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Risky food behaviors can lead to foodborne illness. Small choices can have a big impact on food safety.
How many are you guilty of?
Food safety starts at the beginning. With ingredients.
Avoid these risky food behaviors at the grocery store!
It may be tempting to start shopping at the part of the store you walk into. But for food safety, you will want to fill your cart strategically.
Always start with non-perishable items first.
If you shop frozen or cold items at the beginning of your grocery trip, they will begin to thaw and migrate to room temperature throughout your stroll through the store. The “danger zone” clock starts here.
What’s the “danger zone” clock?
Between the temperatures of 40°F and 140° F germs are in their happy zone and can multiply quickly to infectious numbers. After 2 hours at this temperature, food is unsafe to eat.
If the temperature of your meat, seafood, dairy, or prepared foods raises above 40° F, the clock starts. You have a total of two hours to cook or consume the food (one hour if the ambient temperature is above 90° F). Getting it back in the fridge when you get home only hits pause on the clock.
While it is ok to place canned or dry goods on top of each other, cart Tetris can get tricky when you throw meat into the mix.
Raw foods should be kept separate from ready-to-eat foods.
Even in the shopping cart. Harmful germs that will get cooked in the meat can easily contaminate your berries or cereals.
Place them in a different part of the cart. If bags are available, use them to contain any wayward juices that might migrate to other food.
When checking out, make sure that meat is bagged separately.
Always inspect the package before purchasing. Open or broken packages are risky purchases. Food may have become contaminated at any point of its life cycle.
A punctured meat package, tamper seal removed on yogurt, open box of pasta, or other breaches leave you wondering, “what have you been through?”
It isn’t worth the risk. Either leave it on the shelf or report it to a store employee.
Once you get meat home and in your fridge, placement is just as important there as it was in your shopping cart.
Store raw meat on the bottom shelf where the temperature is coldest. Place the package in a clean, sealed container so juices can not migrate to contaminate other food inside the refrigerator.
Now that you have your groceries at home, hopefully you cook them before they go bad. Keep an eye on expiration dates, especially on perishable items. But food safety continues as you prepare food in the kitchen.
Berries, like strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries may not be easy to scrub. But they need a good rinsing to washing away germs.
Berries can pick up a number of bacteria, viruses, and chemicals between the farm and the store. Rinse them under cold water just before you are ready to eat them to help keep them fresh
Big bulky melons like watermelon and cantaloupe are too much trouble to wash.
False!
Just about every year there is an outbreak and recall for melons. Listeria, E. coli, or other germs can grow on the rough rind and travel through to the flesh when cut.
Even foods that you do not eat the rind or skin needs to be washed. Bacteria from the outside can make its way inside when you cut or peel it.
I know its awkward. But wash your melons.
Sure, if you are only prepping fruit or vegetables. A single cutting board is just fine. But when you are adding meat to the board. Take a step back and think for a minute.
Meat can easily cross-contaminate other foods.
Always use a separate cutting board for meat and wash any utensils or surfaces that come in contact with meat or its juices before using for anything else.
Rinsing poultry has been an exposed food safety myth.
Yes, poultry has a high probability of Salmonella contamination. But cooking it to an appropriate minimum internal temperature should solve those bacterial risks.
Rinsing them in your kitchen sink, on the other hand, is more likely to splash those microscopic microbes to places you cannot see. Like the towel you are using to dry your hands. Or the forks on the drying rack.
Cook your chicken. Do not bathe it.
It may be tempting to try to fast forward the defrost time by leaving your frozen food on the counter or in the sink.
Remember that danger zone?
This isn’t Top Gun.
Avoid it!
Your best bet is to defrost food in the refrigerator overnight on a plate or in a leak-proof container to keep juices from contaminating other food in the fridge.
You’ve shopped and prepped your food. Now it is time to cook.
Don’t let food safety slack now!
Open wounds can carry harmful bacteria and germs. Exposing your germs to food or even lurking pathogens in raw or undercooked meat can have serious consequences.
Even a small scratch is an open wound.
What should you do?
Cover them with an adhesive bandage.
A quick sniff to make sure the milk is still good is sooo much better than checking the expiration date.
While yes, if a food has an off-smell, you should probably not consume it. Unless it is a delicious stinky cheese. In that case, consult your cheese monger.
But for everything else, pay attention to expiration dates and check for discoloration. Don’t risk it.
You may enjoy your steak rare or your eggs runny. But cooking food to a safe minimum internal temperature will kill lurking bacteria and inactivate harmful viruses.
Beef, pork, and veal should be cooked to at least 145° F. Chicken, leftovers, and ground beef needs a little warmer. Cook those to 165° F.
If you have made good choices while shopping, prepping, and cooking, don’t spoil it all by storing food unsafely. You do plan to eat the leftovers. Don’t you?
Dinner is a great time to connect with friends and family. This social time can get away from us and make us forget about the leftovers cooling on the table.
Properly cool leftovers as quickly as you can.
Remember that clock? It paused when you stored it in the refrigerator. Then again while you cooked it. But it started right back up again once it dropped below 140° F.
If leftovers are not stored properly within two hours, there is an increased risk of bacterial growth.
Eat leftovers within two days.
This may sound counterintuitive. Especially considering the last tip. But you don’t want to put piping hot food in the refrigerator. A drastic rise in temperature inside the refrigerator could put all of your food stored inside at risk.
So, what is the best way to handle this?
Separate food into shallow containers. This will allow food to cool down more quickly.
Overfilling your refrigerator can reduce air flow. It also makes it harder for the appliance to maintain the appropriate temperature (below 40° F).
I’m not saying shop for groceries every day. But be mindful of how full your fridge is and keep an eye on the temperature.
Chances are, you have at least occasionally lapsed on one or more of the risky food behaviors and survived to tell the tale. But don’t tempt food fate. You might end up with the consequences of your own choices.
If you’d like to know more about food safety topics in the news, like “How Many of These Risky Food Behaviors Are You Guilty Of?,” check out the Make Food Safe Blog. We regularly update trending topics, foodborne infections in the news, recalls, and more! Stay tuned for quality information to help keep your family safe, while The Lange Law Firm, PLLC strives to Make Food Safe!
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