Your dirty hands, plates, silverware, bowls, and knives that touch your food become risk factors. If food is left out of the refrigerator for too long, it may become unhealthy to eat. The hamburger has two risk factors, time and temperature, because the hamburger was kept at too high a temperature for too long a time. We are going to become inspectors looking at three risk factors. These risk factors cause food to become contaminated and start to grow pathogens.
Pathogens are tiny organisms that only can be seen under a microscope.
They can be all kinds of shapes and colors. Let me give you an example of how pathogens start growing in foods. I might have spread some germs on the cup and in the water. Now the cup and water contain pathogens that might spread an illness or disease to the next person. It smells so bad that you can almost be sure the food has been there for a long time at a high temperature.