While not the most glamorous thing to talk about, food safety is incredibly important for our health and well-being. There are many, simple things you can do to reduce your risk of food poisoning and help keep you and your family safe.
With some big food recalls in the news over the past couple of years, most notably with spinach and Romaine lettuce, food safety has jumped into the spotlight. Is our food safe? How can we take steps to improve the safety of the food we prepare at home? Today, I’m going to touch on the basics of food safety, who regulates our food, and what a food recall means.
Who makes sure our food is safe?
On the national level in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are responsible for the safety of our food. The FDA provides regulatory oversight for most foods, including everything from fresh produce to infant formula to bottled water. The USDA regulates certain animal-products like meat, poultry, and eggs. They set standards for safety and cleanliness of facilities, perform inspections, and issue recalls if required.
On the state and local level, health departments conduct inspections of food service facilities. This includes things like restaurants, cafeterias, and other commercial kitchens in places like longterm care facilities.
What’s a food recall, and how does it happen?
A food recall occurs when a food is mislabeled, contaminated, or otherwise deemed unsafe. They vary in severity, and involve removing the unsafe food product from store shelves, restaurants, etc. Generally, a food recall includes information about a specific brand, manufacturing dates, etc. that narrow down which products might be affected. Sometimes, however, as in the case of the Romaine lettuce recall, this information isn’t known right away. In these instances, all of that kind of product is recalled until more information can be gathered about which specific products might be affected. So, for clarification, in the recent Romaine lettuce recall, not all of the lettuce was actually contaminated. The FDA just didn’t have enough information about which specific products might be affected, so to be safe they recalled it all. Many food recalls don’t get the mass attention of the Romaine lettuce recall, however, and many may occur without a consumer knowing at all. To know when all recalls happen, you can check this site.
How can I protect myself and others from foodborne illness?
Outside of food recalls, there’s always the potential for bacteria and other things to contaminate food. There are many easy, effective ways to reduce your risk for foodborne illness and the more you do the safer you are!
Hygiene
Basic personal hygiene is the first step in safe cooking. Make sure you wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water before food prep even begins. Handwashing throughout the cooking process is important as well. Make sure to wash your hands before handling any ready-to-eat foods that you won’t be cooking. Wash your hands thoroughly after touching raw meat, poultry, or seafood and eggs as well. Cover up any cuts, scrapes, abrasions, etc to avoid potential contact with food. Even if you aren’t the one cooking, it’s important to wash your hands before eating to prevent yourself from contaminating your own food.
Kitchen cleanliness
While your kitchen doesn’t need to be spotless, it should be regularly cleaned to avoid contaminating your food. Wipe up spills promptly, especially if they involve raw egg or juices from uncooked meat. Regularly wipe down all kitchen surfaces, even if they don’t look “dirty”. We can’t see bacteria! Your refrigerator should also be cleaned out about every 6 months. For more tips on how to do that, check out this blog post.
Cutting boards
Cutting boards can be a huge source for potential contamination. Make sure that your cutting board is regularly cleaned and sanitized and check for wear. Grooves in your cutting board caused by knives overtime can harbor bacteria and be more difficult to clean. It’s also a good idea to have a separate cutting board for raw meat and raw vegetables. This greatly reduces the chance of potential cross-contamination that could make you sick.
Cross-contamination
Keep ready-to-eat foods that won’t be cooked separate from raw foods. Meat, poultry, and seafood should be stored on lower shelves in the refrigerator than ready-to-eat foods to reduce the potential of anything dripping and contaminating food. Knives, hands, cutting boards, counters, etc should all be washed in between contact with raw meat, poultry, and seafood.
Washing appropriate foods
Thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables can help remove any dirt, bacteria, etc. that may be on them. Even if you don’t eat the skin (ie a cantaloupe, avocado, etc) washing them off is still important because you can transfer bacteria from the skin to the flesh while slicing through it. On the other hand, washing raw meat and poultry is not advised since it can actually cause more harm than good. Unlike produce, raw meat shouldn’t have any dirt or debris on it that needs to be cleaned off. Also unlike produce, meat is almost always cooked before eating which kills bacteria. Washing off meat can actually spread this bacteria to your sink and nearby surfaces which could contaminate other foods/cooking utensils. Since you’re going to kill the bacteria through cooking anyway, it’s best to skip washing your meat and poultry.
Cooking
The good news is that thoroughly cooking foods helps destroy a lot of potentially dangerous bacteria. If you don’t already have a meat thermometer–it’s a good investment. While there are numerous tricks to check if meat/poultry is “done”, none are as effective as knowing its internal temperature. You can find the safe minimum internal temperatures for different foods here.
Keeping things out of the danger zone
The danger zone is the temperature range at which bacteria grows most rapidly. This is between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit (which includes room temp). It’s important to make sure that food isn’t in this temperature range for longer than 2 hours. If it is, it is much more likely to cause foodborne illness. Keep your hot foods hot and your cold foods cold. When thawing foods, make sure to do this in the refrigerator or microwave and not by leaving things out on the counter. You can even thaw many meats, particularly ground meats, while cooking them. In order to keep leftovers safe, make sure that they’re kept in a shallow dish and promptly refrigerated or frozen.
How many of these food safety tips are you already implementing in your kitchen? What other food safety tips do you have? Let me know in the comments!