Enjoy your family feasts during the festive season, but make sure you and your family don’t end up with any cases of food poisoning.
While 43% of people feel that buying presents is by far the biggest worry at Christmas, cooking Christmas dinner comes second along with family arguments! That’s not surprising considering that nearly a third of people will be eating Christmas dinner with more than seven guests and 45% will spend over five hours preparing and cooking the festive meal.
To help reduce the risk of food borne illness over the festive period, West Lancashire Borough Council and the Food Standards Agency recommend the following tips to ensure everyone has a happy and healthy Christmas:
- Cold temperatures slow the growth of germs so make sure your fridge is running at the correct temperature - below 5°C - and is not overcrowded.
- To prevent cross-contamination, ensure that you store raw turkey (and other raw foods) separately from cooked or ready to eat food, covered and chilled on the bottom shelf of the fridge.
- If you are using a frozen turkey, make sure you check how long it will take to defrost safely using the turkey packaging instructions or at Food Standards Agency (external link).
- To prevent the spread of food poisoning germs like campylobacter, make sure that you wash everything that has touched your raw turkey (e.g. hands, utensils and work surfaces) with soap and hot water.
- Don’t wash your raw turkey under the tap as this can splash germs around your kitchen.
- Check the turkey is cooked thoroughly - there should be no pink meat in the thickest parts and it should be steaming hot with juices running clear.
- If you’ve got leftovers, you should cool them, cover and ensure that they go in the fridge or freezer within 1-2 hours. If you have a lot of one type of food, splitting it into smaller portions will help it to cool quicker.
- Leftovers should be eaten or frozen within two days (one day for rice dishes).
- Make sure that when you come to use frozen leftovers, you defrost them thoroughly in the fridge overnight or in a microwave (on defrost setting) and then reheat until steaming hot.
The Food Standards Agency has produced a downloadable festive meal planner on its websiteFood Standards Agency (external link).