Food Safety and Hygiene in Early Childhood Education: A Study

This assignment delves into the critical aspects of food safety and hygiene, particularly within the context of early childhood education. It emphasizes the importance of safe food handling practices to prevent foodborne illnesses and outlines the potential health hazards associated with improper handling. The assignment explores the six conditions that promote the growth of foodborne pathogens, including the presence of nutrients, acidity levels, storage time, temperature, oxygen, and moisture. Additionally, it provides references to relevant research, such as studies on food handling and the growth of microorganisms in various food products. The assignment highlights the need for meticulous attention to detail in ensuring the health and safety of children through proper food preparation, storage, and handling.

Safety is an important aspect of the National Quality Framework and the Early Years Learning
Framework. The food safety is an important part of the overall safety for the children. If the foods,
provided to the children are not handled in the right manner, severe health hazards can arise (Pérez-
Escamilla et al., 2017). The unsafe food handling can cause food poisoning. The food safety can be
maintained in the following ways—
 Preparing the food items in clean and healthy environment
 Serving the food with cleanliness and in the proper way
 Storing the food in a clean environment at appropriate temperature
 Ensuring the bacteria spreading is stopped with cross contamination
Reference:
Pérez-Escamilla, R., Segura-Pérez, S., & Lott, M. (2017). Feeding guidelines for infants and young
toddlers: A responsive parenting approach. Nutrition Today, 52(5), 223-231.
The six conditions for growth of the food-borne pathogens are as follow—
 Food-- Presence of some nutrients in the food can enhance the growth of microorganism. The
protein-rich products such as milk, meat and eggs are at higher risk for growing pathogens
(Upadhyay et al., 2015).
 Acidity-- presence of acidity in the food products is another factor that contributes to the
growth of pathogens.
 Time-- The food should be stored for right duration.
 Temperature-- The food borne bacteria can grow at a temperature between 5 to 57 degree
Celsius.
 Oxygen—The bacteria can grow at presence of Oxygen
 Moisture-- the presence of moisture can foster growth of bacteria.
Reference:
Upadhyay, S., Hussain, A., Mishra, S., Maurya, A. P., Bhattacharjee, A., & Joshi, S. R. (2015). Genetic
environment of plasmid mediated CTX-M-15 extended spectrum beta-lactamases from clinical and food
borne bacteria in North-Eastern India. PloS one, 10(9), e0138056.