Food Safety with Outdoor Grilling

Spring is here and our leisure time now includes more outdoor activities.  Cooking meat and vegetables on an outdoor grill is a cherished activity of many American families.  It is good for our health and seems to be effective in bringing families together for meals around the picnic table as well as the kitchen table.  But food safety is an important goal with outdoor grilling as well as indoor cooking.   The warm weather outdoors presents some added challenges related to cooking outdoors.  There are some foodborne nanobugs that can spoil the fun if they are allowed to go unchecked in our food preparation process especially in the warm weather months.  The major culprits are:  E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella enteritidis, Campylobacter jejuni and Norovirus.  Let’s look at the topic of food safety with outdoor cooking and grilling in weekly segments and then I will offer some additional tips throughout the Summer.       

Grilling is a food preparation process which begins at the grocery store.  Make the grocery shopping your last stop because meat and poultry should not be out of controlled refrigeration more than 2 hours normally and less than one hour when the temperatures outside are above 90 degrees F.  If meat and poultry are unrefrigerated too long bacteria grow rapidly.  Some bacteria produce toxins that can cause illness even when the food is finally cooked.  When shopping, collect meat and poultry last and non-perishables first.  Many grocery stores are designed with a layout that facilitates this order to shopping.  Purchase ground meat and poultry no more than one or 2 days before you grill it.  Otherwise freeze the items.  Grill larger cuts of meat such as steaks within 4 days of purchase or freeze them.  Don’t put your perishables in the trunk of the car to transport home.  The temperature inside the trunk is too hot in the summer and bacteria will grow rapidly.  I keep a cooler in my trunk during the Spring and Summer months in which to protect frozen and cold foods during the trip home from the grocery store.  Refrigerate meat and poultry immediately upon arrival at home.  In the refrigerator, place meat and poultry on the bottom shelf to prevent cross-contamination from meat juices escaping from the packaging and dripping on raw food items below.  The refrigerator should be maintained at 40 degrees F. 

Stay focused and intend to be….infection-free!

This entry was posted on April 20th, 2010 at 12:00 am. RSS | Back to Blog Homepage.

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