You may be grilling out during Memorial Day weekend—or many weekends throughout this summer. But, be careful because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says millions of us will get sick from outdoor grilling goofs.
“I would say the biggest would be not fully cooking the foods on the grill,” says Meredith Carothers, a food safety expert with USDA’s Meat and Poultry Hotline.
She reminds you to use a food thermometer and follow the temperature guidelines for your beef, pork, or poultry.
Another grilling goof, according to Carothers, is, “Using the same utensil that you used to put all the raw stuff on the grill to take the cooked stuff off.” She adds that you shouldn’t use the same platter that you carried out raw food on to bring the cooked food back in.
The third big grilling goof according to Carothers: not washing your hands!
“Certain bacteria can live on surfaces for like 72 hours. So, think about it. You’re making dinner, you’ve touched chicken, touched your spice containers without washing your hands, and then in the morning you’re cooking eggs and you want to use the same spice in your eggs, and then that gets all touched to other places… So, yeah, it’s just crazy what your hands can move around.”
This seems like a simple one, but USDA conducted a study in their test kitchens and found, “97 percent of the time people didn’t either wash their hands at all or didn’t do all 5 steps of hand washing for a full 20 seconds.”
If you have questions, wash your hands, pick up the phone and dial the USDA’s Meat and Poultry Hotline number is 888-MPHOTLINE (888-674-6854). You can also go online to Ask.USDA.gov.
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