Ensuring you have a clean kitchen means more than just washing your dishes and taking out the trash. The kitchen is where you prepare nearly all of the food that you are going to put into your body, so it’s important to keep all the surfaces clean. Foodborne illnesses are a serious threat to anyone. To prevent such illnesses from spreading to your food and your body, you will need to take preventative measures and precautions.
Foodborne Illnesses
Foodborne illnesses can be caused from viruses, bacteria, chemicals, or parasites. They effect the gastrointestinal tract and can cause various symptoms like fever, chills, and more, including death. However, most foodborne illnesses are considered to be acute and typically the body can fight it off without medical intervention. But there are ways to prevent foodborne illnesses from spreading in your home.
Raw foods, including meat, poultry, fish and shellfish, eggs, dairy products, and fresh produce can often contain bacteria that can cause foodborne illness. These items may come to your home already present with bacteria, or if your hands, kitchen utensils, cutting boards, or other kitchen surfaces are not cleaned properly, then they could contaminate the foods once they touch. This is called cross-contamination. Cleaning all your kitchen utensils, surfaces, and hands is vital if you do not with to transfer bacteria to your food prior to eating.
Your hands should be cleaned with plain soap and running water and be sure to lather for twenty seconds. Be sure to clean each surface and utensil immediately after each use. Since bacteria can spread through these, it’s important to clean them in between use as well, just to be safe. Especially when dealing with raw meat or eggs. You should also wash your fruits and vegetables prior to eating them; you can do this with either a salt water solution or vinegar.
When Foodborne Goes Airborne
Any kind of bacteria or virus can travel through the air on dust particles or respiratory droplets caused by sneezes, laughs, coughs, or exhales. Most people won’t get sick this way, but it is certainly a possibility. For people with weaker immune systems (babies, elderly, the sick) airborne illnesses are a serious threat. But if you can clean your surfaces or utensils to prevent cross-contamination of foodborne illnesses, then how do you protect yourself from the air you breathe?
The Solution
Keeping your kitchen clean is only half of the solution to protecting you and your family from foodborne illnesses. Using Activa Coatings to paint your kitchen or cabinets is the other half of your solution. By using our paint, you can combat the foodborne going airborne issue. Our smart-technology paint uses a process called photocatalysis to help remove microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, dirt, grime, mold, and more. Plus, Activa Coatings helps to clean the walls’ surfaces of dirt, grime, and grease, on contact, so you don’t have to use harsh chemicals to clean the walls.
Not only will you protect your family from foodborne diseases, but you will also keep your kitchen smelling fresh. Since Activa Coatings helps to remove so many things that pass the surface in the air, it also helps to eliminate smelly odors that can come from cooking, the trash, the garbage disposal, or any other smells that may drift into the kitchen or throughout the house. Protecting your kitchen from smells will also help keep bugs and fruit flies away in the warmer months.
If you want to protect your kitchen and your family, paint your home with Activa Coatings today. This will help to eliminate any airborne illnesses that could come from your food, trash, garbage disposal, or possibly any germs someone may have picked up outside (better safe than sorry, right?) Plus, your kitchen will always smell clean and fresh, so having visitors will be a breeze.