Summer Food Safety
Sunny days and lighter evenings are the perfect excuse for
family and friends to get together for barbecues and picnics. Some
simple food safety tips must be followed to ensure that food is
kept safe and food poisoning is avoided.
BBQ Safety
Follow these simple rules to make sure barbecued food is
properly cooked:
- Wait until the charcoal is glowing red, with a powdery grey
surface, before you begin to cook
- Make sure frozen food is properly thawed before cooking it
- Turn the food regularly, and move it around the barbecue to
cook it evenly
- Check that food is piping hot all the way through
- Make sure that there isn’t any pink meat left in chicken,
sausages, burgers, pork and kebabs. Any juices must run clear. Just
because the meat is charred on the outside, it may not be cooked
properly on the inside
- Always use a steady heat for cooking and check food is cooked
in the middle
If you have a large amount of guests expected, then it is always
a good idea to cook the meat in your oven and to finish it off on
the barbecue for that smoky flavour! Just make sure its piping hot
all the way through before serving.
You must always remember the dangers of raw meat as it can
contain food poisoning bacteria. This means that if raw meat comes
into contact with ready to eat or cooked food, or is able to drip
onto them; the bacteria can spread onto that food. Anything that
comes into contact with raw meat can spread food poisoning bacteria
to other food.
Make sure you follow the Raw Meat Code when storing, preparing
and cooking food on the barbecue:
- Make sure that raw meat does not touch or drip onto other
food
- Always wash your hands thoroughly after handling raw meat
- Use separate utensils for raw and cooked meat
- Never put cooked food on a plate or surface that has been used
for raw meat
- Keep raw meat in a sealed container away from other foods such
as burger buns and salads
- Don’t put raw meat products next to cooked or partially cooked
meat on the barbecue
- Don’t add sauce or marinade to cooked food if it has already
been used with raw meat