Sanity in the midst of the
great unknown --- food safety
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
Feeling more like you’re in a science fiction movie than real life?
The great unknown — Is 6 feet really enough? What can I touch and when? What about the mail? What about packages? What about food? Takeout?
Dr. Jeffrey VanWingen, a physician from Michigan, posted answers to the grocery food question on YouTube. It’s a thorough, logical approach to making sure what you bring home from the grocery is safe. He employs the “sterile technique”
He said the Coronavirus can live for 3 hours in the air; 1 hour on cardboard and three days on plastic and metal.
He recommends that you leave the groceries in the garage or on a porch for three days.
If you must bring it in he recommends disinfecting a space (he had a metal table) with a “standard disinfectant” spray, then dividing it in two. One side will be the “clean” side, receiving cleaned groceries, and the other side he called the “dirty” side.
When he opened a prescription bag, he wiped down the bottle with paper towels soaked with disinfectant and placed it on the clean side. For a cereal box, he opened the box and put the bag on the clean side. For bread, he opened the bag and emptied the bread into a bowl. He wiped down the bag holding broccoli. For the glass jars and “hardy plastic” containers, he sprayed them with disinfectant and wiped clean. For fruit, he emptied the bags into water in the sink and let them soak.
For takeout, he said that Coronavirus does not do well with food, but the wrappers are a concern. He’s shown in the YouTube video opening a hamburger package and letting the sandwich fall onto the plate, without touching the wrapper. He suggested microwaving the food “until steam comes out.” To watch the video, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDuwc9KBps&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR36-k9yRuPFwQFCOrC06IQMi1WScg9j0S0FU8eefQ_A_gf8jk07KgexAqQ

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