Grilling Reminders and Food Safety Tips

With the long weekend ahead of us, many will be grilling. The potential for food borne illness increases in July and August. Proper food handling and preparation is never more important as families flock to picnics, barbecues, and campouts.

Marianne Gravely with the USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline reminds outdoor cooks that an essential tool to have on hand is a meat thermometer

Gravely: "The only way to know if you have cooked something thoroughly is to use a meat thermometer — you can't tell by looking."

She continues with the recommended safe cooking temperatures for various meat products.?

Gravely: "If you are cooking a whole cut of meat, like a steak a roast or chops — whether it be beef, pork, lamb or goat — we recommend cooking it to an internal temperature of 145 degrees and then we allow a 3 minute standing time. It may be pink in the middle, but it is still safe because you have measured the temperature. Then if you are cooking poultry, we recommend cooking that to 165 degrees. If you are cooking ground beef, we recommend cooking it to 160 degrees. It is important to use a meat thermometer because it is possible that it could be pink or be brown, but yet the temperature may not be right. So 160 degrees is important for ground beef."

Even before cooking, food transported to a picnic area or campsite needs to be kept in coolers filled with plenty of ice until it is time to prepare or consume the food. Keeping that cooler or ice chest in the shade, if possible, might buy some additional time.