Part II. Prevention: At Home and Away

Food poisoning can generally be prevented if you take the proper precautions. Read on to find out the general food poisoning prevention precautions everyone should follow when preparing or consuming food, as well as special advice for preventing food poisoning if you’re traveling in a foreign country. There are also special precautions for people who are at a higher risk of contracting food poisoning because of their age or medical status.

Preventing food poisoning at home

Keep things clean

• Always wash hands before cooking and before eating. Also wash hands after touching raw meat. Hands should be washed for 20 seconds with soap and running water. Make sure to scrub between your fingers, under your nails, and the backs of your hands.
• Cleanse the surfaces and utensils used for cooking after each use. Rinsing with water is not enough. Use hot, soapy water to clean utensils and small cutting boards; use a bleach solution to clean countertops and larger cutting boards.
• Take special care to clean dishes and utensils that have contacted raw meat, fish, poultry, or eggs.
• Wash fruits and vegetables before preparing them (but not meat, poultry, or eggs). It is important to wash produce even if you plan to peel /cut it because bacteria can spread from the peel to the rest of the fruit/vegetable as you cut or peel it.

Avoid cross-contamination

• Keep prepared, ready-to-eat foods away from raw meat, poultry, fish, and eggs while you’re shopping at the grocery store or preparing the food, and in the refrigerator. For example, you should not put cooked meat back in the same container that held the food when it was raw.
• Use separate utensils, cutting boards, and plates for raw produce (fruits and vegetables) and for raw animal foods (meat, poultry, fish, and eggs).

Cook at the proper temperature

• Use a food thermometer when cooking to ensure that the food reaches its safe minimum cooking temperature. Internal temperatures for steak and roasts should reach at least 145°F, while ground beef should be cooked to at least 160°F. Cook poultry to at least 165°F, pork to at least 160°F, and fish to 145°F. Eggs should be cooked until the yolk is firm.
• Microwave frozen foods for the full amount of time instructed on the packaging (at 165°F or higher).
• If you plan to serve/consume the food shortly after cooking it, keep it at a temperature of at least 140°F after cooking it and during mealtime. The “danger zone” at which bacteria that cause food poisoning multiply in cooked foods is between 40°F and 140°F.
• If you can your own foods, make sure to follow proper canning temperatures and techniques to avoid botulism.

Keep things cold

• Refrigerate or freeze perishable food within two hours after cooking or purchasing it. In hot summer temperatures (90°F and above), refrigerate foods after one hour.
• Do not defrost food at room temperature. Thaw foods in the refrigerator, with the microwave (using the “defrost” or “50 percent power” setting) or by running cold water over it.
• Keep your refrigerator at 40°F or colder and your freezer at 0°F or colder.

Throw out old food

• Discard of meat, fish, or poultry that has been refrigerated uncooked for more than 1 or 2 days.
• Throw out perishable food that’s been sitting out at room temperature for too long (2 hours or longer).
• Consult this list of safe refrigerator/freezer storage times from FoodSafety.gov.

Use common sense

• Don’t cook with/eat foods whose expiration date has passed.
• Don’t cook with/eat foods that look or smell funny (even if they are not expired).
• Don’t cook with/eat packaged foods with a broken seal.
• Don’t cook with/eat canned food that is bulging or dented
• Don’t cook with/drink water from streams or well water if it has not been treated/chlorinated.

Preventing food poisoning when dining out

At parties and picnics

• Avoid party foods that are prone to causing food poisoning, especially if you notice they have been sitting out for awhile. Party foods that commonly cause food poisoning include deviled eggs, raw oysters, steak tartare, bread pudding, potato salad, coleslaw, and rare- or medium-cooked hamburger.
• Don’t eat food if you suspect or know the person who prepared it didn’t wash their hands or otherwise prepared it unsafely. If you don’t want to seem rude, make up an excuse as to why you can’t eat that food (e.g., you are full or you don’t like/are not in the mood for that particular type of food).

At restaurants

• Be selective about the establishments you dine at, paying attention to the cleanliness of the establishment and staff, as well as its ratings. Observe the parking lot and make sure the trash cans are not overflowing and that there is not pooled water around the restaurant. The bathroom should be clean and well kept, and staff should have clean uniforms and proper hair restraints. Also check restaurant reviews and make sure the establishment has a sanitation/food safety rating of “A.”
• Consider avoiding certain restaurant foods that are prone to causing food poisoning. These include salsa, guacamole (according to the CDC, salsa and guacamole are increasingly responsible for cases of restaurant food poisoning) and any food from a salad bar or buffet, which is likely to have been sitting out for a long time.
• Beware of “specials” at low-end restaurants – these are often used as a way to get rid of old meat.
• The Food Poison Journal warns restaurant-goers to avoid eating fish on a Monday, when it is likely to have been sitting in the refrigerator all weekend.
• Don’t be shy about sending back food that looks or smells strange or is lukewarm. Also be sure to send back meat or poultry that seems undercooked (is still pink in the middle).

Preventing food poisoning when traveling in developing countries

• See a doctor before traveling to a foreign country to get any medicines, immunizations, or advice that may be necessary to help you avoid food poisoning in the place(s) you are traveling to.
• Bring emergency rations on your trip when possible. Some energy bars or nuts can make for a decent meal replacement if no safe dining options are available.
• Bring water purification tablets if you are traveling to a region without water filtration systems (or if you’re not sure). These can be used to make tap water safe to drink.
• Pack alcohol-based sanitizer or hand wipes and wash or sanitize hands before you eat during your travels.
• Be highly selective about the establishments you dine at, consulting travel books and websites for recommendations of safe places to eat. Inspect the cleanliness of a restaurant before eating there.
• Don’t eat food from street vendors. Depending on the region and circumstances, they may not be subject to inspection and may therefore not be up to par with health standards.
• Avoid eating seafood, dairy products, and raw vegetables, which are more likely than other foods to contain harmful pathogens.
• Favor hot food that has been thoroughly cooked and raw foods that have peels (such as oranges or bananas).
• Drink only bottled or purified water, and do not drink any beverages containing ice (as the ice may have been made with unpurified tap water). Make sure seals on bottled water have not been broken.
• Eat small portions of a variety of foods. If you keep your portion size of any one food relatively small, you have a better chance of fighting off or minimizing any illness from that food in the event that it is contaminated.

Special precautions

Infants, young children, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, elderly people, and people with weakened immune systems and/or chronic health conditions have greater risk of developing food poisoning than other people. Food poisoning may also be more severe and potentially life-threatening for these individuals. Avoid the following if you have an increased risk for developing food poisoning.

• Soft cheeses (like Brie, Camembert, or feta), unpasteurized cheeses, and blue-veined cheeses
• Meat spreads and pates
• Uncooked, cured meats (e.g., lunch meat, deli meat, uncooked hot dogs)
• Unpasteurized milk or milk products
• Unpasteurized juices or ciders
• Food that may contain raw or undercooked eggs, such as cookie dough or homemade ice cream
• Raw or undercooked meat/poultry
• Smoked, raw, or undercooked fish, especially shellfish (e.g., oysters, scallops, mussels, clams)
• Raw sprouts (e.g., bean, radish, alfalfa, radish)
• Honey (do not give to infants younger than 1 year; the risk does not pertain to older kids or adults)