samson

Almost all of us store leftovers after a meal—and we think they’re safe to eat. But improperly stored leftovers contribute to the more than 76 million cases of food poisoning every year! Here’s how to keep your family safe.

Putting leftovers in the refrigerator within two hours. That’s when bacteria start to grow if kept out in temperatures over 5℃. And the timer doesn’t start when you’ve finished with the meal, but when you take it out of the oven!

Storing leftovers in several containers instead of one large one. Large quantities of food should be stored in several shallow plastic containers. Why? Because several small quantities of food cool faster than one large one.

Never defrosting frozen leftovers on the counter. That warms them to room temperature, which is ideal for growing bacteria. Instead, use the defrost feature on your microwave.

Serving leftovers hot. Your can reheat in microwave or oven, but make sure meat is cooked to 100℃ all the way through. That’s how hot it needs to be to kill any bacteria.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Logistics, Follow Your Bliss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.