Summer BBQ season is nearing it’s end and winter holiday season will soon be upon us. Think food safety every time you eat or cook foods this holiday season.
Don’t be lulled into a sense of false food safety. Home grown garden fresh vegetables, fruit, poultry and backyard livestock like rabbits can become contaminated with dangerous e coli, listeria, salmonella and other dangerous food borne bacteria just like produces that are processed in commercial food processing plants.
Leafy vegetables are the most difficult to properly clean. Remove and discard the outermost leaves of a head of lettuce or cabbage (put them in your compost pile or feed them to your chickens) and rinse very carefully under cold running water. Other vegetables and fruit including melons, intended to be consumed raw must be thoroughly washed. Never ever, eat an apple or grape straight out of the bag without first washing your fruits.
Don’t cross contaminate one food with another. Avoid cross contaminating foods by washing hands, utensils, and cutting boards after they have been in contact with raw meat or poultry and before they touch any other food.
Heat kills bacteria. Cooking meats to the proper internal temperature kills harmful, dangerous disease causing bacteria. The temperatures in the chart below are the minimum temperature needed to kill harmful bacteria. Hotter is better!
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140 fahrenheit = 60 celsius, 145 fahrenheit = 63 celsius
160 fahrenheit = 71 celsius, 165 fahrenheit = 74 celsius
The only was to know for sure that your food has reached the minimum safe cooking temperature is to use a food thermometer. Anyone that tells you that a thermometer is unnecessary is endangering their health as well as their families health. Every year in the U.S. 48 million people gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of food borne diseases. Almost all food borne illnesses could have been avoided with proper food handling and cooking procedures in your kitchen.
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