Safe meals

New Year's food safety refresher

This year how about resolving to improve your food safety habits? More

Cool soup safely

Winter is a great time to make a large kettle of soup to enjoy for lunches or quick evening meals. Preparing a large batch of soup can present a food safety challenge: cooling! More

Slow cooker safety

Test your slow cooker for accuracy and maintain safe temperatures. More

Tailgating tips

Tips for safely preparing and grilling food for tailgating. More

Holidays

• The twelve food safety mistakes of the season

  Avoid these twelve common unsafe food handling practices at holiday gatherings.

• Holiday food safety myths

  Common food handling myths including being aware of the “danger zone,” raw eggs, and safe cooking temperatures.

• Holiday party food safety tips

  A holiday buffet may be the perfect environment to cause a foodborne illness.

• Tips for changing traditional holiday food handling

  Tips for cooking turkeys and pies; and preventing foodborne illness

• Food safety gifts

  Food safety tools for holiday gifts such as thermometers, colanders, cutting boards, and kitchen timers

• Beware of unsafe ways to cook turkey

  Popular turkey cooking methods that are unsafe, including brown paper bag, trash bag, slow-cooking overnight, and turducken

• Prevent the spread of norovirus during the holidays

  Prevention strategies, how to clean and sanitize, serving tips

• Is your homemade food gift safe to eat?

  How to create preserved homemade gifts including bread, cake, mincemeat, jams and jellies, and chocolate sauce; and testing them for safety

• Mailing food gifts

  Types of foods that mail best; tips for wrapping and cushioning foods for mailing

• Safety of hard cooked eggs for dyeing

  Eggs are a perishable food and need to be handled accordingly

• Are green eggs and ham safe to eat?

  Safety of eating green eggs; safety of eating green ham; and preventing foodborne illness from ham

• New Year's food safety refresher

  New Year's resolutions often focus on weight loss and exercise. This year how about resolving to improve your food safety habits?

At the office

• Break room and refrigerator policy

  Implement a weekly cleaning schedule to keep food (and co-workers) safe (23 K PDF)

• Break room and refrigerator cleaning schedule

  Break room and refrigerator/freezer cleaning duties, space to fill in names (17 K PDF)

Other meal preparation

• Food safety wheel

  A handy refrigerator magnet wheel full of food safety information

• Slow cooker safety

  Test your slow cooker for accuracy, safe temperatures and foods for a slow cooker

• Food: how safe is safe?

  Understanding food hazards and risk, accepting risk, assuring relative food safety

• Are molds on foods dangerous?

  Tips for controlling and removing mold in your refrigerator.

• Making safe baby food

  Babies are more vulnerable to bacteria than older children and adults.

• A quick consumer guide to safe food handling

  How to handle food from grocery store to storing leftovers to prevent foodborne illness

• Safe cooking temperatures

  Measure these internal temperatures with a food thermometer.

• Tailgating tips

  Tips for safely preparing and grilling food for tailgating

• Grilling

  Everything you need to know to grill safely.

• Cutting boards for food

  What kind of cutting boards to use, tips for preventing germs on cutting boards

• Follow package instructions when cooking frozen foods

  Foodborne illness in frozen foods; preventing salmonella poisoning from frozen convenience foods

• Keeping food cold when the power is out

  Using a fridge or freezer to keep food cold when the power is out

• Organic food labeling

  Audio and text versions, what the various phrases on labels mean

• Packing the cooler for a road trip

  How to prevent foodborne illness when packing a cooler

• Power outages: keep food safe

  What to do during and after an outage, what food can be refreezed

• Preparing food without power

  Available methods, no-cook suggestions, keeping surfaces and utensils clean

• Using a food thermometer

  Covers oven-proof dial thermometers, dial thermometers, digital thermometers, checking accuracy