Don’t test your luck: food safety and pot lucks

Happy Easter!

Our church, Presley Chapel UMC.
We'd love to have you join us!

Our little church has an Easter tradition of a church pot luck after the egg hunt.  As I was making my dishes on Sunday morning, and loading them in the back of my car for the ¾-mile trip to our country church, my meat-scientist husband and I had several discussions about the safest preparation and storage plans for our dishes. That got me thinking that lots of people probably have questions about preparing, storing and traveling with food for a potluck.

Food safety is especially important at potluck dinners because you are preparing food for a wide variety of people, including vulnerable people like the elderly, or the sick, or small children. The food is more likely to sit out a while before being served, and lots of people have probably handled it. As with any food prep, be sure to remember the 4 steps of food safety Clean, Cook, Chill, and Separate. Other than that, I have a few other thoughts specific to potluck foods.

First, clean.

Be sure to wash your hands and make sure your utensils and dishes are clean. Sometimes, my casserole dishes get a little neglected in the back of the cabinet, so I washed them before I started. Deadly bacteria may live on dust and adding wet food and warm temperatures can stimulate them to grow and produce toxins that make people very sick, very fast.

Separate.

Make sure you keep foods that you plan to cook, like raw meat and eggs, separated from those that you will eat without cooking, like breads and fresh fruit and vegetables. Keep the dishes and utensils separate, too. When there’s space, I try to prepare uncooked foods in a completely separate part of the kitchen than ready-to-eat foods.

Cook.

When you are preparing a dish for a potluck, it is especially important to use a meat thermometer on meats and dishes containing eggs. Make sure you get things cooked to 160°F (165°F for poultry).  Even dishes that don’t contain meat should probably be cooked to 160°F, that should help kill any bacteria that may cause spoilage or could grow during the storage times and make people sick.

(At potluck dinners, you don’t have much control on how long the dishes are held, but you can be extra cautious about cleanliness and cookery to eliminate bacteria in the dish initially. That way, fewer bacteria are present to grow in the dish before it’s served.) 

Chill.

Picnics or potlucks,
get your leftovers in the fridge!

Knowing when to chill a dish for potluck is hard. I made three dishes on Sunday morning at 8 am. I knew that we would probably not eat until after 12:15. So, I had to decide if I wanted to keep my dishes warm for 4 hours or chill them down and heat them back up. Our church is small, and we have a brand new oven in the kitchen. I decided to put them in the fridge and warm them back up before we served lunch. The main concern is to minimize the amount of time your dishes spend in the Danger Zone of temperature (40°F to 140°F) before they are served.

Cover.

When you cook your food and it reaches 160°F or higher, most of the bacteria are killed. So, keeping it covered will keep new bacteria out during the trip to the dinner. Some of the people at church on Sunday, covered their dishes with foil when they cooked it, then covered the foil with those plastic lids that come with the casserole dishes. I thought that was a great idea, once the food was cooked, it didn’t have to be uncovered until it was served. I was not as pleased with my foil covering on my dishes, but it got the job done. 

Transport.

When you live ¾ of a mile from church, you can throw the softball stuff to one side of your trunk and transport your dishes for potluck in the back of your car (The hills didn’t cause them to spill! YAY!). Most people don’t have that luxury, so you have to think about traveling with your potluck dish.

My best advice is simply to keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.

Use a cooler with ice packs for cold dishes like coleslaw or deviled eggs. If a cooler is too bulky, you might just pack some ice in a large baggie and place your dishes on it. For warm dishes, there are some great thermal casserole carriers that you can buy or put them in a cooler to keep them warm. If you don’t have far to go, just wrapping the dishes in towels will help keep them warm.

Reheat.

If you need to reheat your dish, be sure to use a thermometer and heat it to 160°F. Take the temperature in a few places in the dish. Some ovens don’t heat evenly, especially older ones, and you want to make sure the whole dish warm.

Leftovers.

Just like at home, you don’t want those leftovers to set out at room temperature for more than 2 hours. Get them covered and in the fridge as soon as you can.

Other thoughts.

·       Preparing single-serving items, like fried chicken, green bean bundles, or deviled eggs, minimizes the number of people who handle the food, which would minimize the chances of contamination.

·        You may consider listing any allergens that your food may contain on an index card to accompany your dish. Common allergens include wheat, dairy, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, shell fish, fish and soy. If there are people with diabetes in your crowd, you may think about making dishes without sugar.

