Keep Your Food Safe This Holiday Season With These Tips

Let’s face it, as much as we love the holidays it is definitely a hectic time for all of us. Not only are you rushing to the mall to buy last minute gifts, but you are also rushing to prepare tons of food for your family and friends. Cooking a lot of food at one time is not only time consuming and stressful, but it yields a lot of opportunity for cross contamination and therefore, food-borne illness to occur.

It is likely that you may throw food safety out the window when you have a lot of food to cook in such little time. Nobody wants to be sick during the holidays, so here are some great tips to follow to help keep the food you are serving safe:

The number one rule of food safety is to ALWAYS wash your hands before handling food. When else should you wash your hands? Before and after handling raw meat and before handling food that won’t be cooked, such as fresh produce.

Though it may seem like the right thing to do, you should never wash raw meat or poultry because it is likely that you could spread bacteria to other areas around the sink and counter tops.
Prepare your refrigerator and freezer. Clean out your storage space to make sure that you have room for everything so that no food is sitting on top of each other, leaving opportunity for cross-contamination.
Raw eggs, meat, poultry or seafood should always be stored in the refrigerator away from foods that won’t be cooked.
Always use pasteurized eggs in recipes that call for raw eggs, such as eggnog. If you are cooking eggs, make sure they are cooked until the yolk and white are
firm.
Fresh produce should always be thoroughly washed under cool water. For leafy vegetables, submerge in a bowl of water and lift the leaves. This will allow all of the dirt to fall to the bottom of the bowl and leave your veggies nice and clean!
Keep an eye on temperatures. Cold food should be stored at 40 degrees or below and hot foods should be kept above 140 degrees. Don’t rely on the natural outdoor temperature to keep your food cold.
If food has been sitting out for more than 2 hours, always reheat it to 165 degrees before eating. Use a thermometer to check the temperatures of all hot food when you are cooking and to ensure cold foods are kept at the proper cold temperature.

Frozen food should NEVER be thawed on the countertop, but always in the refrigerator. Leave yourself enough thawing time. Remember, every 5 pounds of turkey (for example) requires 24 hours to thaw completely.
It is always helpful to have separate, color coded cutting boards for raw meat and fresh produce. For example, use red for meat and green for produce.

One of the best things about the holidays is leftovers. Though you may have tons of food to last you a few days, leftovers should always be eaten within 3-4 days. If not, freeze it.