By LINDSAY PEDERSEN
A little bit before 8 p.m. on March 10, Kristin Taylor was in the back area of her apartment talking with her roommate when she smelled the air and suddenly realized she had left something on the stove. She ran into the dimly-lit kitchen to see that the butter she was melting was now black and clinging to the pan.
Taylor, 27, a BYU math lab administrator from Orem, was not surprised that she had burned another pan while cooking. She said that, being a math major, she naturally forgets things.
'I've burned so many things before,' Taylor said. 'I get absent minded.'
She picked the saucepan up by the handle and turned to show her roommate that she had once again burned a pan. At the last moment, Taylor decided she should just take the smoking butter outside so the apartment wouldn't smell.
As she abruptly turned back around, the boiling butter splashed out of the pan and scalded the thumb and first two fingers on her right hand.
Amy Dye, 21, a junior from West Jordan majoring in community health, is Taylor's roommate, and was the only other person in the apartment at the time.
Dye said she heard a 'blood-curdling scream' and ran into the kitchen to find a steaming pan lying on the floor and Taylor frantically looking through the freezer to find something cold.
Dye said she pulled Taylor over to the kitchen sink and put the burnt hand under cold running water. Then she ran to the bathroom, grabbed some anti-bacterial soap and proceeded to wash off the butter that was still sizzling on Taylor's right hand.
Taylor and Dye both said the burned skin on Taylor's hand looked like white, melted candle wax. Three hours later, the burn looked worse and Taylor decided she should go to the emergency room.
It turned out Taylor had received severe to mild second degree burns. The doctor who treated her hand gave her pain killers and told her that after her injuries initially healed, the scars would take a year to fade.
Taylor said she just wasn't paying attention, and according to BYU banquet chef Robert Loper, inattentiveness is one of the main causes of injury while cooking.
Loper has been the banquet chef at BYU since September. He supplies some of the food items for the CougarEat Food Court, manages the Skyroom's kitchen and oversees all of the catered events at BYU. His department caters for crowds anywhere from 10 to over 1,200 people a day.
His arms and hands bear the marks of burns and cuts that have accumulated during years of experience. His hand has a bandage on it from a small injury he received a few days ago. Loper said people get injuries while cooking for several reasons, including carelessness, improper tools and inattentiveness to the task.
'My case is the result of a very tiring, 14-hour day,' Loper said. 'It's kind of embarrassing because I haven't cut myself in years.'
The main room where Loper and several others work looks more like a stainless-steel jungle than a kitchen. Walk-in freezers, rows of steamers, countless ovens, strangely-shaped spoons and wire whisks the size of small children fill the entire area.
About 80 students work in the catering department in either the kitchen, dish room or as custodians. Those who handle food are first required to take a safety class and then get a food handler's permit from Utah County.
In a kitchen setting, especially one this big, Loper said it is almost impossible to not have someone get hurt sometime. 'You've got hot. You've got cold. You've got sharp edges all over the place. You've got loud noises,' Loper said.
Loper said the main injuries sustained while cooking are cuts and burns. Most are not very serious, but some can be very damaging and painful. By remembering a few simple things, people can avoid unnecessary harm, Loper said.
Although someone can be cut by any sharp edge, most cuts are cause by knives. Loper said people get cut by knives because they don't know how to use them properly.
When using a knife, Loper said the last three fingers of the hand should grip the handle while the index finger and thumb hold the blade. This allows the user to maintain control and always know which direction the blade is pointing.
The fingers of the hand holding the food should be pressed up against the blade of the knife with the finger tips bent slightly inward, while the knife is moved in a smooth rolling motion. Loper said this also helps to have complete control of the knife and always know what the blade is cutting.
The quality of the knife is also important. Bad knives are light and unbalanced with a thin blade which allows it to move around and slip. A good chef's knife may be more expensive, but Loper said it is thick, heavy and will last a lifetime.
Not maintaining a knife can also result in injury. Dull knives slip more often because the people who use them have to push harder to cut. When they do slip and cut the skin, the cut is usually worse because it is not smooth and clean, Loper said.
Loper also recommends using the right knife for the job. Serrated knives should only be used for bread products. Everything else should be cut by a smooth-edged chef's knife or a paring knife.
In cooking, burns are almost as common as cuts.
One of the most potentially hazardous substances in the kitchen is grease. Most house fires that start in the kitchen are from oil, Loper said. He said water just evaporates when it is heated too a point, but grease and oil will continue to get hotter until they ignite. Grease or oil-based liquids should never be left when being heated. The butter that burned Taylor was easily over 375 degrees, Loper said.
In a home setting, grease and oil are usually used to fry food. One of the biggest mistakes people make when frying is mixing water with hot grease. If there is only a small amount, the water will probably just sizzle. But if the dose is big enough, the water will sink into the grease until it is heated up. Then it expands and spews sizzling oil in all directions.
Loper said to prevent this from happening, vegetables should be completely dried and most meats should be battered or breaded before being put into hot oil.
If a grease fire does start, water should never be used to put it out. Doing so will only spread the fire. Loper said it is no longer recommended to put baking soda over the flames because the powder could also start on fire. He recommends covering the fire with a lid and turning the heat off.
Water being heated can also be dangerous. 'When a molecule of water turns to steam, it expands 1,400 times,' Loper said.
Whenever water is boiled, the person cooking should always keep in mind the amount of pressure that can build up, he said.
Other burns can occur from just not paying attention.
Grabbing pot handles and oven doors, setting things on a still-cooling burner, leaving pot handles in the open and setting flammable objects near the stove are all examples of careless actions that could lead to injury.
Cuts and burns are not the only injuries that can result from cooking. Loper said he has heard of people getting hurt from falling objects, loose clothing catching fire, wet floors and someone getting their arm caught in a mixing machine.
Almost any injury can be avoided by thinking things through, Loper said. 'Use your brain and use a little uncommon sense,' he said.
Loper said he uses the word 'uncommon' because 'it just seems like there's more people out there that lack it than have it.'
As for Taylor, she is slowly recovering from her incident with cooking, but she said she has learned a few things.
'I've just decided I should be more careful. A lot more careful ... and slower,' she said.
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