Lessons

• 1

  Menu Planning for Success

  Preparing and serving meals in child care centers involves some up-front planning. By carefully planning which foods you serve at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks from day-to-day and week-to-week, you can ensure a variety of healthy, nutritious, tasty meal options that the children at your facility will look forward to eating. This lesson presents strategies for optimizing the menu planning process in your child care center.

  START LESSON
• 2

  Family-Style Dining in Child Care Settings

  Healthy lifestyle attitudes begin in the early years. As a food service worker, you play an important role in helping children develop healthy eating habits, from the menus you create to the dishes you serve. Children rely on you to offer healthy food choices and model healthy lifestyles. Understanding what to eat and how much to eat are important skills for young children to learn. Family-style dining offers the opportunity for children to learn how to choose healthy foods in age-appropriate portions, as well as the social skills used during dining.

  START LESSON
• 3

  Food Preparation & Presentation

  Healthy eating involves a variety of foods from all five food groups in appropriate amounts. Eating in a healthy manner helps ensure adequate nutrition and proper growth for infants and children. As caregivers, it is a priority to offer children nutritious foods at mealtimes and for snacks. Doing so not only exemplifies what healthy eating looks like, but it also exposes children to new tastes, textures, and aromas, helps them see what accurate portion sizes look like, and teaches them to make healthful food selections. How food is prepared and presented can greatly influence the positive choices children make in the feeding process, thus contributing to a healthy lifestyle.

  START LESSON
• 4

  Inventory Management

  所有的食品服务项目都需要决定每次下订单时应该购买多少食品和相关的非食品项目，以及手头上应该有多少存货。这些决策是库存管理的一部分。手头有足够的备餐用品——但不要太多——是需要保持的微妙平衡。有一个准确和受控的库存管理系统将有助于您的设施节省资金，并提供高品质的饭菜。儿童保育中心必须记录提供了多少顿饭，准备和提供了什么种类的食物，哪些供应商用来采购食物和用品，以及制作每周膳食所需的原料这是库存管理中跟踪的内容的一部分。

  START LESSON
• 5

  食品安全第1部分:卫生和卫生设施

  Practicing good hygiene and sanitation in your child care kitchen is crucial to prevent the spread of foodborne illness. The Food and Drug Administration lists poor personal hygiene as one of five key factors implicated in foodborne illness outbreaks, along with food from unsafe sources, inadequate cooking, improper holding temperatures, and contaminated equipment. Poor personal hygiene of workers causes 25 to 40 percent of foodborne-related illness in this country. Children, especially young children, are at higher risk of experiencing serious health issues if they are exposed to foodborne pathogens. Therefore, knowing how to practice good hygiene and sanitation is an essential skill for anyone working in a child care kitchen environment. This unit will cover the principles of good personal hygiene and practices you can employ to have a properly cleaned and sanitized food preparation environment in your child care facility.

  START LESSON
• 6

  Food Safety Part 2: Temperature Control

  据疾病控制和预防中心（CDC）估计，每年有4800万人因食源性疾病患病，其中128000人需要住院治疗。将食物保持在适当的温度是食品处理人员可以做的最重要的事情之一，以防止细菌引起食源性疾病迅速增长。将某些食物在特定温度下长期放置会为细菌的生长创造条件，有时会达到危险的程度。限制食物在促进生长的温度下停留的时间可以最大限度地降低人们生病的风险。本单元将介绍哪些食品最容易滋生病原体，如何控制时间和温度以最大限度地减少细菌的过度生长，以及在整个食品制备过程中正确测量食品温度的方法。

  START LESSON
• 7

  Food Safety Part 3: Pathogens and Allergens

  People often interchange the terms “cross-contamination” and “cross-contact.” They are very different. Cross-contamination affects the transfer of food pathogens (such as bacteria, viruses, or fungi), whereas cross-contact refers to the transfer of food allergens. Allergens only affect people who have sensitivities to them, whereas anyone can get sick if they eat food that has been contaminated with a pathogen. Understanding the steps for preventing both cross-contamination and cross-contact is useful for people who handle food in child care centers. Food service employees should know the major food allergens and also how to respond to an allergic reaction. This lesson will give you the background needed to differentiate between pathogens and allergens and how to reduce the risk of illness in your facility.

  START LESSON