·        If you have a good distance to travel, you may consider making dishes that are less likely to spoil. For instance, you may make a savory green bean bundle rather than the classic green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup. Salty and sugary dishes are less likely to spoil that dishes that contain more cream and mayonnaise.

·        When taste-testing your dishes, be sure to use a new spoon every time. Don’t be a double dipper.

·        If you’ve been sick, just go buy something from the store for the potluck. Fried chicken, drinks, ice. Don’t try to prepare anything. You don’t want to spread your illness.

I love potluck dinners, but they can be dangerous if people are not careful about food safety. I hope that you can feel a little more confident about preparing food for them in the future. Please ask me any questions you may have in the comments.

Ten things you didn’t know about ground beef

Ground beef is one of our favorite cuts of meat in the US, but I’ll bet that you have lots of questions about it. The USDA dictates what can and cannot be labeled as ground beef and that information is published in the Code of Federal Regulations. They call those rules ‘standards of identity’ and they apply to labels of ‘chopped beef’ and ‘hamburger’ as well as ground beef.

Here are a few things that you may not have known about ground beef:

1.       Ground beef must be from cattle. Any other animal would be considered misbranded and would be illegal.

2.       Ground beef is made from only muscle. It must be skeletal muscle. No eyes, skin, guts or anything but muscle. (As of 2017, heart is allowed in ground beef, but its really just another muscle.)

3.       Ground beef must be at least 70% lean. No more than 30% fat. It is usually leaner than that, though.

4.       Ground beef is not made from ‘leftovers’ or ‘scraps off the floor’. The fact is, not every cut of beef is equal. Some make great steaks on the grill. Others make great roasts in the oven. Some pieces of the beef carcass are either the wrong size or too tough to be tasty as whole muscle cuts. So, to get maximum use out of the entire animal, butchers collect those pieces in clean containers called lugs and grind them up into ground beef.

5.       Ground beef is the most popular cut of beef. In the US, we enjoy lots of ground beef. In fact, we like it so much that butchers are now grinding up cuts that used to be sold as steaks and roasts. In a large processing plant, the decisions on what to grind up and what to leave whole are made based on price and demand.

6.       Ground beef may not contain any added water. Beef itself contains water, but processors are not permitted to add water to the ground beef.

7.       Ground beef may not contain any phosphates, binders or extenders. Some processed meat products use non-meat fillers such as texturized vegetable protein to stretch the protein portion of a processed meat. If these ingredients are added, it cannot be labeled ground beef.



8.       Ground beef is not all the same. Some dishes work best with really lean ground beef, whereas other are tastier with fattier ground beef. Generally, the more lean the ground beef, the more costly it is. Just like people, not all animals are the same in fatness, and just like people, different parts of the animal have different amounts of fat. Think about how your thigh compares to your abdomen. (mine are different, if yours are not, congratulations) When formulating ground beef, the processors mix some of the leaner cuts (like leg muscles) in with some of the fattier cuts (like abdominal cuts) to get their target fat content.

9.       Ground sirloin, ground round, ground chuck are also ground beef, with more requirements. Those labels not only let the customer know from where on the carcass their ground meat comes, they also give the consumer the percent fat. Ground sirloin and ground round are usually labeled as 15% fat and ground chuck is usually 20% fat. You can look for the fat percentage on the label.   Special ground meats like these must be at least 50% from the source specified. (For example, ground sirloin must be made from at least 50% sirloin cuts.)

10.   Ground beef should always be cooked to 160°F. Because ground beef is ground and mixed, bacteria may be found anywhere within the patty (not just on the surface like in a steak or roast). To make sure all those bacteria are killed, you need to cook your burger to 160°F and check the temperature with a meat thermometer! Checking the temperature will also keep you from over-cooking your burgers so they will be juicy and flavorful!

I hope you have learned something about ground beef and that you enjoy your burger this summer.

Antibiotics in the meat supply: Residues vs. Resistance

There has been a lot of news coverage and proposed legislation lately calling for the banning of antibiotic use in farm animals. People can get very frightened when we talk about antibiotic resistant bacteria or antibiotics in the meat supply.

This has been an especially personal topic for me because our family recently had a scare with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In May, my daughter had a little lump behind her ear. I found it over a weekend and by Sunday evening, she was running a low fever, so we went to the doctor on Monday morning. By 6pm, we were admitted to the hospital with a very high fever and a freshly-lanced abscess. It took 2 of days of testing, and she was diagnosed with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). She spent three nights in the hospital on IV antibiotics. Now, she’s fine and back to her little rotten self.

