year, I visited 558 students (30 classrooms) with “Dino,” “Chef” and the “bad guy.”  Some students request to see the “bad guy” again, but I explain that we wash our hands to get rid of the “bad guy” so we can be healthy!  Teachers respond that the students demonstrate improved hand washing skills following their “Dinosaur Diner” experience.

Becky Reid is the Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent for Kansas State University Research and Extension in Cowley County, Kansas.  She can be contacted at bkreid@ksu.edu or620)221-5450.  Follow her on Twitter @TechieHomeckie.

 

School Starts with Food Safety

BAC Fighter Stephanie Castillo plans a packed Food Safety Education Month for Kansas Students

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Stephanie Castillo, a BAC Fighter from the Kansas Family Nutrition Program, always kicks off her work in elementary schools with Food Safety Education Month. Last September, Stephanie taught hand washing and food safety to 614 students!

Here are some of the tactics she used to make sure her elementary students got the most out of Food Safety Education Month:

  • Interactive tools

Stephanie used a thermometer, ice pack, strainer, scrub brush, and two separate cutting boards to teach students how to practice the four core food safety steps.

  • Story time

The He’s BAC Storybook and BAC himself turned story time into food safety time. Stephanie also read Germs! Germs! Germs! and Oh! The Things You Can Do That Are Good For You to teach kids all about staying healthy.

  • Pass the germ game

Stephanie crocheted “germs” that the students could pass around. They passed them around in a circle until instructed to stop. Students left holding the germs were out of the game.

  • Eating germs!

Yuck – not that kind of germ! This one is made of crackers, cream cheese, and pretzels. Get the recipe here.

  • Glo Germ machine booths

To teach the important of hand washing, Stephanie set up an interactive Glo Germ booth. Students were able to see where they needed to work on proper hand washing techniques.
We can’t imagine many more fun ways to teach kids about food safety and hand hygiene! Keep up the good work, Stephanie!