Before classes wrapped up, Dawn Bohn, a food science and human nutrition teaching assistant professor had a food safety week in her FSHN 101 class. With students being at home, and for extra credit, Bohn challenged her students to submit photos of themselves engaged in good food safety behaviors.

Her students delivered on the challenge!

In the lecture, students were first introduced to the "Fight Bac" campaign, including the four main steps of practicing food safety in the kitchen.

Students then submitted photos of themselves practicing good food safety behaviors at home, along with a sentence explaining why this food safety behavior is important for a safe food supply.

From FSHN 101 students:

1 - The step I chose is the clean portion of the food safety behaviors created to "Fight Bac" campaign. It's incredibly important to wash your counter tops with hot soapy water after preparing each food item and before you go on to the next food. This helps keep away anything that could contaminate your food. It just so happened that all of our kitchen towels are currently in the washer being cleaned. When this occurs, we use paper towels which can be a great alternative when you don't have any kitchen towels available. You shouldn't use dirty kitchen towels and it's recommended you change them out every day.

2 - In the photo, I have two separate cutting boards. The red one is for raw poultry and meat and the blue one is for other food such as fruits and vegetables. This is important because raw meat carries harmful bacteria and it is important to avoid cross-contamination.

3 - I was washing my produce before consuming it. This fits into the clean category. This step is extremely important because it cleans any potentially dangerous bacteria or dirt off of the food so it doesn't enter your body and make you sick. I do this with all my produce to be safe.

4 - I took this picture while I was helping prepare dinner with my family and it falls under the clean category. In this picture I am washing my hands with warm water and soap after I cut the raw chicken and before I touched any of the other foods. Washing my hands after I touch raw meat is important because it makes sure that I am not spreading any bacteria from the chicken to myself or any of the other foods.

5 - In this photo, I am showing the clean step. Prior to and after cooking, we wipe down the kitchen surfaces with a sponge. Each time we use the sponge, we microwave it for one minute to kill off the bacteria. This behavior is important because it eliminates the chance of bacteria transferring from the surface to the food hence making people sick.

6 - Cleaning my counter top after cooking is  "Fight Bac," step one: clean. This is important to ensure a clean cooking space, to get rid of any germs and crumbs left from the cooking, and provide a clean space for future use.

Great job, FSHN 101 students!