You are the main route by which germs reach food: hands, hair, nose, mouth, wounds and clothes. Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 puts it like this:
- Everyone working in a food-handling area must maintain a high degree of personal cleanliness and wear suitable, clean and, where necessary, protective clothing.
- If you suffer from or carry a disease that can be passed on through food, or have infected wounds, skin infections, sores or diarrhoea, you may not handle food or enter the area if there is any risk of contaminating it.
- In that case you must report it immediately to the business: the illness or symptoms and, if possible, the cause.
- Washbasins for hands must have hot and cold running water and materials for cleaning and drying hands hygienically.
When to wash your hands
AESAN asks for hands to be clean at all times, washed whenever necessary and always after using the toilet. «Whenever necessary» includes at least: when you start work, after touching raw food, rubbish, money or your phone, after coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose, and after cleaning.
Wash them with soap and water, rubbing palms, backs, between the fingers and nails, and dry them with single-use paper: not on your apron or a cloth.
Source: Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs (consolidated text), Annex II, Chapter I (point 4) and Chapter VIII · AESAN, «Preventing food poisoning» (WHO golden rules, in Spanish), rule 7