Prevention

Safe steps in food handling, cooking, and storage are essential to avoiding food-borne illness. Bacteria cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted, which may be on any food.

Follow the CDC food safety guidelines to keep contaminants away.

Safe shopping

• Buy cold foods last during your shopping trip. Get them home fast.
  
• Never choose torn or leaking packages.
  
• Do not buy foods past their "sell-by" or expiration dates.
• Keep raw meat and poultry separate from other foods.
  

Safe storage of foods

• Keep it safe; refrigerate.
  
• Unload perishable foods first and immediately refrigerate them. Place raw meat, poultry, or fish in the coldest section of your refrigerator.
  
• Check the temperature of your appliances. To slow bacterial growth, the refrigerator should be at 40°F, the freezer at 0°F.
  
• Cook or freeze fresh poultry, fish, ground meats, and variety meats within two days.
  

Safe food preparation

• Keep everything clean!
  
• Wash hands before and after handling raw meat and poultry.
  
• Sanitize cutting boards often in a solution of one teaspoon chlorine bleach in one quart of water.
  
• Do not cross-contaminate. Keep raw meat, poultry, fish, and their juices away from other food. After cutting raw meats, wash hands, cutting board, knife, and counter tops with hot, soapy water.
  
• Marinate meat and poultry in a covered dish in the refrigerator. Discard any uncooked/unused marinade.
  

Thawing food safely

• Refrigerator: Allows slow, safe thawing. Make sure thawing juices do not drip on other foods.
  
• Cold water: For faster thawing, place food in a leak-proof plastic bag and submerge in cold tap water.
  
• Microwave: Cook meat and poultry immediately after microwave thawing.
  

Safe cooking

• Use a meat thermometer.
  
• Cook ground meats to 160°F; ground poultry to 165°F. Beef, veal, and lamb steaks, roasts and chops may be cooked to 145°F; all cuts of fresh pork, 160°F. Whole poultry should reach 180°F in the thigh; breasts 170°F.
  
• Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.
  
• Never leave food out more than two hours (or more than one hour in temperatures above 90°F).
  
• Bacteria that cause food poisoning grow rapidly at room temperature.
  
• Use cooked leftovers within four days.