It’s Thanksgiving, and if you’re the one who ends up in the kitchen to help prepare, this could be the largest meal you’ll make all year.
Getting it right — especially the turkey — brings a fair amount of pressure, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has some tips to make sure that turkeys are not only tasty, but safe as well.
“Unsafe handling and undercooking of your turkey can lead to serious food borne illness,” said Maria Malagon, director of food safety education for the USDA, in a release. “Turkeys may contain salmonella and campylobacter, harmful pathogens that are only destroyed by properly preparing and cooking a turkey.”
So how do you avoid all that, and ending your Thanksgiving day in the hospital? The USDA offers these steps the holiday cook should take before cooking a turkey:
• Read labels carefully. Temperature labels show if the bird is fresh or frozen. If you plan to serve a fresh turkey, purchase it no more than two days before Thanksgiving.
• Purchase two thermometers: A refrigerator thermometer to ensure the turkey is stored at 40 degrees or slightly below, and a food thermometer to make sure the cooked turkey reaches a safe 165 degrees.
• Thaw the turkey by using the microwave, the cold water method, or as the USDA recommends, the refrigerator.
When you start cooking the turkey, you will want to:
• Wash hands with warm water and soap for 20 seconds before touching any food to prevent the spread of many types of infection and illness.
• Not wash the turkey. This would only spread pathogens onto kitchen surfaces. The only way to kill bacteria that causes food borne illness is to fully cook the turkey.
• Keep raw turkey separated from all other foods at all times.
• Use separate cutting boards, plates and utensils when handling raw turkey, and avoid cross-contamination. Wash items that have touched raw meat with warm soap and water, or place them in a dishwasher.
• Cook the turkey until it reaches 165 degrees, as measured by a food thermometer. Check the turkey’s temperatures by inserting the thermometer in three places: The thickest part of the breast, the innermost part of the thigh, and the innermost part of the wing.
And if there weren’t enough lists for you to follow through on Thanksgiving, there is just one more here: What to do after the meal is over.
• Refrigerate leftovers within two hours to prevent bacteria from growing on the food.
• Store leftovers in shallow pans or containers to decrease cooling time. This prevents the food from spending too much time at unsafe temperatures between 40 degrees and 140 degrees.
• Do not store stuffing inside a leftover turkey. Remove the stuffing from the turkey and refrigerate both separately.
• Avoid consuming leftovers that have been left in the refrigerator for longer than three or four days — next Tuesday to be exact. Use the freezer to store leftovers for longer periods of time.
• Keep leftovers in a cooler with ice or frozen gel packs if the food is traveling home with a guest who lives more than two hours away.
Have more food safety questions? Visit FoodSafety.gov, or call (888) 674-6854 — which will be open between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving day as well.
