On-screen TV chefs set poor hand hygiene habits

20th of May 2016
On-screen TV chefs set poor hand hygiene habits

Celebrity chefs are setting viewers a bad example by failing to wash their hands before handling food.

This was the conclusion reached by a team of US researchers who watched nearly 100 cooking programmes featuring 24 popular chefs in a bid to assess their hand hygiene habits.

Jamie Oliver came out as one of the worst transgressors. The healthy meals' campaigner displayed 58 bad practices over four episodes including 24 instances of adding food to ready-to-eat dishes with his bare hands.

Although all the cooks were seen washing their hands at some point, 88 per cent were not shown doing so after handling raw meat. Around one in five was also guilty of touching their hair while preparing food and 21 per cent were witnessed licked their fingers.

"The behaviours modelled by the chefs could lead to incidences of foodborne illness, especially among those who mimic their behaviours at home," said the team from Kansas and Tennessee State Universities in the Journal of Public Health.

"These chefs either ignore food safety or at best demonstrate only very limited positive behaviours."

Of all the cooks analysed, Mary Berry was deemed to display the most hygienic habits, though even she was seen wiping her nose and playing with her grandson's hair while preparing food. And Nigella Lawson was criticised for dipping her finger into dishes while cooking.

Dr Lisa Ackerley from the Royal Society for Public Health says: ‘It is irresponsible for famous personalities to ignore safe practice because people will inevitably copy what they see."

 

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