Food Safety For The Fourth

Make Sure Your Cookout Is Clean

If you’re planning a 4th of July cookout, make sure you’re keeping your food safe.

The USDA is stressing the importance of food safety as more people turn to home cookouts during COVID-19.
Some of the best tips to follow this weekend are keeping raw meat away from prepared food, checking to make sure your meat is hot enough with a food thermometer, and keeping your hands and preparation spaces clean.
But with hot weather this weekend, USDA food experts say it’s especially vital to make sure the food you do prepare is stored properly.
That means keeping hot foods warm and keeping cold foods cold, and not leaving them out very long.

Food safety expert Meredith Carothers says, “Which is usually about 2 hours but if it’s gonna be above 90 degrees where you are you’re gonna wanna bump that down to one hour.”

USDA research shows that only 16 percent of Americans keel perishable foods that should be cold nested in ice.