by Harry Francis

Created on: November 22, 2008   Last Updated: February 01, 2009

How safe are our food establishments? Well it all depends, are you speaking of a chain or a free standing restaurant? Are you talking about fine dining or the local family restaurant that's been in business for fifty years? As an Executive Chef with over thirty-seven years in the industry and I can honestly say that kitchens in the majority of restaurants that you eat in would probably not pass your questionable feelings. Is this the restauranteurs fault, yes and no.

Let's talk about making money first, let's see where do we start with that, well how about the cost of food. Food cost's for the restaurant industry have risen 8.6% just since March of 2008 which has caused restaurants to take a nose dive in the menu profit area in order to keep customers coming back and bringing in new customers. Next let's discuss the big one, LABOR. The cost of a good chef or experienced cook can be quite expensive and if you want to save money in the long run you have to pay for experience, unfortunately the way Americans think we pay twenty-four year olds exhorbatant salaries just because they worked with a food network chef for two years and have permission to use the name of the individual, similar to the real life scenario where we pay a professional football player seven million dollars per year and a police officer or fireman thirty-thousand, we pay more for entertainment then we do our own safety but that story is for another area of Helium.com now back to the food handler. The kitchen I work in cost's me no less than six hundred dollars per week in cleaning supplies and a good portion of my time chasing after kitchen personnel to make sure they wipe this table with sanitizer and that refrigerator handle with sanitizer. Did this one change her gloves after she took the cutting board to the pot and pan rack for cleaning before she grabbed the clean board? I didn't see her so make her change them anyway. How long has the chicken the cooks are breading been sitting out, longer than forty minutes, I temp it (take an internal tempurature) and it's in the danger zone. Throw it away, profit down the drain before we even start cooking, write a counseling on the cook, oh it's his fourth one he's gone....

That's a corporate kitchen managed by a large food management company, your restaurant doesn't have that kind of money and resources. So with that said are you safe to eat anywhere you please, probably not from my personal experiences. I'm not saying that every restaurant you visit

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