Summer Food Safety Guidelines
Summer parties can take on many forms, such as community picnics, outdoor pot-lucks with friends and neighbors, or tailgate parties. There is also one sure thing at every picnic – lots of good food. The important point is to have safe and healthy food, not food that can cause food borne illness, especially during warm summer months when the weather can quickly lead to spoiled food. Each year there are over 76 million cases of food borne illness...67% of these are due to improper food handling.
There are 4 things to remember when planning a party outdoors:
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Clean
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Separate
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Cook
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Chill
Other things to remember:
- Always wash hands and work areas before preparing food.
- Plan your menu with an eye to safe food handling. Cook foods in plenty of time to thoroughly chill them in shallow containers in the refrigerator before packing.
- Have enough coolers with ice or frozen gel packs in which to store perishable foods like meat, poultry, fish, eggs and salads. You want to keep the food at 40 degrees F. Fill cracks and crevices with ice packs or frozen bottles of water. You can further insulate warm foods by placing your cloth napkins, a kitchen towel or other linens in the cooler along with the food.
- Pack foods right from the refrigerator into the coolers. Your cooler should be used to keep foods at a steady temperature – not to cool them down. If you place warm food in a cooler with ice, the ice is going to melt before the food can chill.
- Pack raw meats, poultry or seafood on the bottom of the cooler. This will reduce the risk of them dripping on other foods.
- Arrange food in the cooler so that the items you’ll be eating first are on top. That way, you won’t have to dig through the contents and take some things out to find what you need.
- Pack coolers until they are full. A full cooler will stay cold longer than one that is partially full.
- Don't put the cooler in the car trunk; carry it inside an air-conditioned car. At picnics, keep the cooler in the shade and keep the lid closed. Replenish the ice if it melts.
- Use a separate cooler for drinks so the one containing food won't constantly be opened and closed.
- Find out if there's a source of safe drinking water at your picnic destination. If not, bring water for preparation and cleaning; or pack clean, wet, disposable cloths or moist towelettes and paper towels for cleaning hands and surfaces. Cross-contamination during preparation, grilling, and serving food is a prime cause of food borne illness.
- If you plan on getting takeout foods, such as fried chicken, eat the food within an hour of pick up.
- Do not partially grill extra meat or poultry to use later. Once you begin, cook until completely done to assure bacteria are destroyed. Grill raw poultry until the juices run clear and there is no pink. Hamburgers should not be pink in the center.
- When taking food off the grill, don’t put the cooked items on the same platter that held the raw meat unless you have washed the platter in between uses.
- Follow the “two hour rule.” Don't leave perishable food un-refrigerated for more than two hours. Put perishable foods back in a cooler as soon as you finish eating. Don't leave them out while you go for a swim or a hike, and don't leave them out all afternoon for nibbling.
- If picnic leftovers have been sitting out for more than an hour or two, discard them. Cold food that was kept in a cooler that still has ice should be safe. If the ice has melted, the food should be discarded.