The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service recommends the following four food safety steps to help combat foodborne illness in your kitchen.
Step 1: Clean
Clean hands, surfaces, and utensils with soap and water before cooking. Wash hands for 20 seconds before and after handling raw meat, poultry or fish. First clean surfaces raw meat, poultry or fish has touched with soap and water, then apply a sanitizer. Many different sanitizers can be used: an easy homemade version is to make a solution of 1 tablespoon of liquid chlorine bleach per gallon of water, or you can use a commercial sanitizer or sanitizing wipe.
Step 2: Separate
Use separate cutting boards, plates, and utensils to avoid cross-contamination between raw meat, poultry or fish and foods that are ready to eat (i.e. not cooked).
Step 3: Cook
Confirm foods are cooked to a safe internal temperature by using a food thermometer.
- Cook raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops and roasts to 145 °F. For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming.
- Cook fish and shellfish to 145 °F.
- Cook raw ground beef, pork, lamb and veal to 160 °F.
- Cook egg dishes to 160 °F.
- Cook raw poultry (ground or whole) to 165 °F.
- Reheat all leftovers to 165 °F.
Step 4: Chill
Chill foods promptly if not consuming immediately after cooking. Don’t leave food at room temperature for longer than two hours. Divide large amounts of food into shallow containers for quicker cooling in the refrigerator.