COMMON SENSE In The Kitchen

"Common Sense is a Flower

That Doesn't Grow in Everyone's Garden"

People are not born with common sense; they acquire it through life experience. A good place to learn common sense is in the kitchen, because the kitchen can be a dangerous place if you don't use it wisely. 

Examples:
• Before you do anything in the kitchen, wash your hands in hot soapy water. Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

• Seasoning is meant to enhance the flavor of food. Learning to use salt, herbs, or spices sparingly is common sense. Mahatma Gandhi once said "Common sense is the realized sense of proportion".

• You can easily get cut if you don't keep your knives sharp. Dull knives require more pressure creating more opportunity for slipping from your grasp and cutting yourself. "Common sense tells us that dull knives are a sign of a dull mind".

• Leaving food out on the counter for more than one hour in Hawaii can lead to food poisoning. Our warm weather, 90˚ or higher, helps to quickly contaminate food. If it is below 90˚ it is safe to leave food out for two hours. It's only common sense to keep food covered on your kitchen counter while you are preparing a meal. Click here for more information.

• Water and oil don't mix, especially if you put cold water in hot oil, naturally it splatters all over the stove, you and the floor. If you cook then you probably have learned this lesson the hard way. 

• There are all sorts of appliances in you kitchen that eventually need to be cleaned. Common sense tells you to unplug that toaster first, before cleaning it. I even go beyond that, I keep a pair of chopsticks next to my toaster to grab the toast out of the hot toaster instead of getting my fingers burned.

Just remember... "The door to safety swings on the hinges of common sense".

Note: Check out these new "Common Sense" food safety rules for Hawaii's food establishments, published by the Moloka'i Dispatch. (click here)