Food Protection Trends - January/February 2015 - 37

the kitchen environment. A secondary objective was to
determine if external food safety cues in the kitchen would
impact behaviors.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sample
The sample consisted of 123 parents (either mother or
father, depending on which parent was the family's primary
food preparer) who met the following criteria: young
parents between 20 and 45 years of age; prepared four or
more meals at home each week; had at least one child less
than 13 years old in the home; and spoke English. Each
individual was randomly assigned to one of three groups
(control and two experimental groups). The institutional
review board at Kansas State University approved the study
protocol. All participants signed consent forms to verify
their desire to participate.
Research design
A control group and two experimental (exposure)
groups were used. The control group was provided with
a 45-minute program on nutrition for children, which
contained no food safety messages. The Food Safety
Messages Group (FSM) was provided a 45-minute faceto-face educational program on the four Food Safe Families
messages (clean, separate, cook, and chill), which included
a PowerPoint™ presentation, discussion, and activities. A
pamphlet on the Food Safe Families messages, two magnets,
a bookmark, and a food safety quiz were given as handouts.
The Ad Council Messages Group (AdCM) participated
in a 45-minute session in which participants viewed and
discussed each of the four Ad Council public service
announcements. Discussion questions included what the
ad meant to them and what behaviors they would change
after viewing the message. All sessions were presented
by a registered dietitian with experience in training. If
incorrect information was brought up by participants, the
moderator provided the accurate information. After these
sessions, participants were invited to participate in a project
to develop quick and easy recipes for young children.
Those who volunteered prepared a meal consisting of an
entrée using raw meat (either ground beef or poultry) and
a RTE fruit salad. All meals were prepared in a consumer
kitchen equipped with four cameras strategically but
inconspicuously placed to record the food handling
behaviors of participants. Participants knew they were
being videotaped but did not know that a non-pathogenic
tracer organism was being used. Participants were
asked not to taste anything, and a debriefing was held
immediately following data collection. Two refrigerator
magnets developed by the FSIS ("Is it Done Yet?" and the
clean, separate, cook, and chill messages) were used as
food safety cues for half of the participants in each group.
After the cooking session, participants were debriefed

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prevention behaviors (6, 18). Video observations conducted
in a number of states indicate that consumers fail to practice
adequate handwashing (including both frequency and
appropriate technique), and this failure presents many
opportunities for cross-contamination (4, 10, 17, 18, 22, 24).
Several microbiological studies have examined kitchen
surfaces as contamination sources. Donofrio et al. (12)
found high bacterial counts on sponges and the kitchen
sink as well as coliforms present on dish sponges, the
sink, cutting boards, and countertops. Another study (9)
concluded that rinsing surfaces in conjunction with use
of detergent-based cleaners is essential to cleaning, that
antimicrobial agents may be necessary, and that Salmonella
grows on cloths stored overnight even after they were
washed and rinsed.
Several studies have focused on food handling practices
and the presence of microbial contamination. Redmond et
al. (23) videotaped 24 adults preparing meals and found
numerous practices contributing to cross-contamination,
including using the same preparation area for raw chicken
and ready-to-eat (RTE) pasta salad, using a common cutting
board or failing to sanitize it, and allowing direct contact of
the work surface with raw chicken packaging. Further, inadequate handwashing practices that could lead to cross-contamination were observed. Three studies (11, 13, 21) used
Lactobacillus casei, a non-pathogenic tracer inoculant, to
track cross-contamination between raw meats and salads.
Most salads were found to contain some tracer bacteria, and
a high percentage were heavily contaminated. The researchers concluded that consumer cleaning procedures in the
kitchen were not sufficient to prevent cross-contamination,
on the basis of observing use of the same cutting board
for raw meat and RTE product that would not be further
cooked, rinsing of cutting boards and knives with cold water
and no soap, and touching of kitchen surfaces with contaminated hands.
Because research strongly indicated a need for improving
consumers' food handling behaviors, the USDA Food Safety
and Inspection Service (FSIS) developed the Be Food Safe
campaign "to provide educators with the tools to inform
consumers about foodborne illness and raise the level of
awareness of dangers associated with improper handling and
undercooking of food (25)." The campaign focused on four
key concepts: clean, separate, cook, and chill. Later, FSIS
and the AdCouncil transitioned this campaign to Food Safe
Families, which focuses on the same four concepts.
The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of
the Food Safe Families clean and separate messages (two of
the campaign's four key messages), delivered to a targeted
group of consumers using two different approaches, on
their observed food handling practices during a home meal
preparation activity. To compare participants' food safety
behaviors objectively, a tracer bacterial inoculant in the final
RTE salad was correlated with cross-contamination across

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