When people go to restaurants, one of the things expected is cleanliness. This covers many aspects including how clean the restaurant is, hygiene of employees, and storage of food. What causes this to be even more unsettling is that the average consumer has no way of truly knowing how clean a restaurant is in most of these aspects. Restaurant owners should want their restaurant to be as clean as possible. Dirty food and surroundings not only decreases the aesthetics but also discourages people from coming back. The risk of getting food disease, or any type of infection, increases greatly in unsanitary settings.
Health codes are put in place and it’s a restaurant’s responsibility to maintain all the guidelines of the code. Inspections are done and restaurants receive grades based on how well the guidelines are met but the average consumer is unaware of well they establishment did Some of the things included in health codes are:
- how often restaurants should be inspected
- the amount of training needed by restaurant health inspectors
- standards for refrigeration equipment and commercial dishwashers
- cooking temperatures for meat, poultry, pork, eggs, and fish
- hot-holding temperatures for cooked foods
- the need for consumer advisories for raw or undercooked foods
A USA Today article brings up the growing movement for making restaurants post their health inspection grades in plain site for the people. This makes the public more aware so that they are better equipped to make a good decision for their eating experience and health. If restaurants are making their efforts to maintain a quality establishment, they should not be afraid to post their grade for the public. A good grade would help with public image for the restaurants that actually do keep a clean restaurant. It will also force restaurants to make their restaurants more up to code causing the quality of all restaurants to increase.
Kyle Davis
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-21-healthinspect21_ST_N.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment