WE HAVE gone through several health-related situations such as Sars and bird flu before, but the general level of awareness of hygiene practices for the prevention of infectious diseases seems to be low.

The hand, foot and mouth disease is one good example, considering the recent outbreak.

There have been public education campaigns to remind people to wash their hands thoroughly for better hygiene, but there seems to be less attention given to food hygiene, keeping in mind that the handling and sharing of food may contribute to the spread of diseases.

Here are my suggestions on good hygiene practices related to food:

Use a common serving spoon, fork or chopsticks, especially in a traditional Asian dining setting.

Resist sharing the same plate or bowl of food, even among family members. For instance, instead of a family of five dipping their spoons into a big bowl of soup, how about serving the soup in individual bowls?

It may not be a practice here to cover food when it is served, but what we can do is to avoid "talking over" the food when dishing it out to prevent saliva from falling into it.

There is a lot more that we can do to minimise the spread of diseases.

Some of us are not willing to change due to habit, custom or tradition. Others think that they are healthy and, therefore, cannot be carriers of diseases.

It is important to bear in mind that nobody can be totally free from any disease or virus, and that the best place to start practising good hygiene habits is at home.

Mr Yah Jun Yang