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Thursday, May 7, 2015

Food Safety Tips for Memorial Day Weekend


Picnics, barbecues, family, friends and the traditional start of summer… Who doesn’t love Memorial Day weekend? While you’re assembling your list of activities for the busy holiday weekend, you may want to remember to add some standard food safety precautions to the agenda. With the warmer weather, the buffet style feeding frenzy, and the potluck smorgasbords that you’re about to partake in, your risk for a foodborne illness is likely to increase significantly. And, I didn’t even mention the lack of hand washing facilities, in some instances… step away from my food!



·       • Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water (100⁰F) before handling any food and after handling raw meat, poultry, or raw eggs.

·        • Always rinse fresh fruits and vegetables.

·       • Cook foods to the required temperatures, especially ground beef (155⁰F), pork (145⁰F), and poultry (165⁰F).

·       • Keep hot foods hot (above 135⁰F) and cold foods cold (below 41⁰F).

Avoid cross contamination, don’t let raw meat products come into contact with ready-to-eat foods (i.e. lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese, bread). Don’t use the same plates and utensils for raw and cooked meat products; for example, don’t carry meat to the grill on a plate and then place the cooked burgers on that same plate without first properly washing it. Someone could get E.coli or Salmonella as a result of this cross-contamination and spend hours lying on the bathroom floor… or worse.



Many picnic foods are potentially hazardous, and should be handled with care:

·       • Any product that contains eggs, meat, poultry, tuna, potatoes, pasta, etc.

·       • Lunchmeats, protein foods, ham salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, etc.

·       • Meat, fish, poultry

·       • Milk and dairy

·       • Sliced tomatoes

·       • Cut melons – yes, melons!

Again, KEEP HOT FOODS HOT (above 135⁰F) and KEEP COLD FOODS COLD (below 41⁰F)! Enjoy your time with your family and friends, and keep everyone safe and healthy!

*Temperatures in article are reflective of the 2013 FDA FOOD CODE

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