Holiday meals often bring lots of food preparation and lefts overs, it’s important to keep safety tips in mind when preparing and storing your food for your family. Castle Country Radio was able to speak over the telephone with Environmental Health Scientist, Hailey Gardner to discuss the specifics.

Washing your hands is an important step to take before handling or preparing food. “Before we dive more into cooking, I would just say the number one thing to do is to wash your hands, as often possible and with a clean rag. Not the rag that’s been on the little rack by the oven for weeks, one that’s clean,” stated Gardner. Washing your hands with soup for a good amount of time will lessen the chances of spreading germs to your food. Always wash your hands when changing tasks in the kitchen.

When cooking turkey, it’s important to cook to the appropriate temperature. “So we want to make sure that we’re cooking our turkey to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. That is because salmonella dies at 165 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Gardner. Its important to use a meat thermometer when checking the temperature of your turkey. The idea is to check in three places, the thickest part of the breast, innermost part of the thigh and innermost part of the wing.

Now you may have some leftovers and there are ways to properly store them. “So a big cause of food borne illness is when food is improperly cooled. So when it comes to leftovers, I just like to bring up that to put them in the fridge as soon as possible. Don’t leave them out on the counter for hours, it’s a great way to let bacteria grow and fester in the food,” explained Gardner. Leftovers should be stored in shallow pans or containers so that they cool down quickly.

“Make sure that you wash your hands, use your refrigerator, so put that fridge to good, good work, and just put that food in there, and make sure you throw away leftovers after seven days,” said Gardner. A great website to refer to for more safety tips is https://www.cdc.gov/ where you can find lots of information on seasonal and holiday food safety.

The Southeast Utah Health Department would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season.