Case Study: Feeling under the weather

You work in the school cafeteria. You are normally very energetic, but you are feeling under the weather as you get lunch prepared for the day. You begin to rummage through the fridge searching for something to prepare, when “AAAHHH – CHOOO!”. You manage to cover your nose with your hand to prevent sneezing on the food in the fridge. You spot some ground beef. You’re not sure when the manager took it out of the freezer—there’s no expiry date on it—maybe a couple of days ago? Hmmm . . . or was it at the end of last week? You examine it. Looks fine, smells OK. So you decide to use it. You take it out of the dripping plastic and use it to prepare dinner.

Another day comes, you start preparing your special chicken stew for a pot-luck after the basketball tournament. You are running late and are trying to work quickly. Oh no—you forgot that you still need to make a sandwich! You give the cutting board a quick wipe. There is still a little chicken on it, so you give it a rinse. There, that’s better. You use the cutting board to cut bread, and prepare the sandwich in record time. The chicken stew must be ready by now. You dip your spoon into the stew for a taste. Yum! In goes the spoon again. Yup, it’s done. You turn the stove off and decide to leave the pot to cool before putting it in the fridge (it should be cool enough by the time you get home later this evening). While quickly wiping the counter, you notice the extra chicken you thawed still sitting on the counter. You didn’t need it after all. That’s OK. You’ll just put it back in the freezer for the next time.