Keep Your Holiday Meals Safe
- Wash fruits and vegetables before preparing
 or eating them. Under clean, running water, rub vegetables briskly with your hands to remove dirt and surface microorganisms. Dry after washing.
- Keep fruits and vegetables separate from raw meat, poultry and seafood while shopping, preparing, or storing.
- Chill (refrigerate) perishable food promptly and defrost foods properly. Refrigerate or freeze perishables, prepared food, and leftovers within two hours.
- Separate raw, cooked, and ready-to-eat foods.
- Wash cutting boards, knives, utensils, and counter tops in hot soapy water after preparing each food item and before going on to the next one.
- Store raw meat, poultry, and seafood on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator so juices don’t drip onto other foods.
- Do not wash or rinse meat or poultry.
- Cook foods to a safe temperature to kill microorganisms. Use a meat thermometer, which measures the internal temperature of cooked meat and poultry, to make sure that the meat is cooked all the way through.
- Plan ahead to defrost foods. Never defrost food on the kitchen counter at room temperature. Thaw
food by placing it in the refrigerator, submerging air-tight packaged food in cold tap water, or defrosting on a plate in the microwave.
- Avoid raw or partially cooked eggs or foods containing raw eggs and raw or undercooked meat and poultry.
- Avoid raw (unpasteurized) milk or any products made from unpasteurized milk.
- Women who may become pregnant, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children should avoid some types of fish and eat types lower in
mercury. Click here or call 1-888-SAFEFOOD for more information.
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Refrigerate or freeze prepared food and leftovers as soon as possible. If food has been left at temperatures between 40° and 140° F for more than two hours, discard it, even though it may look and smell good.
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