Teaching Children Food Safety
Posted in Food Safety,Our Blog on March 13, 2025
When little hands are helping in the kitchen it is highly important that as parents we take pride in teaching children food safety. My boys have been in the kitchen from the time they were in bouncy seats watching me cook while they entertained themselves with tiny baby toys. I had things to do and couldn’t hold them non stop and I knew they would only benefit. I am now blessed with two boys that love to cook.
Make learning food safety fun for kids with some important food safety tips.
Children can quickly learn that “bad germs make you sick.” This simple demonstration shows how much faster germs grow on a table, or your fingers, than in the refrigerator.
- You will need three small dishes and three packets of dry yeast. Pour about ¼ cup of lukewarm water in one dish, ¼ cup boiling water in a second dish, and ¼ cup ice water with an ice cube in the third. Read the label to see if you need to add sugar to help the yeast grow.
- In a few minutes, you should have dramatic evidence that yeast grows faster at room temperature than at hot or cold temperatures. This is because you started with billions of live yeast cells, and at the right temperature, yeast produces a lot of gas (carbon dioxide) that makes it bubble and rise. It can make a lasting impression on a child to see how fast “germs” can grow.
- Most bacteria do not produce gas to bubble and rise, and most foods do not have as many bacteria on them as the amount of yeast that you started with, but it also takes fewer bacteria to make us sick.
Teach Hand Washing
Careful hand washing is one of the best ways to stop germs from spreading. Here are some ways to share the message.
- Talk about all the things hands do: clap, make clay figures, build sandcastles, pet animals, carry food to your mouth. Hands are very busy and must always be washed with soap and water before handling food.
- Let children look at their hands with a magnifying glass. Remind them that dirt and germs can hide in the lines, cracks, and wrinkles. They might see dirt, but they will not see germs, they are too small.
- Let younger children personalize their ideas about germs by tracing their hands, or making a fingerprint, and then adding eyes, nose, mouth, and hair.
Consider these ideas when planning daily activities:
- Use stickers to teach where foods are stored. Use large ones of different colors on the refrigerator, freezer, and cupboard. Put smaller ones of the same color on all foods to show where they belong. If you choose not to use the actual food, use clean empty food containers, or pictures cut from magazines.
- Relate storybook monsters who like to eat up things, like the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk” and the monsters in “Where the Wild Things Are,” to the tiny “monsters” – germs and bacteria, that are always ready to attack foods and make them unsafe. Growing things, like – fruits, vegetables, and animals – are naturally protected against bacteria until they are harvested for food. Then it is a race to see who gets to enjoy the food.
- You will know the food spoilers won if you see mold on bread or cheese, mushy spots on fruits and vegetables, or a bad smell on other foods. Knowing when the food poisoners win is hard because they do not always change the way food looks or smells. Remind children to keep cold food cold, to keep food clean, and to cook food thoroughly.
- Play the “Feed My Friend” variation of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” On a life-size outline of a child, mark off areas like the sample in Figure 1. Use a paper cutout of a spoon instead of a tail, and try to pin it on the mouth. If the children can read, put the comments on each area. Otherwise, comment on why My Friend cannot eat it if the spoon touches the rabbit, the ball, the dirty clothes, etc.
Review Safety Tips
Review these tips with your children and then let them find the six food safety mistakes on the activity page.
- Wash and dry your hands before you make or eat a snack or meal.
- Fruits and vegetables are healthy after-school snacks. Be sure to wash them with lukewarm, running water before you eat them.
- Learn which foods belong in the refrigerator. Put milk, yogurt, mayonnaise, lunch-meat, and eggs back in the refrigerator right away. Don’t leave then out on the counter.
- Keep everything in the kitchen clean. Place backpacks where they belong, not the counter. Keep pets off kitchen counters and tables.
- Keep HOT foods HOT and COLD foods COLD.
- Pack a lunch or picnic using a cooler or insulated bag with an ice pack for cold foods and a thermos for hot foods.
For more food safety tips keep an eye on Make Food Safe as we update the blog daily with tips and most recent recall information.
