Food preparation - what should I do?

Wash your hands
It sounds pretty obvious but you have to make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water before feeling up your meat and veg - it's so easy to spread bacteria otherwise and make yourself ill. You also need to wash your hands again every time after touching the bin or any raw meat.

Prepare your meat and veg separately
Never use the same chopping board and knife to cut up meat, fish and veg. You always need to cut them separately as you can make yourself seriously ill by getting raw meat juice on veg. This is because raw meat contains harmful bacteria which can spread very easily to anything it touches, including other food, chopping boards and knives (and your hands!). You should also always make sure that you cover raw meat and store it on the bottom shelf of the fridge where it can't touch or drip onto other foods.

Preparing Veg
You should wash all vegetables before you start cutting them up for cooking. Why? - well either you'll find mud on the spuds, or there can still be pesticide chemicals on the veg which you need to wash off. After you've washed the veg use a sharp knife to cut off any stalks, the skin or anything else you don't want to eat.

Preparing Meat
Always make sure that all meat is thoroughly defrosted before you start cooking with it - this will ensure it's cooked all the way through and will prevent you from getting ill. Always make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after touching the raw meat so that you don't spread any bacteria on to other food and around the your student kitchen.