MRSA - Antibiotic-resistant Staph

Experiences like ours are very scary, and I know there are a lot of parents with much worse stories to tell than mine. However, most people know very little about antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. When they hear about antibiotics in relation to our food supply, they don’t know what to think.

First, what exactly are we talking about?

Antibiotics administered to animals headed to the food supply.

  

Why are animals given antibiotics?

There are two main reasons why animals are given antibiotics.

1. The most obvious reason is that animals are given antibiotics when they are sick or injured to fight infection.

Most people agree that it would be inhumane to withhold a drug from a sick animal and allow it to suffer. Even organic farms and antibiotic-free farms have a protocol in place to treat a sick animal and remove it from their herd.

2. Sometimes animals are given antibiotics to prevent them from getting sick. 

Just like kids, young animals are prone to infection. In some farms, animals live very close to one another and they are not very clean creatures (you just can’t teach a piglet to wash his hooves), so if one gets sick, they could all get sick very quickly. That could spell disaster for a farmer, so some farms choose to feed a low level of antibiotics to prevent disease.

3. Some antibiotics are given to improve how fast and efficiently animals grow.

There are new rules about antibiotics from FDA as of June 2015. I'm doing some research on them to make sure I understand them before I share what they mean in this post. Thanks for bearing with me. 

  

You may have heard a statistic in a news story that said that 80% of the antibiotics sold in the US are given to livestock animals. That number is largely disputed. First, it is impossible to know how many antibiotics are sold in the US, for use in livestock or in humans. Second, a large percentage of drugs used by farmers are not useful in human medicine. Lastly, livestock represent a larger population of bodies than do humans. And, cows and pigs are a lot bigger than humans; pound for pound, they need more antibiotics. What is the real number? Who knows?

What about antibiotics in my meat?

When people in the food industry talk about antibiotics, there are two terms they use: antibiotic residues and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

‘Antibiotic residues’ refers to actual antibiotic chemicals that have been given to the animals, either fed or given as injections, remaining in the edible tissue (meat, fat, or even milk).

The Food and Drug Administration regulates the approval and use of antibiotics in animal medicine. Any antibiotic that is given to a food animal has a specified ‘withdrawal time’ which is the amount of time that the antibiotic has to be withdrawn from the animal before it is slaughtered. These times are based on how long it takes the animal to process the antibiotic so that it is eliminated from the body. Farmers must wait to slaughter an animal for that amount of time after giving the antibiotic to the animal or they will be breaking the law.

The Food Safety Inspection Service (part of USDA) monitors the meat supply and tests for antibiotic residues in the meat. The levels of antibiotic residues found in the meat supply are very low (below 1%), and tests are done on a worst-case scenario basis, which means FSIS tests the tissues that are most likely to contain antibiotic residues (liver and kidneys) and they test a larger percentage of suspect animals (old cows, animals with injection scars, etc.). Although the levels are not zero, I am not really worried about antibiotic residues in meat.

A group called the US Farmers Ranchers Alliance has a video of experts discussing antibiotic residues.

‘Antibiotic-resistant bacteria’ refers to bacteria that are not easily killed by common antibiotics, they are resistant.

How do bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

Bacteria are everywhere, and there are millions of species, strains, and serotypes… all fancy ways of saying ‘different’ bacteria. Bacteria have a genetic code, just like humans, and they change and evolve with each generation. Unlike humans, they multiply at crazy-fast rates, so their genes can change at fast rates. When you introduce something to kill the bacteria like antibiotics, most of them die, but a few live. The ones that live may have had something in their genetic code that allowed them to survive the antibiotic treatment. All the other bacteria are gone, so that leaves more room and food for the left over bacteria to grow. When they grow, they pass their antibiotic-resistant genes to the next generations. Eventually, those antibiotic-resistant bacteria are spread around, and found all over the place. We have to learn to fight them in different ways.

A study from 2003-2004 found that MRSA (the bacteria my daughter fought) was in 1.5% of American noses. That was 8 years ago, and the bacteria have been spreading since then, so the numbers are probably larger now.

Are antibiotic-resistant bacteria in my food and how did they get there?

Yep. Antibiotic –resistant bacteria are in our food supply. They are everywhere.

