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BBQ COOKING AND FOOD SAFETY TIPS
Barbecue cooking can help to keep your energy bills down and who doesn’t love the summertime smell of barbecues wafting through our backyards and kitchens?
When barbecue cooking food safety is especially important, because harmful bacteria in food that can cause foodborne illness are able to thrive and multiply when food is undercooked or sits for too long at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees – or what’s known as the food danger zone. Our tips can help you keep your tasty BBQ meal safe.
Ten simple BBQ cooking and food safety tips:
- Wash your hands with warm, soapy water for 20 seconds before handling food. If
you are not near a sink, use pre-packaged hand wipes.
- Start with fresh fish, meats,
and poultry and rinse these foods in cool water to remove any bacteria that may
have collected in their packaging.
- Marinate your meat, seafood and poultry in the refrigerator. Do not use the sauce
that you used to marinate raw meat, seafood or poultry on cooked food. Instead,
reserve some fresh marinade for basting or boil used marinade before applying it
to cooked food. NEVER put cooked food items back on the same plate that previously
held raw food - take a fresh plate out to the grill!
- Wash your fruits and vegetables.
Cantaloupe and other melons are often left unwashed and are common sources of foodborne
illness; bacteria on the outside skin are transferred into the edible portion of
the fruit when they are cut. To prevent this, lightly scrub them with a vegetable
brush under running water.
- Keep raw meat, seafood and poultry away from other foods
by using a different knife and cutting board than you do for your fresh fruit and
vegetables. This will prevent cross-contamination (inadvertently transferring bacteria
from one source to another).
- Always cook meats to their appropriate internal temperatures
(165° for meats, 180° for poultry, fish should be opaque and flaky). Use your meat
thermometer to ensure that food reaches a safe temperature.
- Remember to keep items
such as potato and egg salad cold until it is time to serve the meal. Leaving cold
salads in the food danger zone (between 40° and 140°F) for more than 2 hours allows
bacteria to thrive and multiply. A good rule of thumb is to keep cold foods cold
and hot foods hot.
- Keep your cooler filled to maintain its cold temperature. A partially
filled cooler will become warm quickly and may not keep your food out of the food
danger zone (below 40° F); add ice to ensure a constant cold temperature.
- When in
doubt, throw it out - discard food that has been left out over 1-2 hours or if ice
is gone from the cooler! Even after a short amount of time, perishable food is very
susceptible to bacterial growth.
- And finally, serve your delicious grilled meats,
fruits, and veggies with a crisp summer salad and a cold glass of low-fat milk.
You can even end the meal with ice cream and fresh strawberries, an easy, tasty,
and cool finale to a warm summer evening.
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