RESUMO
Hazard analyses of food preparation practices were conducted in three households in a new settlement in the rocky, dusty hillsides at the outskirts of Lima, Peru. These analyses consisted of watching all steps of preparation, recording temperatures throughout these steps, and collecting samples of the food and testing them for common foodborne pathogens and indicator organisms. The residents had migrated from different regions of the country; consequently, they prepared different foods. These included soya cereal, milk formula, rice and carrots for feeding a baby who had diarrhea, soups, mashed potatoes with spinach, carrot and beet salad, cow's foot soup, beans, rice and a mixture of beans and rice. The temperatures attained were high enough to kill vegetative forms of foodborne pathogens, but not their spores. During the interval between cooking in the morning and serving at either lunch or supper time, foods were held either on unheated ranges or in unheated ovens. This interval was long enough to permit some bacterial multiplication, but apparently not to massive quantities. Just before the evening meal, foods were reheated to temperatures that usually exceeded 70°C. Rice, however, was either served cold or if reheated, the center temperature rose a few degrees only. Critical control points for preparation of family meals are cooking, holding between cooking and serving, and reheating. Critical control points for milk formula for babies are using recently-boiled water for the formula, cleaning and boiling bottles and nipples, and, of particular importance, time of holding at room temperature.
RESUMO
Hazard analyses of food preparation practices were conducted in two households in Indiana (a settlement along the Peruvian Amazon River), in a household in a cluster of about a half dozen houses up river, and in three households in Belen (a district near Iquitos), Peru. These analyses consisted of watching all steps of the operation, recording temperatures throughout all these steps, and collecting samples of food and testing them for common foodborne pathogens and indicator organisms. Foods prepared included rice, plantains, yuca, dry fish, fresh fish, beef, and chicken. During cooking, foods attained temperatures of at least 93.3°C; they usually boiled. Such time-temperature exposure would kill vegetative forms of foodborne pathogenic bacteria, but not heat-resistant spores. When cooked foods were leftover, they were kept either on tables or on the unheated stoves or grills on which they were cooked. During this interval, at the prevailing ambient temperature and high humidity of the jungle region, conditions were such that considerable microbial growth could occur. Time of exposure, however, limited counts to the 105-106 level. In the evening, foods were only mildly reheated, if reheated at all, so temperatures were not attained in the center regions of the food that would have killed microorganisms that had multiplied during the holding period. Hence, the primary critical control point is holding between cooking and serving, but cooking and reheating are critical control points also.
RESUMO
Hazard analyses of food preparation practices were conducted in two households in an Andean Indian Pueblo near Puno, Peru and in a house on the outskirts of this city. These analyses consisted of watching all steps of preparation, recording temperatures throughout all these steps, and collecting samples of food and testing them for common foodborne pathogens and indicator organisms. Only cereal-potato soup (a very popular and inexpensive food in the region), kidney stew, and parched cereal were prepared during the survey. The soups boiled during cooking and most of them were eaten during the first serving. Vegetative forms of pathogenic bacteria would have been killed during cooking, but heat-resistant spores would have survived. Leftovers in the pueblo homes, when there were any, remained without heat on the clay stoves on which they had been cooked until eaten or reheated. In the other household, cooked foods were moved from the stove to an earthen floor and kept there until reheating. Under this condition, cooling was more rapid than when left on stoves. The interval of time that cooked foods were between 49°C (120°F) and 21°C (70°F) during holding was less than 4 h, thereby limiting spore germination and bacterial multiplication. In the only household in which foods were reheated, they boiled. Critical control points for food preparation in homes are cooking, holding between cooking and serving, and reheating.