Our food is handled by several different people and goes through several steps to get to our plates, and bacteria can be introduced at any of those steps. Some people want to blame the use of antibiotics in animal feed and that may be part of it, but it is likely that several actions contribute to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Can it make me and my family sick?

There are some forms of dangerous food borne pathogens like Salmonella and E.coli that have developed some resistance to antibiotics. That means that if you get one of these bacterial infections in your gut, it will be harder for doctors to help you fight them. But, even the non-resistant forms of these bacteria are very dangerous and can make you very, very sick.

What can I do?

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are susceptible to foodsafety measures such as cooking food thoroughly and keeping raw food away from cooked food. 

• Cooking kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria just like it kills antibiotic-susceptible bacteria. Use a meat thermometer to be sure you cookmeat thoroughly. 
• Hot soap and water wash antibiotic-resistant bacteria off of counter tops and utensils. 
• Antibiotic-resistant bacteria cannot grow as well in cold environments just like the antibiotic susceptible strains, so getting fresh food and leftovers chilled quickly is very important.
• Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can’t jump through the air from raw food to cooked food, so keep raw and ready-to-eat foods separate.

  

Anything else?

The main two bacteria species that we hear about when we talk about antibiotic resistance are Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile. Although they are huge issues in the medical industry, the CDC does not see them as a risk in the meat industry. Food safety practices should keep you from getting sick from these bacteria in your food.

However, you may have heard that MRSA has been found in 6.6% of pork samples in a US study. I emailed the author of that study for this post. She was really nice and said that the worry with MRSA in meat is not as much about getting sick from it being in your food as it is about the MRSA spreading from the raw meat to other surfaces and being introduced to a scratch or an open sore and causing severe skin infections, like the one my daughter had.

Lots of bacteria from raw meat can cause skin infections if they are introduced to an opening in the skin, and these antibiotic-resistant ones are very hard to fight. So, my advice is to be extra careful with raw meat, especially with children (face it, they are dirty little monsters. I’ve seen mine lick the bottom of her shoe.).

Keep raw meat separate from other food from the time to pick it out at the grocery store until you cook it.  

• Use a plastic bag to keep raw meat away from other food items and away from surfaces like the bottom of the grocery cart.
• Wash your hands after handling raw meat
• Wash down the countertop with warm soapy water after it came into contact with raw meat (even in the package)
• If you have a cut on your hands, wear gloves when handling raw meat (like when you make hamburger patties.)
• Don’t let very small children handle or be in contact with raw meat

My friend Karen sent me this picture of her grocery cart. Her roast is in its package away from the rest of her food. Looks like she put a piece of butcher paper under it. Way to go Karen!

There have been studies connecting antibiotic-resistant E. coli bacteria from chicken to urinary tract infections. If I have been handling raw meat, I wash my hands before AND after going to the restroom.

I called and asked the pediatrician if there was any way to know where the MRSA that infected my daughter came from, and there was not. The doctor told us that lots of people are infected with it and kids ‘pick their nose, then pick their wounds.’ Gross.

What about buying meat from animals that have not been given antibiotics?

There are companies and farms that offer meat from animals that have never been given antibiotics. I’ve talked about such programs in a previous blog post. If you choose to buy those products because you want to support the practice of never giving animals antibiotics, that’s fine, but you should know that meat from these farms are not guaranteed to be free from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The meat is not any safer than the meat that does not make that claim. A recent study found that the levels of Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA in pork were the same regardless of it being from pig farms that did not use antibiotics.

Denmark has banned the use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics and the results have not been positive for their pork industry. Jeff Fowle, a rancher and blogger from California discusses the ramifications of Denmark's decision in his blog.

Like I said earlier, there is lots of info on the internet about antibiotics (residues and resistant bacteria) in meat and in general.

I don’t know all the answers. Here is a list of a few more resources if you are interested.

MeatMythCrusher Video with Dr. Keith Belk

National Residue Program Fact Sheet from AMI

AMI Fact Sheet about antibiotics


NCBA facts on antibiotics

CDC page on antibiotic resistance

Antimicrobial resistance learning site for vets

FAQ from AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association)

The Big Turkey Day!

