Family gatherings, office potlucks, holiday buffets, neighborhood cookie exchanges, church suppers, mail order food deliveries, gifts of home-preserved foods—from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day (and sometimes beyond), Americans go on what seems like a nonstop food binge.
I’ve always loved the special holiday foods and traditions of late fall and winter that have passed down through my family and the local cultures that shaped me. That is, if I can avoid the overstuffing—it’s always a struggle. Oh, and also the food poisoning.
Food Safety Statistics
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year, roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick with a foodborne illness; 128,000 require hospitalization, and 3,000 die of these illnesses.
Yikes!
Although summer (picnics, summer camps) is prime time for foodborne illnesses, these diseases spike sharply during the winter holiday season, and noroviruses (“stomach flu”), a family of viruses responsible for half the nation’s foodborne illnesses, are much more common during the winter months.
Get the Food Safety Facts
Honor your holiday food traditions, but don’t rely on the food preparation, presentation, and storage practices you grew up with. Food safety science has come a long way since Grandma’s day.
First, the bare-bones basics
- Keep it clean: Wash food preparation surfaces and hands often.
- Separate: Keep raw meat, poultry, fish, and their juices away from other food. After cutting raw meats, wash cutting board, knife, and counter tops with hot, soapy water.
- Cook: Cook to proper temperatures, checking with a food thermometer.
- Keep hot foods hot (140°F or above) and cold foods cold (40°F or below): Discard any food left out at room temperature for more than 2 hours (1 hour if the temperature was above 90 °F).
Finally, if you’re wondering whether to open the jar of delicious-looking jelly that just arrived with a note from your Aunt Lucy: Made with love from the “mystery berries” Fred and I found on our camping trip to Lake Umbagog last summer, remember the main food safety rule of thumb: When in doubt, throw it out.
