Do you know the difference between 'cross contact' and 'cross contamination'? These terms are often confused and misused interchangeably. I'm guilty of it too. This misunderstanding, especially in the context of gluten exposure, can lead to potential confusion when dining out or discussing food preparation practices with chefs and waitstaff.
In this episode, I aim to clear up this common misconception and to clarify why 'cross contact' is the more appropriate term when discussing gluten exposure.
In this discussion, I chat about various scenarios where cross contact can occur, from sharing toasters to using common condiments and chopping boards at home, or even through improper cleaning at schools and restaurants. You'll also learn practical steps to minimize these risks and create a safer environment for those with gluten sensitivity or celiac disease. I further distinguish 'cross contamination' from 'cross contact,' highlighting that the former typically pertains to bacterial transmission. This episode serves as an essential guide for anyone living a gluten free lifestyle, or even those who are simply curious to better understand these often misused terms.
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Speaker 1:
Now, something I've always done is referred to cross contact as cross contamination. It seems to be a term that's used interchangeably, but many people are under the impression that it's cross contact only and cross contamination means something completely different. Well, those people are correct, and I have been doing my best to stop using cross contamination. It still slips out, it seems to roll off the tongue for me. But when we are talking about gluten, it is correct to say cross contact. And the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because when we are out and you know we go out for a meal at a cafe or a restaurant if we're asking about cross contact or cross contamination procedures and we're asking our weight staff or we're asking the chef the questions, they may think that it's a little bit confusing, because their idea of what cross contamination is compared to cross contact are two completely different things. So if we're on the right path with them, it's only going to make our journey that little bit easier. So I wanted to talk about the two today and compare them and help you see why they are in fact different and why we really should be using the term cross contact instead of cross contamination. So, moving forward, I will do my best to keep using cross contact rather than cross contamination.
Speaker 1:
So cross contact is when there's a possibility that gluten can sneak into our food in any form. So there is a number of ways that this can happen. It can happen at home, it can happen in the workplace, school cafes, restaurants. It can happen when food's being processed. There's so many ways that that food can be contaminated with gluten. So let's talk about some examples so that we can kind of wrap our head around exactly what cross contact is. So let's just say you have toast at home and you share a toaster with the rest of your family and they consume gluten. There is a risk that your bread will get contaminated by the normal gluten bread when you use that same toaster. So this is a chance where you may get cross contact. So it is recommended that you use a separate toaster or toaster bags. So that's one example.
Speaker 1:
Another way could be someone consumes a okay, let's just keep going with the toast. So someone has that toast, they go to the fridge, they grab the jam and the butter and they put their knife into those and they put it on their bread and they put that knife back into the jam, back into the butter. That is now cross contact with those items, because that has a very, very high chance that they've now put crumbs from their toast into the condiment and the butter. Okay, so that is a very high risk of cross contact. This is where I say we should all have our own separate condiments, separate butter. Label them, keep them separate, make sure everyone in your household knows that they are not to be used by them. They're not to be touched, they're not to be used at all, and that way you are reducing that risk of cross contact there. Another way could be using the same chopping boards. If the chopping board hasn't been cleaned correctly, then you have a high risk of getting gluten from that. So that is another way of getting cross contact. In the home, again, if you were to buy a meal out and they're not using procedures in place where they're making sure that they are using, you know, clean board, clean knife, clean prep area that is where there's also a risk of cross contact happening. In school, again, this can happen a lot for children in childcare, kindergarten, things like that If kids are eating let's just say they're eating at a table and one group of kids have eaten their meal and then they go off the table doesn't get clean correctly. If your child touches the table, they've got a risk of getting cross contact from any crumbs or anything that might be on that table. So there's risks everywhere of cross contact and it's being aware of it and being on top of it and making sure that we are kept safe or our children with celiac disease are kept safe from these situations from happening.
Speaker 1:
Now, when we talk about cross contamination, this is a little bit different. So cross contamination when it comes to, say, someone that is a chef, they have a much different idea of what cross contamination is and it's more to do with the passing of bacteria, and this can happen in various instances. So, for example, let's just say someone chops up some raw chicken and they use a board and they prepare that chicken and then they go off and they do something else. And then another person comes along and they use that same board. They might cut something else up on it, but they don't cook that food. So that food has now got raw chicken on it and there's a risk of bacteria being passed on to, let's just say, some vegetables or something, a salad, something along those lines, and that has heightened that risk now of that cross contamination being passed on to that food. So it is similar in a way that we have to prepare the space. So you should never prepare something on a chopping board that's had raw meat on it. So it is about keeping things clean and wiping things down. But in this instance we're talking about something else. We're not talking about gluten. We're talking about the risk of bacterial infections and people getting sick this way and causing other illnesses because of the cross contamination.
Speaker 1:
So I hope that answers that question and I hope that shares with you a little bit about the difference so that when you do go out and you do ask the questions about you know what's happening in the kitchen how is your meal prepared?
Speaker 1:
If you use the correct terminology, then you're likely to get more of a response from your weight staff and from the chef that is preparing your meal.
Speaker 1:
So I hope this helps and if you've got any further questions, as always, please send me a DM over on Instagram, the healthy Celiac. I love hearing from you and if you've got any feedback or advice or anything that you want to share with me that you'd like me to talk about on the show in future episodes, please do. And another one I've got for you as well, which I thought would be really cool If you want to send me an audio message on the DMs in Instagram, I would love to share it on the show. So if you would like to hear your voice on the podcast, please leave me an audio message with feedback or anything that you've loved hearing learning, anything like that and I'll be sure to share it on a future episode. So that's the healthy Celiac over on Instagram. So thanks so much for tuning in and I look forward to talking, to talking with you again very, very soon. Have a fabulous week and I'll talk to you then. Take care bye.