FOOD SAFETY RULES

FOOD SAFETY RULES

Food safety and sanitation are important to keeping your family healthy. Understanding the key principles of safe food preparation, handling and storage is vital keeping your family safe from contamination and germs. Many disease that cause diarrhea and even illness like hepatitis can get contracted by eating contaminated and/or spoiled food. Please read the following rules and put into place the tips listed here:

• Teach your children to always wash their hands after going to the bathroom, before eating, before preparing food, after handling raw food,

• Thaw frozen seafood, meat, and poultry in the refrigerator overnight, not on the counter. If you do have to thaw something quickly, seal it in a plastic bag and put it in cold water for an hour or microwave it on “defrost” and cook it immediately.

• Avoid giving children honey until after first birthday.

• Don’t feed your child from a baby food jar and then store it for later use. The bacteria from your baby’s mouth can grow in the stored jar of food. Instead, put some food in a separate dish and store the jar in the refrigerator. Feed the baby from the dish.

• Cook seafood, meat, or poultry within two days after you buy it. Store it in the coldest part of your refrigerator or freeze it.

• Don’t buy cooked seafood, such as shrimp or crab that is displayed in the same case as raw fish.

• Marinate food in the refrigerator not on the counter.

• Keep hot food hot and cold food cold. Bacteria multiply rapidly between 40ºF and 140ºF. Refrigerate leftovers no longer than two days.

• Periodically check that your fridge temperature is no higher that 40ºF and your freezer is 0ºF.

• Always sanitize your cutting board in the dishwater or with hot, soapy water after cutting raw meat, poultry, or fish.

• Buy a meat thermometer. Be sure to wash it between uses.

• Remove and discard the outer leave of heads of lettuce, and thoroughly rinse bagged lettuce.

• Always check labels on meat and poultry to determine freshness.