Are you planning for a holiday with friends or family? That’s a great thing, but have you considered the safety of your loved ones in concern with the food safety? Even if you are not going out for holidays, you must take care of the food that everyone would enjoy, which means you need to be sure about the safe food handling practices. For the individuals cooking food, it is a very important issue, which is why many people also opt for food safety course to ensure the safety of their loved ones.
In this blog, we bring to you some common food safety guide where the professionals with food handlers certificate specialists to help you avoid the food-borne diseases.
Food Safety Tip #1 – Set Out A Plan
One of the most important thing you need to keep in your mind is to have a master plan set out for yourself. All the professional chefs do it, so you must do it too. Make sure to have a proper heating and cooking device available with you for proper heating and cooking. Although a single oven and refrigerator or freezer is enough for most people, but if you cook larger amounts of food that may require more, you should need different cooking platforms. Make sure that you have plenty of clean ice and always keep foods properly heated or cooled.
Food Safety Tip #2 – Wash Your Hands
For every individual, responsible for handling or cooking food at home, it is mandatory to follow good hand washing habits, especially around the holidays as the colds and flus are going around. If you have got a food safety certificate, you would understand that this is one of the best ways to minimize bacterial contamination and keep your food safe. So, simply wash hands more frequently and thoroughly after handling the turkey or any other raw meat.
Food Safety Tip #3 – Wash all Fresh Produce
Washing hands frequently isn’t enough to ensure complete food safety as you also need to take good care about the habits of washing the food items and cooking areas. Even the green food items that are prepackaged should be washed before cooking as this helps potential bacterial contamination. Even if you rinse these items before cooking, it is enough for you.
Food Safety Tip #4 – Defrost Properly
Many people do not understand this pat, but defrosting your food completely before cooking is an important step to avoid any kind of food contamination. When you choose to use a frozen turkey, you need to ensure that you allocate 24 hours per 5 pounds to defrost in the refrigerator. After this, you can leave it in room temperature to defrost the rest of the way. For the areas where water is minimum, defrosting the turkey using water may seem wasteful but it is one of the safest methods.
Food Safety Tip #5 – Cook all Foods to the Proper Temperature
This may seem obvious, but you will be surprised to know that a large number of people across the world fall sick just because they skip this process when cooking. Most people assume that they have cooked food to the right temperature when it really is not. You can use a thermometer when cooking food items in the kitchen, especially when it comes to meat which is very bacteria prone. When you cook at the appropriate temperature, you kill all the potential bacteria to ensure complete safety of the loved ones.
Food Safety Tip #6 – Refrigerate Leftovers Within Two Hours of Preparation
This is another very important factor to keep in mind for the people involved in cooking. You must remember that if you leave the food out too long, it is one of the biggest holiday food safety problems. Of course, you can leave the food out after eating to give you time to relax, but you don’t want to leave the food for more than two hours in the danger zone i.e. temperature ranging between 40 and 140ºF. The reason here is that this temperature is the most favorable for the bacterial growth. So, when you have some leftover food that you wish to eat later, use shallow container that is 2-inch deep and make sure that the refrigerator is never too full.
Food Safety Tip #8 – Be Extra Careful With Eggs
One of the most important safe food handling habit is to take good care when cooking eggs in the kitchen, which is also recommended in the food handling course. It is recommended to use only pasteurized eggs or at least cook the yolks lightly. This ensures that you kill the potential salmonella bacteria, which can ensure the food items are completely safe to eat.