Did you know that according to records, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people shared beef and (undisclosed) fowl at the first Thanksgiving? No one is sure why the large bird has become so closely associated with our National Day of Thanksgiving. I know that my turkey-farmer neighbors appreciate it.
According to the National Turkey Federation website, 88% of American’s eat turkey on Thanksgiving. It is estimated that American’s consumed 46 million turkeys last Thanksgiving. In fact, Benjamin Franklin wrote to his daughter that he preferred the turkey over the eagle for the Official National Bird. Hmmm… Maybe Virginia Tech is on to something.
There is A LOT of information on the internet about cooking your meal on Thanksgiving Day. Some good websites include www.foodsafety.org, the USDA, www.eatturkey.com, www.butterball.com, the Honeysuckle White Company, and the Food Network. Be careful if you just Google “Turkey”, unless of course you are interested in a trip to Istanbul. You can also search the twitter for #turkey, #turkeytweet, #Thanksgiving, #trkytips, or #turkeychat. I think you could read about Thanksgiving food safety and holiday meal preparation on the internet from now until… Valentine’s Day… really. There is no way I could cover it all in one post, so I’m trying to hit the high points and give you lots of resources if you have more questions.
So, you are planning to cook a huge meal for friends and family this Thursday? Hopefully you’ve already cleaned out your fridge and bought all your ingredients.
You want to make sure that your family is healthy for the long holiday weekend. You don’t want food poisoning during your big shopping trip on Friday. A couple of months ago, I wrote a Food Safety Post and talked about the 4 simple steps for food preparation and storage. Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill. Be sure to keep those in mind all day.

Preparation.

First, wash your hands with soap and warm water before you get started. Make all your helpers wash their hands. (On a side note, if anyone has the sniffles, send them to watch football. Letting them help you cook is an ideal way to spread their germs to everyone else.) Be sure to wash your hands after you’ve handled any raw meat or eggs.
Use a soap and warm water to wash down all the counter tops and cutting boards. Be sure to wash all your utensils with soap and warm water after you’ve used them. If there are lots of helpers in the kitchen, be sure to wash utensils that have been used on raw meat or eggs right away. You don’t want anyone to accidently reuse them on something that’s already been cooked.

The bird.

Thawing. The best way to thaw a turkey is in the fridge, but remember it will take about 24 hours per 4-5 pounds of turkey to thaw in the fridge. That means a 16 to 20 pound bird will take 4 or 5 days. Here is a link to estimated thawing times. If you really need to thaw you turkey in a few hours, you can use cold water. You will still need about 30 minutes per pound and it is suggested that you place the turkey in a plastic bag and change out the water every 30 minutes. When I was a kid, my mom and dad had a microwave that was big enough to thaw a turkey, but I haven’t seen one that large in a long time. Still, if you really want to and it will fit, you can use a microwave to thaw your turkey… chuckle.
Keep all raw meat in the fridge until you are ready to cook it. It should be in something to catch any juices and separated from other foods.

Marinating. Some people like to marinate or inject their turkey. You should let it set for a little while after you marinate it, before you cook it. Let it set in the fridge. You want to keep it cold. I found a video from USDA food safety about brining (marinating) a turkey for Thanksgiving.
You can put your turkey directly into the roasting pan to get it ready to cook, usually on a small rack. Remember, everything in the roasting pan will be roasted, so it will be safe when it comes out of the oven.

Stuffing. I am not a fan of stuffing in general (don’t tell my dad). Most food safety experts suggest that you cook your stuffing separate from your turkey. But, if you really want to stuff the bird, you need to stuff it immediately before you cook it and check that the middle of the stuffing reaches 165°F before you take it out of the oven. The uncooked juices from the Turkey will mix into the stuffing and you want to make sure that everything gets hot enough to kill any bacteria. USDA also offers a whole fact sheet on stuffing.

Roasting. The traditional method for cooking a turkey is roasting it in the oven. The USDA has also provided a fact sheet for safely preparing your turkey called … wait for it… Let’s Talk Turkey. They are so funny at that government agency. Basically, make sure the oven it set above 325°F, allow enough time for cooking based on the size of your turkey and your own oven. The table below is from a turkey roasting page on the www.eatturkey.com website and gives time estimations for cooking a thawed turkey.

