Unexpected uses for UV lighting

Today was day two of the Food Safety Level Three course.

We started the day giving presentations on one bacteria / virus each. Mine was Bacillus Cereus, which, as everybody knows, is a soil-dwelling, mesophilic, obligate aerobe spore-forming bacteria which produces a heat-resistant exotoxin.

In other words, be very careful about rice at that chinese buffet.

As a result of today's information, we have now become a group of formerly relaxed and intelligent individuals who can no longer eat oysters, pet animals, have ice in our drinks, eat anything without an 'organoleptic check' first ('having a sniff' to you or I), and who can now be most frequently found disinfecting light switches and singing Happy Birthday while we wash our hands. Twice.

We also learnt about temperature checks, how Heinz prevents baked bean botulism, why Edwina Curry did what she did and the difference between detergent, disinfectant and sanitiser.

Geeky but true - the highlight of my day was when we got to use a 'bacteria simulator' on our hands and wash them as best we could before putting them under UV light to see areas we had missed. When I did my Level Two course we didn't have this kit so I was a bit overexcited to get a chance to use it today.

For lunch today we had the vegetable broth we made on Monday.

Unlike yesterday's vichysoisse, we won't be examine on the making of this soup, it was just used as an intensive way to get us all to practise different knife cuts on a variety of vegetables. But it sure tasted good for being such a labour of love!

That's all for now, I have my Food Safety exam tomorrow so I'm off to revise - wish me luck!