The recent listeria outbreak brings the topic of food safety to the forefront once again.Americans have experienced food scares related to spinich, peanut butter, and now cantaloupes.
Although tainted cantaloupes are off the store shelves, if you ate one a while ago, you could still get sick from it, as the symptoms sometimes don't present themselves until a month after the food has been consumed.
At first the symptoms are stomach cramping, but if left untreated can render a person incapacitated and unable to speak. So certainly if you feel sick and have eaten cantaloupe within the last month or so, be sure to consult your doctor.
While it is impossible to protect ourselves fully from every possible type of food contamination, there are many steps we can take as consumers to lessen our chances of getting sick or even dying from food illnesses.
For example, when you are grocery shopping, make sure to keep your meats and poultry away from your produce. E-coli and salmonella are two dangerous diseases that can result from consuming meat or poultry that hasn't been cooked well enough.
Put ice packs in a cooler in your car and transfer the meat and poultry to the cooler as soon as you finish shopping. Set your refrigerator at a chilly 37 degrees.
Now you may be surprised to know that you should not rinse raw meat or poultry before cooking it. The reason you should not do this is because you might be contaminating nearby surfaces by spraying around disease from the poultry or meat.
One of the most important things you can do is to thoroughly wash a cutting board that you use for meat and poultry before using it for anything else. Wash it with warm, soapy water. If you put the raw food on a plate before you cook it, make sure you wash that plate thoroughly before putting anything else on it. That even includes the same food that was just on it, only cooked.
Use a meat thermometer as the only means by which you test doneness. Eyeballing it doesn't always work. The instant-read thermometers are best. It'll say on the outside of the thermometer what temperature is considered done for the various types of meats and poultry.
And lastly, be careful when eating out. Most fast food restaurants are good about cooking their meats and poultry well enough to kill any dangerous bacteria. But those mom-and-pop restaurants are another story. Ask your server how the cook knows when the meat or poultry is done.
If the answer is anything but a meat thermometer, order something else.