Weight	Unstuffed Turkey	Stuffed Turkey
8 to 12 pounds	2 3/4 to 3 hours	3 to 3 1/2 hours
12 to 14 pounds	3 to 3 3/4 hours	3 1/2 to 4 hours
14 to 18 pounds	3 3/4 to 4 1/4 hours	4 to 4 1/4 hours
18 to 20 pounds	4 1/4 to 4 1/2 hours	4 1/4 to 4 3/4 hours
20 to 24 pounds	4 1/2 to 5 hours	4 3/4 to 5 1/4 hours
24 to 30 pounds	5 to 5 1/4 hours	5 1/4 to 6 1/4 hours

You can cook a frozen turkey in the oven, but it will take at least 50% longer.

Most importantly, USE A MEAT THERMOMETER to make sure the thickest part of breast has reached 165°F! I know that most turkeys today come with a pop-up thermometer to let you know when it’s done. Those were developed in the 60’s. Use a thermometer. I know there are lots of questions about thermometers; the Eat Turkey website has also provided a thermometer guideline page.

Frying. I wish I knew how many people deep fry their turkeys now. I’ve tried it (eaten it, not actually fried it), and it was quite tasty (then again, it was made by my cousin Pauline, and everything she makes is tasty). Anyway, lots of people like fried turkey, including William Shatner, of Star Trek fame. I would definitely recommend watching his video about turkey frying safety. The New York Daily News wrote an article about Shatner’s turkey frying video, and included the following tips concerning safety when deep frying a turkey:

1. Avoid spillover: Don’t overfill the pot (with oil).
2. Turn off flame when lowering the turkey into the oil.
3. Fry outside, away from the house.
4. Thaw the turkey before frying.
5. Keep a grease-fire approved fire extinguisher nearby.

Even when you are frying your turkey. USE A MEAT THERMOMETER! Make sure the breast reaches 165°F. Never fry a stuffed turkey. Be safe and you will live long and prosper.

The leftovers. Just like it takes a long time to cook a turkey, it takes a long time to chill turkey leftovers. Cut up the leftover turkey and place it in shallow containers in the fridge. That will allow the turkey to chill faster and keep it out of the Danger Zone. You want to get it in the fridge within 2 hours of your meal.

What about ham? I really think ham is neglected on Thanksgiving. Our family usually has a choice of turkey or ham. The USDA has a nice fact sheet about hams. Most people buy smoked, cooked hams, so essentially all you are doing is reheating it for your meal. Cooked hams should be heated to 140°F, warm enough to get it out of the Danger Zone. The package will say whether or not it’s cooked. Some hams are smoked and uncooked, labeled ‘cook-before-eating’ and some people choose to buy fresh, uncooked hams. For those, you want to heat it to an internal temperature of 145°F and allow it to rest for 3 minutes. Just like turkey, you want to cut up your leftovers and get them in the fridge in shallow containers within 2 hours.


Everything else. In my last post, I talked about keeping foods separate by getting different colored cutting boards for raw meat and ‘ready-to-eat’ food that won’t be cooked (fresh fruit and vegetables). Make sure everyone in the kitchen knows which cutting boards are for what. If you have a large kitchen, it might even be good to prepare raw food in one area and ready-to-eat food in another.

I also worry about gravies on Thanksgiving. It should be treated like a meat product. Make sure it gets hot (165°F) before it’s served and get it in the fridge within two hours of the meal.

Don’t forget, you should throw out all your Thanksgiving leftovers on Sunday night.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Please feel free to comment on my blog or the Mom at the Meat Counter Facebook Page if you have any questions or comments. I will keep an eye on it all weekend.

Remember the Food Safety Hotline will be staffed from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Thanksgiving Day. Call them toll-free at 1-888-674-6854. Or check out their Ask Karen page or app.

Getting the kitchen ready for the holidays

Now that we’ve switched back to the ancient, standard time, and we all get home after dark; we seem to be stuck in the house for endless hours every night. (I really don’t see much point in switching back to standard time every year; except that it makes us all appreciate day-light savings time when it comes around again in the spring.)

So, what to do with all those extra hours trapped in your house with your family?

One great idea is to clean out the fridge! Yay!


With all the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the holiday season, it’s easy for your fridge to get packed in just a few short, crazy weeks. So, the week or two before Thanksgiving (right after we fall back) is the best time to clean out the fridge and get it ready.

I always try to clean out my fridge on the night before the trash man comes, because room-temperature, out-of-date fridge contents can get pretty stinky sitting in the trash can. Check the dates (sell-by, freeze-by, or use-by dates) on all your deli meats, hot dogs, and cheeses. This is also a good chance to double-check your mayonnaise, salad dressings, and salsa, pretty much anything that’s perishable.

