Better breakfast month promotes a healthy meal to start the day

Better Breakfast Month

Breakfast, the most important meal of the day   It’s true. After waking, perhaps 8 to 10 hours after last eating, breakfast gets the body going and fuels you for the day to come. It starts the metabolism and reduces the chance of craving carbohydrate snacks later in the morning. Throughout September Better Breakfast Month promotes the benefits of a healthy start to the day. The science behind breakfast is quite conclusive. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was a comprehensive review of over 4,000 adults of all ages and showed the benefits of a good breakfast. For example, the body mass index (BMI) of a woman who eats breakfast is under 25.  This is almost 2 points under the national average. Missing breakfast is not good for your health and is not an effective weight loss strategy. … Read more

Wireless Monitoring for food businesses

How Wireless Monitoring Helps Your Food Business

Food businesses want total food safety assurance and this is where a wireless monitoring system for temperature can help. When the heat is on in the kitchen, do you know what is happening in your temperature sensitive storage? When it gets busy front of house, you want to know that your staff have time to perfect the customer experience.  With wireless monitoring in place, they can do so safe in the knowledge the necessary back of house temperature checks are taken . The vital temperature records of cold and frozen storage areas, coolers, hot and cold holding stations are automated through a series of wireless data loggers that automatically and continually monitor temperatures to provide real-time data on storage conditions. Automatic alerts can be set up via email or SMS notifications for when exceptions occur and temperatures fall outside of … Read more

Pancake Day with perfectly cooked pancakes

Pancake Day 2018

…and why Shrove Tuesday… Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday is celebrated by eating pancakes. We often look forward to the tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday without giving much thought to why we celebrate in this way. Shrove Tuesday is a day in February or March preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.  It always falls 47 days before Easter so the date moves each year but it will always be between 3 February and 9 March. The name Shrove Tuesday comes from ‘shrive’, meaning absolution for sins by doing penance and it is suggested that pancake day became a way of using up rich foods like eggs, milk and sugar before the 40 days of fasting for Lent. For most of us it is an excuse to eat pancakes and test our pancake flipping skills in the kitchen. … Read more

Festive Safety Tips

Festive Safety Tips from Comark Instruments

Ho Ho Ho….It’s that time of year when everybody is getting into the festive and holiday Christmas spirit. Gathering with family & friends, exchanging gifts and enjoying the feast.  Food poisoning isn’t on anyone’s Christmas list, so make sure you only give people what they want this year – i.e. not food-poisoning! We’ve done all the hard work for you and put together some canny little Festive Safety Tips for you to follow   Keep things clean: Wash hands before and after handling any food. Wet or damp hands can spread bugs between food and surfaces! Wash all surfaces (cutting boards, dishes, utensils and countertops) before and after preparing each food item. Wash dishcloths and tea towels regularly, and let them dry before you use them again. Dirty, damp cloths are the perfect place for germs to spread. Don’t wash raw … Read more

listeria awareness

Serving Up Listeria-Free Meals with Comark Instruments

Listeria is one of the many food-borne illnesses inundating the current food-safety landscape. From one recall to the next, listeria is making headlines left, right and center. And maintaining proper food-safety technique and standards is the key to eliminating it from your diet. A bacterium found naturally in many places, including soil, water and animals like poultry and cattle, as well as raw milk and its byproducts, listeria can cause the listeriosis infection. According to the CDC, the infection typically affects older adults, pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems. Listeriosis commonly presents itself with fever, stiff neck, confusion, weakness and vomiting. Symptoms may continue for days to weeks, and can take up to 70 days before presentation. Pregnant women are especially at risk as the infection may lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery or infection of the … Read more

BBQ-Week

BBQ Week – Keep safe!

Keep safe this BBQ Week! It’s BBQ Week! With summer just around the corner, you may well be thinking about spending sunny evenings with friends and family, enjoying a lovely BBQ. Everyone wants to give their friends and family some fun and a tasty evening NOT a few days of diarrhea or sickness resulting from food poisoning.   So to help create a memorable occasion for all the right reasons we have some easy steps you can follow: Pre-Cook your meat in the oven and then finish off on your barbecue for flavour If you are choosing to ONLY cook on the barbecue, the two main risk factors are: Undercooked meal Spreading germs from raw meat on to food that is ready to eat When cooking most meats (chicken, turkey, pork, burger or sausages) The coals are glowing red with a powdery grey … Read more

Real Bread Week

Real Bread Week – Get Kneading!!

Whether you bake bread at home or in a commercial environment REAL BREAD WEEK is for you.  It’s the annual celebration aimed at supporting local, independent Real Bread Bakery as well as baking your own at home. So for those of you who may be joining in for the first time or looking to perfect your loaf, here are a few tips to help you on your way: Keep an eye on the temperature of the dough Aim for around 24⁰C/75⁰F Use warm water in the winter and cold water in the summer to get your dough to the right temperature Temperature of the water depends on the temperature of your room and the temperature of the other ingredients Use a thermometer to check your dough temperature Try to keep the dough at a stable temperature throughout the fermenting (proving/proofing) … Read more

Comark Experts

Comark Experts: Q&A with Product Marketing Director Michael Hall

Food safety technology is taking a more prominent role in kitchens and food processing facilities now. Handheld temperature monitoring devices and wireless data logging solutions are perfectly positioned to help food service providers take quality products to market, with customer safety as their primary ingredient. In this interview, we talk with Michael Hall, Director of Product Marketing at Comark Instruments, about the state of the temperature-monitoring industry, and the role Comark’s products are playing. Q. What type of temperature monitoring functionality is most “in-demand” now – particularly among restaurants?  A. It is an exciting time to be a part of the temperature monitoring industry. Let’s say we have a restaurant following a food safety process and HACCP Regulations. It may have three freezers, two fridges, and a walk-in cooler – all of which need to be monitored throughout the day. That means someone … Read more