Food Safety - Marinades

One of the most important safety tips to remember when working in the kitchen is to prevent cross contamination. This occurs when bacteria is transferred from one object to another. Failing to prevent this can be harmful to humans and may result in a foodborne illness.

Reusing a marinade can cause cross contamination because of the bacteria that may be present from having been in contact with the raw meat. The only way the marinade can be reused is to boil it thoroughly for use as a basting liquid or as part of a sauce for the meat.

Safely Handling Eggs

Eggs are a very popular breakfast dish and are a common ingredient in many different recipes. Unfortunately, eggs are a high risk food because they can carry the bacteria Salmonella. They also pose as a potential cross contamination among other foods in the kitchen. This is why you must take certain safety precautions when handling eggs. Here are a few tips:

1. Cook your eggs to the proper temperature - they need to reach at least 145 degrees throughout. Cook eggs to a point where yolks and whites are solidified.
2. Purchase pasteurized eggs. You can enjoy a full range of foods such as over easy eggs, cookie dough, or Caesar salad dressing, without the risk associated with non-pasteurized eggs.
3. Be sure to wash your hands frequently when handling raw egg products as well as before and after handling them.
4. Refrigerate your eggs. The best temperature eggs should be stored at are between 38 and 40 degrees F. Make sure not to expose eggs to the “temperature danger zone”!

Food Safety

Do you know what the temperature danger zone is? It is the temperature range of 41 degrees F and 135 degrees F, in which disease-causing bacteria grows the fastest in. In order to ensure that your perishable foods don’t spoil, it is best to remove them from the temperature danger zone after a maximum of 2 hours. This means the food should either be eaten, frozen, or put in the refrigerator. When serving perishable foods to guests, hot foods can be held between 135 and 165 degrees F and cold foods can be held between 32 and 41 degrees F.

Be sure to practice safe food handling techniques!

Food Safety Tip

When reheating foods remember to heat thoroughly and to an internal temperature of 165F.

Food Safety

The temperature in your refrigerator should be below 40 degrees F and below 32 degrees F. in your freezer.

Food Safety

When buying meat, here are some guidelines to follow to ensure that you are getting good meat, and not something that is about to go bad if not already bad. Yes, I have experienced finding in stores discolored meat that should not have been on the shelf. Were people still picking up the packages contemplating to buy it? You bet!

So keep this list as your criteria for acceptable:
Beef Color: bright cherry red
Lamb Color: light red
Pork Color: pink lean meat, white fat
Texture Color: firm and springs back when touched

Do not accept or buy if it is:
Color: brown or greenish in color, brown, has green or purple blotches or
white or green spots
Texture: slimy, sticky or dry
Packaging: broken cartons, dirty wrappers or torn packaging
Odor: sour odor

Food Safety

To reduce the risk of cross-contamination, never store cooked or ready-to-eat food below raw food. In other words, don't place your birthday cake below a package of raw fish. Juices from the raw meats may leak out and contaminate your ready-to-eat, cooked food, or in this case your birthday cake. From top to bottom order this is how your raw meats should be stored in your refrigerator:

top shelf - all cooked and ready-to-eat food then...

1. fish - 145

2. whole cuts of beef - 145

3. pork/ham/bacon/sausage - 145

4. ground beef and ground pork - 155

5. poultry - 165 (always on the bottom shelf)

Why in this order? Because the minimal internal cooking temperature for each meat is different, they should be stored in such a way that the meat on the bottom shelf is the one with the highest internal cooking temperature. In other words because the minimal cooking temperature for poultry is 165, it should never be stored above fish which has a lower internal cooking temperature (145). If some of the juices from the poultry were to contaminate the fish, during the cooking process the fish would never reach a high enough temperature to cook out all the bacteria it was cross contaminated with, therefore increasing the risk of someone getting sick. So please be safe and always store your meats in this order if possible!

Food Safety

There really are only three safe ways to thaw food that I would recommend.

1. In a refrigerator, at temperatures of 41F or lower.
2. Submerged under running potable water, at a temperature of 70F or lower.
3. In a microwave oven, if the food will be cooked immediately after thawing.

Be safe and follow these guidelines!

Food Safety - Raw Meats

Don't put cooked meat on the same plate that was used for raw meat. This can cause bacterial contamination and make you really sick. The same danger applies to cooking utensils — use one set of tongs to pick up raw meat and a separate set of tongs to pick up cooked meat....if only everyone in my industry did this, I would never have experienced food poisoning!

Food Safety

The surfaces of some fruits and veggies may be contaminated with bacteria or coated with pesticides. Thoroughly wash all fruits and vegetables before eating. This goes for the inedible skins of fruits and veggies, like cantaloupe and avocados. Also, keep fruits and veggies away from raw meats, seafood, and eggs.