I know that the dates are sometimes hard to find, so I took some pictures to give examples of where dates may be found. I can’t tell you when or where I took these pictures (for my own protection).

Dates may be found on the back of the package or the bottom of the label. Sometimes they are on the lids of jars or the bottoms of cans. Sometimes they are not on the label at all and are printed directly on the plastic of the jar, bottle, or package.

Mustard, barbeque sauce, frozen foods, pickled things. These all have a ‘best-by’ date. Notice that some of my examples are out-of date and some have dates that go almost two years into the future. These dates are mostly to help insure the quality of the product. If you eat them after this date, they may not taste great, but they won’t make you sick. Now, remember that this is dependent on how the food has been handled. If it has been allowed to reach room temperature after it was opened, it may not be safe, regardless of the date.

 

The next set of pictures represents use-by dates, and I thought they were some good examples of where to look for dates. Again, they probably won’t make you sick if you consume them after the date expires, but it probably won’t taste very good at all. Cool whip and margarine are usually used in other dishes, so you want to make sure that their ingredients are in the best condition. If you use them after the use-by date, your final dish may not be as good. The oil in ketchup will separate out as it gets older. The artificial sweeteners in diet drinks lose their sweet flavor after a few months, so that Diet Coke may taste like bitter, fizzy water. Salsa and picante sauce may fall in this category, too. I have found that they are prone to mold growth, even in the fridge. Ick….

 

In this last group of pictures, some of the dates say “best-by” and some just have a printed date. These pictures are meats or foods largely made with milk and egg products which are good places for bacteria to grow. So, for meats, mayonnaise, yogurt, cheese sauce, and those types of products, I would stick with the dates. Throw out anything that is past the date on the package. I would put ranch dressing in this category, too.

Ok… back to cleaning out the fridge.

Toss out any left-over’s older than 3-days old. I am guilty of keeping leftovers until they would make good science projects, but we never eat them. We just make funny faces as they go in the trash.

Remember that you are trying to make more room. Sometimes I find two opened packages of the same food and condense them. Empty the shelves all the way to the back. Check the date on everything in the door.

This is a good chance to wash the refrigerator shelves and the drawers with hot, soapy water. You might also want to put in a fresh box of baking soda.

Are you planning to thaw some large meat items in your fridge on Turkey day? (You know… a turkey.) Get a big space cleaned out so you can put it on the bottom shelf. Make sure you have a tray or plate big enough to put it in to catch the juices while it’s thawing. Also, double check that the shelf above is not too low and that your turkey won’t be touching it. Most refrigerators today have adjustable shelves, so you can make the space above the bottom shelf as big as you need it.

You will need to allow 1 day of thawing for every 5 lbs of frozen turkey. So, be ready to share your fridge with a large bird for three or four days before Thanksgiving.
Remember that you may have to store large casserole dishes in your fridge for a while, so make sure there is room for those too. Also, they are not very tall, so you can adjust the upper shelves closer together to save room.

Double check that your refrigerator is cold. (Remember that the temperature will rise if you have the door open, so be sure to check the temperature after the door has been closed for 20 or 30 minutes.) I like to keep mine as cold as possible without freezing my milk, but it should be set no warmer than 38°-40°F. You want to make sure that it is 40°F or cooler in every area of the fridge, so setting it lower may be necessary.

This is a good chance to look over your shopping list for Turkey Day. Figure out the things that you need and the things that you already have. Make sure you have a meat thermometer! Food costs are going to be high this year, so you don’t want to buy ingredients that are already in the fridge or the cabinet. For example, I think I have enough salt for thirty years because I mistakenly thought I needed salt when I was planning a big meal … maybe it wasn’t me…

I don’t have much counter space in my kitchen, so I have to spend a little time clearing off my counters before I take on a big cooking job. You also want to wash your countertops with warm soapy water. Double check that your roasting pan and casserole dishes are clean. Sometimes, if they aren’t used for several months, they can collect dust. Make sure you have at least two good cutting boards, one for food that is going to be cooked and one for food that will be eaten without being cooked. I like to use different colored cutting boards for ready-to-eat and pre-cooked foods. I also want to remind you to keep the knives and other utensils separate for ready-to-eat and pre-cooked foods.

