Food Safety
10:57 AM
CLEAN: Wash hands and surfaces often.
Illness-causing bacteria can survive in many places around your kitchen, including your hands, utensils, and cutting boards.
· Wash hands the right way- for 20 seconds with soap and running water. Be sure to scrub the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
· Wash surfaces and utensils after each use. Rinsing utensils, countertops, and cutting boards with water won’t do enough to stop bacteria from spreading. Clean utensils and small cutting boards with hot, soapy water. Clean surfaces and cutting boards with a bleach solution.
· Wash fruits and veggies—but not meat, poultry, or eggs. Even if you plan to peel fruits and veggies, it’s important to wash them first because bacteria can spread from the outside to the inside as you cut or peel them.
SEPARATE: Don't cross-contaminate.
Even after you’ve cleaned your hands and surfaces thoroughly, raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs can still spread illness-causing bacteria to ready-to-eat foods—unless you keep them separate.
· Use separate cutting boards, plates and utensils for raw (uncooked) produce and for raw (uncooked) meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs.
· Keep meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods while you’re shopping at the grocery store.
· Keep meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods in the refrigerator.
COOK: Cook to the right temperature.While many people think they can tell when food is “done” simply by checking its color and texture, there’s no way to be sure it’s safe without following a few important but simple steps.
· Use a food thermometer. Make sure food reaches its safe minimum cooking temperature. For example, internal temperatures should be 145°F for whole meats (allowing the meat to rest for 3 minutes before carving or eating), 160°F for ground meats, and 165°F for all poultry. Eggs should be cooked until the yolk is firm.
· During meal times, while food is being served and eaten, keep it hot (at 140 ˚F or above). After meals are over, refrigerate leftover food quickly.
Illness-causing bacteria can grow in many foods within two hours unless you refrigerate them. (During the summer heat, cut that time down to one hour.)
· Refrigerate foods that spoil quickly (like fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, and meats) within two hours. Warm foods will chill faster if they are divided into several clean, shallow containers.
· Know when to throw food out.
If food is handled or stored improperly it can be extremely dangerous. It is vital that everyone involved in preparing food know the importance of food safety. But remember these are just the basics; make sure to take the time to visit the CDC website to learn more in depth about each topic or about how to handle a specific kind of food.
Excerpts taken from Prevention and Education: Food Safety by the CDC. Read more:http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/prevention.html
Best Teen Diets and WINForum recommend healthy well balanced eating that includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein and low-fat or fat-free dairy. We offer nutrition information that emphasizes the importance of healthy eating. For more information visit www.besttendiets.org and www.winforum.org
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