Kate Hawkesby: Basic hygiene in food prep not too much to ask

Do you obsessively read the grading ratings on eateries like I do, or are you normal?You know how the kitchens and backrooms of restaurants and cafes get inspected and graded based on hygiene and cleanliness? More ratings came out this week and I’m obsessed with them.Because I’m a hygiene freak and if I see anything other than an A rating I want to run for the hills. How the system works is that a D or E rating basically means the situation is pretty revolting. Uncovered uncooked food left out, cockroaches, filth or flies look, it’s gross. This has all come about due to Food Safety checks, for which we should be eternally grateful. So MPI wanders round with inspectors, checks out the state of eateries and slaps a grading on them.Auckland Council took it further and adopted the measure that these gradings have to be displayed publicly; we have to know what we’re dealing with. And that’s why I have now become obsessed with looking for that little food safety certificate every time I walk into a takeaway outlet. The good ones, the ones with the A ratings, display them proudly at the front door or behind the counter. The dodgier ones with not such flash ratings may have theirs a bit more buried from view, but I’ll look for it.Mainly because I take cockroaches and food poisoning and filth, extremely seriously. I mean, who doesn’t? Cockroach infestations, ‘extensive’ ones, luckily, mean a business has to close. How often does this happen? More often than we’d like to think. Auckland Council says in regards to food safety, pest infestations are their greatest concern.I was alarmed to read Waiheke’s Cable Bay Vineyard was one of 11 eateries in Auckland slammed with an E grade for a “critical” cockroach infestation. The premise can clean up their act and the rating gets adjusted, they’re now back to an A, by the way. But I read the list exhaustively because for someone who balks at a fly landing on a pizza even for one second, this is not heart-warming news to me.I mean is basic hygiene in food preparation too much to ask? How are these eateries that get D and E grade ratings and have uncovered food laced with flies or roaches, how are they even allowed to reopen once they’ve cleaned it up? I mean, haven’t they already proven they don’t know how to manage food storage? Not all of the dodgy rated places are pest issues.Some are cleanliness, food safety, unregistered businesses, but if we look at the pests, and I am, the most common identified were roaches and flies, followed by rats and mice, followed by birds. Maggots are on the list too, as is hair. I hope you’re not eating right now as I tell you this. Sure, not everywhere you’re getting your takeaways is a rat infested dive, but it does give pause for thought on why those grades are important. It also makes you stop and think, how badly do I want those takeaways?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.