Or… you could spend your evenings watching TV and go to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving. Let your Mom (and, in my case, Dad) do the cooking. That’s my plan, but I still need to clean out my fridge. ;)

Safety in Knowledge

September is National Food Safety Education Month, so I felt like I needed to supply some info on food safety. This post will mostly be links to other sites about keeping you and your family safe as you prepare food for them. I wanted to get this information to you before the big Labor Day weekend.

Everyone involved with food is responsible for its safety including the farmer/rancher, the processor, the grocery store or restaurant, and the consumer. In the US, we have the safest food supply in the world, and we, as consumers, are partially responsible for that. Yay, US!

The US Department of Agriculture launched a neat campaign called Be Food Safe.

It all boils down to using 4 simple steps to store and prepare food safely. You can also check out the steps with Alvin and the Chipmunks here. Seriously.

1. Clean.

a. Wash your hands with soap and warm water before you start to cook and after you touch raw meat or eggs.

b. Wash all cutting boards, utensils, and anything else that touched the food with hot, soapy water after you are finished with them, or run them through the dish washer. Wiping them down with a dish rag doesn’t get them clean.


c. Wash you counter tops with hot, soapy water.

2. Separate. – I think this video is pretty funny.

a. Keep raw meats away from foods you will eat without cooking, like fresh fruits.

b. This means keeping raw meats away from fresh foods in the grocery cart and in your shopping bags. If you like to use those nifty and environmentally responsible reusable shopping bags, good for you, BUT use a disposable bag for raw meat and poultry. Mother Earth will forgive you and she will be thankful that you are not sick. You don’t want to take the chance of meat juice leaking into the reusable bag and it contaminating fresh vegetables on your next trip to the grocery store.


c. Use one cutting board for raw meat, poultry, and seafood and another one for fresh fruits and vegetables, salads, cheese, or anything else you will eat without cooking it. In many restaurants, the cutting boards are even different colors. Raw meat is always cut on red, seafood on blue, and vegetables on green, for example.


d. When you store raw meat at home, make sure it is kept away from ready-to-eat foods. It is best to store raw meats on the bottom shelf and keep a pan under it to catch any juices that may seep off.

3. Cook.


a. Use a food thermometer. Over 80% of American’s don’t use a thermometer when cooking ground beef or hamburgers. Ahhhhh!!! They are cheap (food thermometers, not the Americans that don’t use them) and available at your local grocery store. When you use it, make sure you stick it in the center of your food (that’s where it will be the coldest).

i. Anything made from ground beef, ground pork or poultry HAS to be temped before you remove it from the heat. That includes meat loaf, hamburgers, and sausage patties. Ground beef and ground pork should be cooked to 160°F (71°C) and all poultry should be cooked to 165°F (77°C). Some people thing they can tell if meat is done by looking at the color. Wrong! Meat color and they way it reacts to heat is dependent on lots of things. Too many to trust color for determining if it’s ready to eat.

ii. Whole muscle meats (steaks, roasts, and fish) have lower cooking temperature requirements because the bacteria are only on the outside of the food, while in ground meat, the bacteria could be all through it.


iii. (Side note, using a food thermometer also keeps you from overcooking your burgers and making them tough and dry. Bonus!)

b. When you microwave something, make sure you stir it, and if you don’t have a rotating plate in your microwave, rotate the dish yourself. Microwaves don’t always cook food evenly, so you have to help it out.


c. When you reheat a sauce, soup or gravy, be sure to bring it to a boil. These foods can be dangerous because they go from hot to cold and back to hot again. They have to make two or more trips through the Danger Zone of temperature between 40 and 140°F.

4. Chill.

a. Your refrigerator should be kept at 40°F or below. I keep ours just above freezing. I know it costs more on the electric bill (my husband pays it anyway), but a few dollars are worth it in the peace of mind of keeping us healthy and our foods last longer. The colder your fridge, the faster it will get foods chilled.

b. Get things in the fridge quickly. Don’t let leftovers set out all night. They will cool and be in the Danger Zone. Try to have them in the fridge in less than 2 hours. Also, store leftovers in shallow dishes so they will chill faster.

c. Keep in mind that you need to thaw meat in the fridge, too. See my post on proper thawing.


Here are some more resources from USDA and others to help you learn how to keep your food safe.

Tips for storage, cooking, and chilling specific foods

USDA facts for kids

After school snacking for kids

A really fun one about pathogens (bacteria and viruses that make you sick)

http://www.meatsafety.org/

http://foodsafety.gov/