By Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Hight, Combined Joint Information Bureau
KORAT, Thailand (May 17, 2008) -- As military personnel are deployed to various locations around the world they are cautioned about eating at local food vendors. This warning is especially stressed around local areas of Thailand.
U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Knotts, Pearl Harbor Health Clinic, Hawaii, and currently participating in Exercise Cobra Gold 2008, as a member of the Preventive Medicine Team (PMT) is helping to raise the standard and ease this concern one restaurant at a time.
“As a member of the PMT we perform a daily inspection on all areas of hotels and the camps where military members can become ill due to sanitation issues,” stated Knotts. “One of our main responsibilities is inspecting the food preparation areas and food handling.”
“We accomplish this by daily inspections as well as teaching a basic course on proper food handling,” Knotts continued. “Our basic course is only 15 minutes long and just covers the basics, but we also offer the full food handler’s course free to all hotels if they wish.”
With a wide range of topics taught in the eight-hour course, the Punjadara Hotel has opened their doors and arms for the medical team from Hawaii.
“The course, which is the U.S. standard for food service handlers, covers proper food service sanitation, various types of sicknesses associated with improper food safety and how to prevent those illnesses,” said Knotts. “As well as the basics, we also cover how to check the source of the food, whether the food received has been properly stored and also the proper storage and cooking of the different foods from meats to produce.”
Along with the local kitchen staff of the hotel, a wide range of local restaurants and food vendors were in attendance.
“Not only are we seeing the changes being made now, but by having the local community involved with the seminar shows everyone’s willingness to help change the standard in food preparation for the people as a whole,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Jennifer Remmers, assistant PMT officer in charge, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. “It is an honor and a pleasure to know that I have the opportunity to help the people here in Korat, not only now, but for future generations to come.”
“It has been a great honor to have this medical team from Cobra Gold here with us today,” stated Arnon Orachai, executive director for the Punjadara Hotel, in closing. “The lessons that they have taught us today will stay with us for a long time.”
Cobra Gold is an annual combined, joint multinational exercise designed to improve U.S., Thai, Singaporean, Japanese and Indonesian military readiness and combined, joint interoperability, enhance security relationships and demonstrate U.S. resolve to support the security and humanitarian interests of it's Pacific partner nations. This year is the 27th evolution of Cobra Gold.