Food Safety - From Store to Plate

Food safety is an important issue that starts with food shopping. Whether shopping at a farmers market, a grocery store or a club warehouse store, there are a few simple precautions that you can take to prevent foodborne illness in your home.

• Shop for all shelf stable items first and leave refrigerated and frozen items for the end of your shopping trip.
• Check cans and packages for dents or tears.
• Have meats, poultry and seafood bagged separately from other foods to avoid cross contamination from juices from leaking.
• Check over produce to avoid mold or bruises that leave cuts or holes in the food items.
• In summer, transport foods in the back seat rather than a hot trunk.
• Unload your groceries right away when you arrive home.

Food safety at home is just as important as in the stores.  Most stores have strict temperature regulations that they are required to follow for keeping the foods fresh and healthy for us.  In addition, the date stamped on most of our products is a helpful guide that markets  must continuously check for to ensure they are not selling products past their freshness date.  However, when we bring the foods home...it is all up to us!

What about leftovers?  Most vegetable leftovers can last several days.  Meat items no more than a few days.  Seafood only 1-2 days.  Check out this video from kidseatright.org  Leftovers Video

For more information about home food safety and the prevention of foodborne illness, visit http://www.homefoodsafety.org/.