Tips help keep bacteria out of our cooking

When we're in the supermarket deciding what to make for dinner, we don't think of making a nice dish of e coli with listerosis on the side, but if we don't handle and prepare our foods properly, that's just what we might be eating. In fact, often when we think we have a touch of the "stomach flu", what we really have is a case of food-born illness, otherwise known as food-poisoning.

One of the major contributing factors to food-born illness is cross-contamination. This occurs when juices from meats or poultry come in contact with other foods. Surprisingly, this can happen even before we leave the supermarket. We might place meat or poultry packages directly in the cart alongside vegetables and produce, or we place our vegetables and produce on the conveyor belt at the check-out stand without a thought as to what might have been sitting there two customers before.

The best way to ensure that cross contamination does not occur at the supermarket is to place a plastic bag around meat and poultry. It's also a good idea to use plastic bags for produce, too. It may seem wasteful, but that layer of plastic offers serious and necessary protection for you and your family against bacteria.

Cross-contamination can also happen at home. Many of us place food on the countertop as we unload our groceries or prepare a meal. We might be in such a hurry that we don't think to wipe up the juices from the chicken we just diced. After all, it's just food, right? Wrong. Potentially harmful bacteria live in all meat, fish and poultry products. Cooking to the proper temperature kills the bacteria, but the danger of cross contamination occurs in foods that we normally eat raw or "out of the package". They do not go through this sterilization process. Therefore, if we place a cookie on the countertop that's contaminated with the bacteria from the diced chicken, and eat it, we may get sick.

This brings me to another culprit in the world of food-born illness - improper food preparation and cooking methods. In a perfect world, we would have time to go to the store daily, selecting the freshest products available for our meals. However, in reality, many of us cannot make this daily trip and we depend upon our freezers to keep the dinner table stocked.

Defrosting food is one of the easiest ways to introduce unfriendly bacteria into our diets. There are three ways that are safe to defrost food. The best way is to plan ahead and place the item in the refrigerator, where it can slowly defrost over time. We need to estimate about 24 hours for each five pounds of meat or poultry. Make sure the food is completely thawed, or it will cook unevenly.

Another, slightly faster method is to soak the food in cold water. Seal the food completely in a plastic bag, making sure to get out as much of the air as possible. Then soak in cold water in the sink, replacing the water every 30 minutes until completely thawed.

The fastest method is to defrost meats and poultry in the microwave. Estimate the poundage and follow your microwave's directions. With this method, unlike the other two methods, you have to cook the food right away. The partial cooking of the meat that occurs in the microwave prevents being able to freeze or store it without cooking.

Finally, cooking your meat thoroughly is the best way to protect against food-born illness. Use a meat thermometer to check if meat is truly done internally. According to the Center for Disease Control, the temperature for poultry should be at least 165 degrees, ground beef should be 160 degrees, while cuts of beef, veal and lamb should be between 145 and 160 degrees, depending on desired doneness, and pork should always be at least 160 degrees.

With the proper preparation and cooking, we'll be able to sit down at the table and enjoy food and family, without worrying about any uninvited microscopic guests.