Barbeque used to be a once-per-year, summer activity where family and friends gathered all together and cooked tasty, meat-based food outdoors. Nowadays, barbeque has become a very common practice; it has broken the boarders of the once-a-year practice and it's not uncommon to find families that will arrange a barbeque several times a month! However, along with all the fun that the barbeque brings you should also be careful and follow a few guidelines in order to prevent harmful bacteria from appearing on your food. This article will give you general guidelines and safety tips to follow in order for your food to be as clean as possible. Okay, first of all when you buy food it is a good practice to buy it cold; especially if you buy meat or poultry then you should definitely buy it cold. After that, you should make sure to separate juicy food such as meat and poultry from other foods. By doing this, you are preventing cross-contamination among them. The best practice would be to place meat/poultry in plastic bags; plastic bags are 100% waterproof so you will have no problem if you pack the food carefully. After you have bought everything, you should head directly to your home and put all fridge-preserved foods in the fridge. It's important not to let those foods come to a room temperature because if that happens then that's the best chance for bacteria to form. When the time to take the meat out of the fridge so that you can cook it has come, make sure that you defrost it completely. Meat/poultry that has been completely defrosted will cook more evenly and the taste will definitely be better. Two good defrost practices are thawing the food in cold water or defrosting it using the microwave. Use the microwave approach only if you are going to grill the food immediately. Finally, you should remember that although you can marinate food several hours/days before you cook it, it is always a good practice to marinate it in the refrigerator (so that it will be hard for bacteria to multiply). If you are going to reuse any marinade that was used on raw food then remember to boil it first; this way, any harmful bacteria that might have grown are going to be destroyed by the high temperature. After all this boring theory, I wish you to barbeque as frequently as possible and to have a great time, every time! |
