Preparing Safe Meals

Holidays

• The Twelve Food Safety Mistakes of the Season

  Avoid these twelve common unsafe food handling practices at holiday gatherings.

• Holiday Party Food Safety Tips

  A holiday buffet may be the perfect environment to cause a foodborne illness.

• Tips for Changing Traditional Holiday Food Handling

  Tips for cooking turkeys and pies; and preventing foodborne illness

• Food Safety Gifts

  Food safety tools for holiday gifts such as thermometers, colanders, cutting boards, and kitchen timers

• Beware of Unsafe Ways to Cook Turkey

  Popular turkey cooking methods that are unsafe, including brown paper bag, trash bag, slow-cooking overnight, and turducken

• Prevent the Spread of Norovirus During the Holidays

  Prevention strategies, how to clean and sanitize, serving tips

• Is Your Homemade Food Gift Safe to Eat?

  How to create preserved homemade gifts including bread, cake, mincemeat, jams and jellies, and chocolate sauce; and testing them for safety

• Mailing Food Gifts

  Types of foods that mail best; tips for wrapping and cushioning foods for mailing

• Safety of Hard Cooked Eggs for Dyeing

  Eggs are a perishable food and need to be handled accordingly

• Are Green Eggs and Ham Safe to Eat?

  Safety of eating green eggs; safety of eating green ham; and preventing foodborne illness from ham

• New Year's Food Safety Refresher

  New Year's resolutions often focus on weight loss and exercise. This year how about resolving to improve your food safety habits?

At the Office

• Break Room and Refrigerator Policy

  Implement a weekly cleaning schedule to keep food (and co-workers) safe (130 K PDF)

• Break Room and Refrigerator Cleaning Schedule

  Break room and refrigerator/freezer cleaning duties, space to fill in names (27 K PDF)

Other Meal Preparation

• Don't ignore food recalls

  When a food item is recalled, learn the facts and take action!

• Slow Cookers and Food Safety

  Test your slow cooker for accuracy, safe temperatures and foods for a slow cooker

• Food: How Safe is Safe?

  Understanding food hazards and risk, accepting risk, assuring relative food safety

• Are Molds on Foods Dangerous?

  Tips for controlling and removing mold in your refrigerator.

• Making Safe Baby Food

  Babies are more vulnerable to bacteria than older children and adults.

• A Quick Consumer Guide to Safe Food Handling

  How to handle food from grocery store to storing leftovers to prevent foodborne illness

• Safe Cooking Temperatures

  Measure these internal temperatures with a food thermometer.

• Tailgating Tips

  Tips for safely preparing and grilling food for tailgating

• Grilling

  Everything you need to know to grill safely.

• Cutting Boards for Food

  What kind of cutting boards to use, tips for preventing germs on cutting boards

• Follow package instructions when cooking frozen foods

  Foodborne illness in frozen foods; preventing salmonella poisoning from frozen convenience foods

• Keeping Food Cold When the Power is Out

  Using a fridge or freezer to keep food cold when the power is out

• Organic Food Labeling

  Audio and text versions, what the various phrases on labels mean

• Packing the Cooler for a Road Trip

  How to prevent foodborne illness when packing a cooler

• Power Outages: Keep Food Safe

  What to do during and after an outage, what food can be refrozen

• Preparing Food Without Power

  Available methods, no-cook suggestions, keeping surfaces and utensils clean

• Using a Food Thermometer

  Covers oven-proof dial thermometers, dial thermometers, digital thermometers, checking accuracy

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Video Demonstrations

• Why wash fruits and vegetables before use

• Wash your hands before glove use

• How to use hand sanitizer safety