5. Agree or disagree with the following sentences.

1. One of the simplest measures that any person can take to prevent the spread of food borne illness is to properly wash his or her hands before preparing or eating any meal. 2. All the cases of food borne illnesses could be prevented by better hand-washing by food handlers. 3. Hand sanitizer is a helpful follow-up to hand-washing and it should be used to replace this valuable technique. 4. In cases of suspected food spoilage, food should never simply be tasted, smelled, or eye-balled in order to determine its safety. 5. However, some foods may look and smell fine, but if they have been stored at room temperature for over 20 hours, microscopic bacteria may have been allowed to grow. 6. It is safe to let meats thaw on the counter all day. 7. It is also important to make sure that raw meats are cooked to the appropriate internal temperature before they are consumed. 8. It is sufficient to judge the doneness of meat by its internal color. 9. Cross contamination occurs when a person handling raw meats, eggs, fish, or other foods containing harmful pathogens touches cooking utensils, cutting boards, or cooking surfaces and spreads the pathogens to ready-to-eat foods in the process. 10. Leftovers are ideally stored in the refrigerator in shallow containers (2 inches tall or less) so that the cooling process can be accelerated and the buildup of harmful bacteria can be prevented.

Text 5.

Food quality is the quality characteristics of food that is acceptable to consumers. This includes external factors as appearance (size, shape, colour, gloss, and consistency), texture, and flavour; factors such as federal grade standards (e.g. of eggs) and internal (chemical, physical, microbial).

Food quality in the United States is enforced by the Food Safety Act 1990. Members of the public complain to trading standards professionals, who submit complaint samples and also samples used to routinely monitor the food marketplace to Public Analysts. Public Analysts carry out scientific analysis on the samples to determine whether the quality is of sufficient standard.

Food quality is an important food manufacturing requirement, because food consumers are susceptible to any form of contamination that may occur during the manufacturing process. Many consumers also rely on manufacturing and processing standards, particularly to know what ingredients are present, due to dietary, nutritional requirements (kosher, halal, vegetarian), or medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, or allergies).

Besides ingredient quality, there are also sanitation requirements. It is important to ensure that the food processing environment is as clean as possible in order to produce the safest possible food for the consumer. A recent example of poor sanitation recently has been the 2006 North American E. coli outbreak involving spinach, an outbreak that is still under investigation after new information has come to light regarding the involvement of Cambodian nationals.

Food quality also deals with product traceability, e.g. of ingredient and packaging suppliers, should a recall of the product be required. It also deals with labeling issues to ensure there is correct ingredient and nutritional information.

Read the text without a dictionary for 5 minutes and tell what you have understood.