Food Safety Tips

When you arrive home with fresh produce you should rinse it with clean running water. The CDC recommends that you: 

• Avoid washing fruits and vegetables with soap, detergent, or a commercial produce wash. This is not recommended. Also, never use bleach solutions or other disinfecting products on food (these chemicals can make you very ill if ingested). 
• Remove damaged or bruised areas of produce before preparing or eating them. 
• Dry fruits and vegetables with a clean paper towel after you are finished washing them. 

Now that your produce is clean, you may be ready to make your dish or have a snack. In addition to washing your produce, you should also be sure to prepare your fruits and vegetables with clean hands and utensils.  

Of note, there are two more safe handling steps you should remember—separate and chill. Produce should be stored and prepared separately from raw meat, poultry and seafood. This means that prepping utensils used while making the produce and animal protein parts of your meals should be used separately as well.  

Finally, you should refrigerate (or freeze) fruits and veggies in a closed container within two hours of cutting, peeling or cooking them (or within one hour if the atmospheric temperature is 90˚F or higher). Also, it is a good idea to regularly check the temperature of your refrigerator and freezer with an appliance thermometer. The refrigerator should be set at 40°F or below and the freezer at 0°F or below. 

 

Open Dating Labels 

For all sections of the refrigerator and freezer, the time to clean out stored food items depends on the directions on each item’s packaging and their date labels, also called “open dating” labels. These labels inform consumers of the date by which to consume a food product at its best quality. Label dates do not necessarily indicate safety of consumption (except in the case of infant formula products, the consume-by dates of which are regulated by the federal government). 

• “Best if Used By/Before”: indicates when a product will offer its best flavor and peak quality—not when it should be safely purchased or eaten by. 
• “Sell-By”: tells a store how long to display the product for sale for the purposes of inventory management. Like a use-by date, a sell-by date is not necessarily a safety date. 
• “Freeze-By”: indicates when a product should be frozen to maintain its peak quality—it, too, is neither a purchase or safety date.  

 

Safely Storing Food in Freezers 

We should all periodically check the temperature of our refrigerators and freezers with a special appliance thermometer. Many modern appliance versions have a built-in thermometer that display internal temperatures and sound an alarm if a temperature begins to change. For a quick reference, you should keep your refrigerator at 40 °F or below and your freezer at 0 °F or below.  

Ensuring proper temperatures in your refrigerator and freezer helps support food safety as well as maintain taste, freshness, and the cooking reliability of your perishable foods and beverages. In addition, proper storage supported by correct temperatures in your refrigerator and freezer helps avoid food waste. Improperly stored food can spoil quickly and thus need to be discarded earlier than if it had been stored correctly. The FDA advises that all food should be examined for spoilage regardless of the dates on the packaging.   

 

For more information read IFIC’s blogs on Fruit and Veggie Safety: Making the Most of Your Fresh Produce and Fridge and Freezer Safety Tips.