People who wash their hands with contaminated soap from bulk-soap-refillable dispensers can increase the number of disease-causing microbes on their hands and may play a role in transmission of bacteria in public settings according to research published in the May issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

I don’t like to be paranoid about germs when I go out to eat. I like to relax and I hope that the restaurant has enough pride to provide training and demand safe practices form their employees. I prefer to assume that public policy measures are keeping me safe to a point and my healthy immune system can be counted on in case of a slip up.

In the past month, nine contraventions were issued/processed by the Health Inspectorate, six of which were food-related as follows: • Two butcher shops in Tarxien and Ghaxaq for selling poultry without proper labelling, misleading information and for keeping frozen poultry at an inappropriate temperature;

Browsing through the channels the other night, I came across one of the many food porn shows on TV, DC Cupcakes. Being the food safety observer I’ve become, I thought I’d watch for food safety faux pas. I wasn’t disappointed.