National School Lunch Week 2017: Communication

Part 3 of the Food-Safe Schools Action Guide encourages communication, which is important in all areas of food service. Communication with local partners, such as, school nutrition managers, school administrators, school nurses, emergency planners, and even students, is very important in cultivating an environment of food safety. Please see the food safe schools link for further information within the action guide on how school nutrition professionals are encouraged to communicate with various partners:

http://foodsafeschools.org/index.php/communicate/

– Submitted by Danielle Pierre, MPH Intern

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National School Lunch Week 2017: Action Sheets

To continue our discussion for National School Lunch Week 2017 (October 9th-13th), we will dive into the other two parts of the Food-Safe Schools Action Guide: ACT and COMMUNICATE.  The USDA Food and Nutrition Services’ Office of Food Safety suggests that after school nutrition professionals assess their current food safety efforts, they use action sheets to help build a framework for each area of focus. Action sheets may include, but are not limited to the following areas: training and education, employee health, produce safety, and managing food allergens. Please see the following link for a complete list of action sheets suggested by the Office of Food Safety:

http://foodsafeschools.org/index.php/assemble-a-team/

– Submitted by Danielle Pierre, MPH Intern

National School Lunch Week 2017

Did you know that The National School Lunch Program serves more than 30 million children every school day?  In 1962, President John F. Kennedy created National School Lunch Week to celebrate the benefits of the National School Lunch Program.  As a reminder to all school nutrition professionals, we want to emphasize the importance of your efforts to provide food safe schools—and say Thank you!

The USDA Food and Nutrition Services’ Office of Food Safety suggests that school nutrition professionals follow the three parts of the Food-Safe Schools Action Guide to create a culture of food safety within schools.  These guidelines can be applied to other food service establishments as well.  This week, we highlight the first part of the action guide, Assess your food safety effort: a review of the current safety policies, procedures, and programs and development of actions to improve current efforts.  [We will look at the other 2 parts next week.]

Please see the following link for the Action-Guide Review Checklist:

http://foodsafeschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/action-guide-checklist-fillable.pdf

Additional Links:

USDA Food and Nutrition Services: https://www.fns.usda.gov/ofs/food-safety

National School Lunch Week: http://schoolnutrition.org/Meetings/Events/NSLW/2017/About/

– Submitted by Danielle Pierre, MPH Intern

HELPING TO KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE VIA THE SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

This week is National School Lunch Week.  As we recognize the school lunch program, we say farewell to Cynthia Downs who was the Executive Director of Cobb County Public School’s Nutrition program.  Ms. Downs retired last month after providing great leadership to the Nutrition Program staff since joining them in 1997. Emily Hanlin has, in turn, moved from the Douglas County Schools System back to Cobb where she first got her start to become the new Executive Director of the Cobb Program. With that change, Danielle Freeman has been promoted to the position of Nutrition Program Director for Douglas County.

S-A-L-U-T-E to all involved in the preparation and service of safe food to the thousands of children across our district!

Test Your Knowledge – Food Safety Education Month (Week 4)

As National Food Safety Education Month wraps up, test your knowledge regarding some of the information shared via our blog this month by taking a short quiz provided by our MPH intern, Danielle Pierre.  [The answers are provided at the end.]    If you have trouble answering any of them, scan back over our September posts for more information.

Best wishes—and always think Food Safety!

~Karen Gulley
Environmental Health County Manager
Center for Environmental Health
Cobb & Douglas Public Health

Direct link to quiz:

https://ehfoodblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/food-safety-quiz-9-29-17.pdf

 

WHO IS MORE LIKELY TO GET A FOODBORNE ILLNESS?

The CDC has posters available to remind us of the groups that are more likely to get a food borne illness (FBI).  These posters provide information that care givers and food safety workers can use to help prevent FBIs .  Follow this link for more content:  https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/education-month.html

FOOD ALLERGEN AWARENESS – FOOD SAFETY EDUCATION MONTH (WEEK 4)

We now turn our attention to the importance of food allergen awareness during this final week of National Food Safety Education Month.  Although some reactions to allergens in food are mild, many are severe and can be life-threatening.  Whether you are a consumer or worker in a food service establishment, please check out the facts, posters, and other tools provided by FoodSafety.gov to assist you with food allergen awareness and response.

Direct link:

https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/allergens/