I too am a keen appreciator of kitchen safety and proper sanitation. In commercial kitchens I've ran, many have viewed my concerns as over-the-top, or extreme.
Some practices though- often seem less of a priority- or lower on the concern scale. So I can clearly see the points made by both CanMan AND MsMai.
I definitely appreciate and identify with the issue CanMan brings up about jellies, jams and parafin as a sealer, but I grew up eating such homemade products sealed in parafin. In fact, the kids in my family used to fight over who got the solid disc of wax to lick clean when Mom popped it off a new dish or jar of sour-grape jelly or blackberry preserves.
We were raised in an old farm house and leased our land out to farmers (my Dad worked in a factory), and we always had a huge garden. Mom and my aunts all canned and put-up foods. Now and then we'd go into the cellar and find a qt. jar with a bad seal, or a loose ring- and we'd always throw it away. But I cannot recall ever getting sick from our home-processed foods.
Similarly, we left eggs and butter out at room temperature on the kitchen counter- I NEVER saw a refrigerated egg until my high school Home Ec classes (today NOT chilling eggs seems a foreign, archaic practice!) And I recall Dad hunting every November and hanging a deer in the barn for days (and sometimes our Falls were not that cool- often we saw warm, 50-60 degree Fall temperatures) before processing it.
Mind you- I am NOT promoting or recommending a return to the days when lesser practices were the norm. I'm simply offering observations and memories of these routine practices. Some sanitation practices to me seem much more urgent than others- but when feeding folks other than one's self, we must all keep others' safety in mind. Especially if we are feeding infants and toddlers, older folks, or those with illness and ailments.
Some practices though- often seem less of a priority- or lower on the concern scale. So I can clearly see the points made by both CanMan AND MsMai.
I definitely appreciate and identify with the issue CanMan brings up about jellies, jams and parafin as a sealer, but I grew up eating such homemade products sealed in parafin. In fact, the kids in my family used to fight over who got the solid disc of wax to lick clean when Mom popped it off a new dish or jar of sour-grape jelly or blackberry preserves.
We were raised in an old farm house and leased our land out to farmers (my Dad worked in a factory), and we always had a huge garden. Mom and my aunts all canned and put-up foods. Now and then we'd go into the cellar and find a qt. jar with a bad seal, or a loose ring- and we'd always throw it away. But I cannot recall ever getting sick from our home-processed foods.
Similarly, we left eggs and butter out at room temperature on the kitchen counter- I NEVER saw a refrigerated egg until my high school Home Ec classes (today NOT chilling eggs seems a foreign, archaic practice!) And I recall Dad hunting every November and hanging a deer in the barn for days (and sometimes our Falls were not that cool- often we saw warm, 50-60 degree Fall temperatures) before processing it.
Mind you- I am NOT promoting or recommending a return to the days when lesser practices were the norm. I'm simply offering observations and memories of these routine practices. Some sanitation practices to me seem much more urgent than others- but when feeding folks other than one's self, we must all keep others' safety in mind. Especially if we are feeding infants and toddlers, older folks, or those with illness and ailments.