Dirty Kitchens

Could your home kitchen pass the same inspection restaurants get?

Believe it or not, most of our kitchens wouldn't be clean enough.

Every now and then restaurants are in the news when people eating there get sick. And some restaurants close because they don't pass health inspections. But experts believe the majority of food poisoning actually happen because of food prepared at home.

A new study is backing them up by showing that one-in-seven of our home kitchens wouldn't pass these same inspections. Although this study didn't actually inspect home kitchens, but relied on a survey, experts think the number of kitchens that would flunk this basic health inspection is even higher.

Restaurant inspectors look at the amount of dirt in a kitchen along with the number of pests, and most importantly the food preparation and handling practices. And this is where many of us would fail. Simple things like keeping food hot enough or cold enough, not using the same cutting board for meats and vegetables, or even just making sure fruits and vegetables aren't stored beneath meats in a refrigerator---where leakage can occur, are things we don't seem to be doing well enough to prevent us from getting sick from our own kitchens.

So by cleaning up our own kitchens, we might be able to cut down on our families chances of getting food poisoning.