HOME

ABOUT QVHD

COMMUNITY

ENVIRONMENTAL

MOM'S CLINIC

RESOURCES

The Grilling Season

By: V. Deborah Culligan, RN, MPH,
Deputy Director QVHD

It's open season on grilling! With the warm weather comes the tradition of barbecues, picnics, and summer's easy (and abundant) eating. For public health staff, this season brings increased cases of food poisoning! (Also known as food borne illness.)

If you have ever been sick from food borne illness, you know how sick it can make you. For many persons, food borne illness is just an occurrence that causes misery for a day or so and then passes. But for some persons, it can be severe enough to send them to the hospital or even become life threatening. For those employed in food service, day care, or health care, food borne illness can greatly affect your income, as you may be required to remain out of work until three stool samples prove negative. This can sometimes take up to 6 months! If your young child in diapers gets food borne illness, he may be excluded from day care until stool specimens are negative. Again, this could take up to 6 months.

Most food borne illness is preventable. Brush up on your technique. Check out areas where you may be contributing to poor food preparation. (You've been lucky so far if you partially cook meats or eat rare burgers.) Don't be sorry later for what you can prevent today, especially if it sends your young child or grandparent to the hospital.

For grilling safety, follow these simple and common sense rules:

• Coals should be very hot before cooking food. For optional heat, burn them 20 to 30 minutes or until lightly coated with ash. For gas grills, preheat on high until the grill is very hot.

• Cook all meats thoroughly. This is the best protection against many bacteria. Ground beef should have a core temperature of 160°F, for at least 15 seconds. Cooked meat that is gray or brown with clear juices (not pink) is usually cooked enough to kill some germs, but is not enough to kill E.coli. This visual test is not an absolute test of safety. Larger cuts of beef, such as roasts, and steaks, may be cooked to 145°F for medium rare or 160°F for medium, with the temperature lasting 3 minutes. Game meats, poultry, ground poultry, stuffed poultry, and other meats and fish should be cooked to 165°F for at least 15 seconds. How do you know the temperature? Use a meat thermometer!

• If you precook (or partially cook) food prior to grilling, you should do this immediately before cooking outdoors. Partially cooked meat or poultry provides an ideal opportunity for bacterial growth.

• Marinate foods in the refrigerator. If you plan to use some of the marinade as a sauce on the cooked food, reserve a portion separately before adding it to raw meat, poultry or seafood. Don't reuse marinade.

• Don't use the same platter or utensils for the cooked food that you used for the raw food. This can contaminate your cooked food with bacteria.

• Place raw meat on the lowest shelf in the refrigerator to avoid juices dripping on to other foods.

• Do not thaw meat and poultry on counter tops.

• Use soap and water to wash hands, utensils, cutting boards, and work surfaces that have been in contact with meat and poultry.

• Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. While it is tempting to let foods sit out for hours, while you and your guest munch and graze, this can lead to an invitation for bacterial growth.

• Lastly, when in doubt, throw it out! Don't take unnecessary chances.

For answers to your questions on the food safety, call the USDA meat and poultry Hotline, 1-800-535-4555. For a packet of information on food safety and outdoor cooking, District residents can call QVHD, 248-4528 or request on line, www.qvhd.org.    

Quinnipiack Valley Health District
1151 Hartford Turnpike
North Haven, CT 06473

Phone. (203) 248-4528
Fax. (203) 248-6671
E-Mail. info@qvhd.org