Bobby Flay Food Safety Practices

Three, two, one, time’s up! In the show Beat Bobby Flay, two cooks square off in cooking a dish with a chance to challenge Bobby Flay using any dish of their choice. From the episode, “A Cut Above,” John Tesar was able to beat his competition and challenge Bobby Flay in cooking Beef Wellington. The article “Food Safety Practices in Television Cooking Shows” discusses standard food practices and looks for them in these cooking shows. Not only have these cooking shows involving a timed meal brought entertainment, intensity, and frustration to television, the fast-paced action leads to chefs losing the proper hygiene and could lead to foodborne illnesses when preparing the food. As the audience of the show, the entertainment has led to these hygienic practices being lost behind the action.

The food created in the show is made from the freshest ingredients provided by The Food Network. While some of the foods can be exotic at times and may be seen only at fancy restaurants, all of the ingredients needed are

Nancy Cohen states that common food safety is overlooked in cooking shows. A lot of the issues she raises mainly involve hygienic practices not performed by the chefs in the shows. She states, “Bare-hand contact contributes to 35% of foodborne outbreaks from restaurants; thus, avoiding bare-hand contact, washing hands, and using gloves are critical steps in preventing foodborne illness” (Cohen). Washing hands is a huge concern to keep bacteria from infecting the food; however, in the show none of the chefs wash their hands before making the food. In the show, the chefs marinated the steaks with their bare-hands. While watching the episode it is found that Tesar and Flay are having a friendly trash talk. The cooks lose that thought process of watching their hands. As well as, the audience is distracted by the trash talk instead of recognizing these food practices that are being