An interactive, multimedia food safety education program that addresses food handling in the home.
Content is divided into 4 chapters including:
- Chapter One: Introduction to food safety: "What is food safety and why should you learn it?"
- Chapter Two: Hand washing: "Its importance and getting really clean hands."
- Chapter Three: Bacteria Meanies "Meet the bad guys that make you sick."
- Chapter Four: Doing it Right "Guidelines for proper food handling in your own kitchen."
- Pilot Tested
A beta test was conducted for content accuracy with food safety, multimedia, education and technology experts. Feedback was obtained and changes were made. Also, a beta test was conducted with the target audience for acceptability.
The program addresses common food safety concerns like "double dippin" and more complex issues such as the importance and process of calibrating a thermometer and how to define pathogens. Practical suggestions encourage behavior change. Frequent questions and summaries after each segment reinforce the learning of key concepts.
A discrepancy is found in chapter four, "Serving Food Safely", when the statement is made that the maximum time that food can remain in the temperature danger zone is four hours. This differs from the USDA recommendation which is not to leave food in the "danger zone" more than 2 hours; 1 hour in temperatures above 90°F.