How safe is food served at church dinners?

How safe is food served at church dinners?

February 22, 2006

By DON DARE
Food for Thought Reporter

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Wednesday night suppers are popular at hundreds of churches throughout East Tennessee. But did you ever wonder, how clean is the church kitchen?

Every restaurant kitchen in Tennessee is inspected twice a year. However, health inspectors don't check church kitchens.

The Centers for Disease Control reports food borne outbreaks at churches have made thousands of people sick.

In 1992, 120 people got sick from the gravy at a Wisconsin church. And in 1993, chicken salad made 57 people ill at a church in Maryland. Barbecue chicken at a Pennsylvania made 77 members sick. At an Alabama church, an unknown food made 73 members ill.

So what can workers in church kitchens do to keep members from getting sick?

At the "Wednesday Night Live" supper at Cokesbury United Methodist, nearly 400 people go through the line in 90 minutes. That means the huge kitchen staff, mostly made up of volunteers, is extremely busy preparing food, serving members and cleaning up.

Despite the huge potential for a food borne illness outbreak, no one at Cokesbury has every gotten sick.

And diners say they feel confident in the kitchen staff. One member, Pansie Evans, says, "I know the people who are back there cooking my food. I've been to their homes. I trust them."

However, many things can go wrong in a kitchen worked by so many volunteers. Mary Lynn Brown knew that when she first volunteered in the kitchen 10 years ago. Trained as a nurse, she noticed many volunteers didn't know safe food handling practices.

"We were really good at the time of serving good food. It was hot. But I saw things with clean up, people not wearing gloves, people not using clean utensils to serve," Brown says. "I said, we can do better than this."

Now, signs throughout the kitchen at Cokesbury remind volunteers about food safety. Food services director Micah Fairchild says, "We work with a lot of volunteers so we have these signs up, in their faces, so they can see how to wash their hands."

While church kitchens are exempt from state health department regulations, that shouldn't stop food handlers from observing safe health practices. "Yes, sir," says volunteer Meggan Coffman. "We still go by health department regulations because we want to have a healthy kitchen."

"I taught our kitchen helpers to follow department of health guidelines. You see, I'm still here," Mary Lynn Brown says. "I'm kind of the police to make sure we follow them. It really worked. It's amazing if you explain to people why we're doing what we are doing."

"We're all kind of watching each other to make sure everything is clean and everything is in order," Micah Fairchild says.

Click here for part two: health inspector talks about common mistakes volunteers may make in kitchens