It’s picnic season – time for carefree meals with family and friends in your favorite outdoor setting. Keep them carefree by avoiding hazards such as food-borne illnesses.
Food Safety
Food safety is a big concern when planning a picnic. Think about it: you’re transporting food to a warm outdoor area without the benefit of your kitchen’s refrigerator. Cold food must be kept cold (under 40′) and hot food must be kept hot (over 140′). Once food has been outside of this temperature range for two hours, bacteria can quickly grow and multiply. Follow these tips to make your picnic as safe as possible:
Practice safe food handling techniques at home:
- Wash your hands (with soap!)
- Keep cold food in the refrigerator until you need it.
- Use cutting boards that can go in the dishwasher.
- Don’t cross-contaminate. This means don’t cut vegetables on the board you just cut raw chicken on. Wash the board with hot, soapy water first. Better still: have one board just for raw poultry and another for produce.
- Cook poultry to a 165′ internal temperature and pork to 160′.
- Cool cooked food as quickly as possible. Buy a small fan to keep on the counter top to facilitate the initial cooling, then transfer to the refrigerator. Pots of soup can be cooled in a cold water bath in the sink.
Practice safe food handling techniques at the picnic:
- Invest in a good quality cooler that’s large enough for the food and ice packs. Keep it in a shady spot.
- Reduce mess by using large ice packs. I like reusable ice pack sheets like these because they can wrap around food and keep large areas cold.
- Wrap raw meats well and place on the bottom of the cooler so juices don’t leak over other food.
- Use alcohol-based hand sanitizers to wash your hands before cooking.
- After the initial serving, place cold food back in the cooler until people are ready for seconds.
- Once foods have sat out more than 2 hours, toss them. It is not worth the money spent on the food to risk making everyone sick.
- Wash the inside of your cooler after each use.
Follow these tips, and the biggest problem you’ll have at your picnic is ants!
Tags: picnics
