food safety

At two town hall meetings in Minnesota this week with Food Safety and Inspection Service employees, I had the pleasure of unveiling a new plan for food safety over the next five years. I’m very excited about our new Strategic Plan for FY 2011 through FY 2016, which will serve as the agency’s roadmap to ensuring that food produced under FSIS’ authority is safe for the American public.

This Strategic Plan should allow every single person in FSIS to have a direct line of sight between what they do every day and our objectives, and each of us should see ourselves as accountable to the public for protecting them from foodborne illnesses. We are putting forward detailed strategies and measureable tactics to reduce foodborne illness and chart our progress over the next five years, so this will serve as a foundation document for both the long-range and day-to-day operations of the Agency.

In anticipation of the beginning of football and tailgating season, I have put together  some of the most frequently asked questions that USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline receives about hamburgers and food safety. Whether you’re grilling burgers at home or outside the stadium, here’s what you need to know:

Do you have guidelines for buying ground beef or hamburgers?  What's the best way to handle them?

• Choose a package that is not torn and feels cold. If possible, put it in a plastic bag so leaking juices won't drip on other foods.
• Make ground beef one of the last items to go into your shopping cart. Be sure to separate raw meat from ready-cooked items in your cart.
• Have the cashier bag raw meat separately from other items and plan to drive directly home. You may want to take a cooler with ice for perishables.

This month, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is taking part in a “Cook It Safe” campaign to raise awareness about the need to follow package instructions in order to fully cook pre-prepared foods and prevent foodborne illness. Due to illnesses in recent years resulting from undercooked pre-prepared meals, the “Cook It Safe!” campaign urges consumers to follow four key food safety tips to be sure food is fully and safely prepared at home:

1. Read and Follow Package Cooking Instructions
Frozen or refrigerated convenience foods may appear ready-to-eat and simply in need of being reheated, but many contain raw products that must be fully cooked before eating. The product’s label should tell whether reheating or thorough cooking is needed. Don’t ignore steps like covering, stirring halfway through cooking, or allowing food to rest before eating—these steps contribute to even cooking.

Last week we were honored to host USDA’s 3^rd annual Iftar commemorating the month of Ramadan and the contributions of USDA’s Muslim employees.  More than 200 attendees, including USDA employees, Muslim community members, and representatives from faith-based and secular non-profit organizations, gathered at USDA headquarters for an evening with a themed focus on “Food and Faith: Setting a Safe and Healthy Table.”

Cross posted from FoodSafety.gov:

More than 15 million school-aged children are home alone after school. That means they’ll be making their own afterschool snacks, without anyone supervising their creative concoctions. Will your kids be eating on their own during the week? If so, you might want to go over these guidelines with them—before they run straight to the refrigerator and snack mindlessly in front of the TV, with their feet on the table and the family dog in their lap.

Cross posted from the FoodSafety.gov blog:

We look forward all year to our summer vacations. Whether you’re camping, hitting the beach, boating, or relaxing in a mountain cabin or beach house, you’ll probably be packing food.

Plan Ahead
When planning meals for a vacation, think about buying shelf-stable foods, such as canned foods, to stay safe. If you are packing perishable foods (meat, poultry, eggs, and salads) for eating on the road or to cook at your vacation spot, plan to keep everything on ice in your cooler. Have plenty of ice or frozen gel-packs on hand before starting to pack food. Consider packing drinks in a separate cooler so the food cooler is not opened frequently. Read last week’s blog to learn more tips on packing a cooler.

Here in Washington, D.C., and probably where you live too, it is hot! This week’s Check Your Steps blog focuses on a timely food safety step—Chill. You may feel like this guy, but in reality we don’t recommend keeping your food cold with fans, no matter how many you can find.

Bacteria grow rapidly between 40 °F and 140 °F, and when it’s above 90 °F outside, cold food heats to those temperatures much faster. Portable coolers can be your best friend during outdoor summer activities or grocery shopping, but pack them correctly to keep food at 40 °F or below so it doesn’t spoil or make you sick.

For the past two Tuesdays as part of the Food Safe Families campaign, I’ve blogged about two basic food safety steps that are important but easy to implement in your food prep routine—cook and clean. Today, I’m going to focus on preventing a sneaky food safety hazard that can happen at many points between purchasing and eating food: cross-contamination.

Cross-contamination occurs when juices from uncooked foods come in contact with safely cooked foods, or with other raw foods that don’t need to be cooked, like fruits and vegetables. The juices from some raw foods, like meats and seafood, can contain harmful bacteria that could make you and your family sick.

Bacteria exist everywhere in our environment, and some of them can make us really sick. Illness-causing bacteria exist in or on food, on countertops, kitchen utensils, hands, pets, and in the dirt where food grows. As part of the Food Safe Families campaign, this week’s Check Your Steps blog focuses on cleaning before, during, and after preparing and eating food to keep your family safer from food poisoning.

Today, USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services launched a true first for our departments and our nation’s public health system. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service partnered with the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Ad Council to debut a joint, national, multimedia public service campaign called Food Safe Families to help Americans prevent food-related illnesses in their homes. With this campaign, we’re trying to shift the way people think about food handling so they can take a more proactive, preventive approach at home to help reduce food-related illnesses.