World Food Safety Day, it’s highly essential to learn about food safety step-by-step so that we can keep them protected from any airborne invaders. So, here are the four steps of food safety.

Clean: Wash your hands, foods and surfaces of cooking

1-Germs that cause food poisoning can survive for a long time and spread around your kitchen.  

2-So, wash your hands before, during and after preparing your food and before eating with soap and water for 20 seconds.

3-Don’t forget to wash your utensils, chopping board, countertop, knifes and other cooking equipment after cooking with hot water and soap.

4-Rinse all the veggies and fruits thoroughly under running water.

Separation: Keep raw foods separate from other items to avoid contamination

1-Raw meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, fish can spread germs to other food items like ready-to-eat foods, spices, cooked food etc. So, keep all the raw foods completely separate from others.

2-Use a separate chopping board also to cut the raw foods and don’t use it for other items.

3-Even while grocery shopping, keep all raw foods away from normal food items.

4-Separate the raw items from others even in the fridge as well.

Cooking: Cooking at the right temperature is the third step to remember

1-Cooking food at the right temperature helps kill all the disease-causing germs from it. But you cannot tell if the food is fully cooked just by seeing its colour and texture. So, you need to use a thermometer to measure the temperature for different food items.

2-The temperature should be-

145 degrees F for whole cuts of beef, pork, veal, and lamb.

160 degrees F for ground meats, such as beef and pork.

165 degrees F for all poultry, like chicken and turkey.

165 degrees F for leftover foods and casseroles.

145 degrees F for raw ham.

145° degrees F for fin fish or cook until flesh is opaque.

Chill: This step is for refrigerating the food in the right way

1-For storing your food safely in the fridge, set the temperature at 40 degrees F or below. And be aware about when to throw our foods and to not store them.

2-Refrigerate perishable foods within two hours of purchasing them. If the temperature is above 90 degrees F, then do it within 1 hour.

3-Thaw frozen foods in cold water or in the microwave and not put it on the counter to thaw because bacteria can quickly multiply coming to the room temperature.