Thanksgiving Safety Etiquette

Thanksgiving is all about sharing with family, having a glass or two with your friends and, all in all having a good time. The only things you should be concerned about when it comes to the Thanksgiving meal is how you will cook your turkey this year. However, there is the small matter of food intoxication. This is why Thanksgiving safety etiquette is very important.

The first thing to keep in mind, while preparing the feast for your friends and your family, is that undercooked meat is not good. Actually, apart from feeling a rubbery-fleshy taste in your mouth, undercook meat is the perfect haven for bacteria. Do keep in mind to buy your meat cuts from a local certified butchery, in order to avoid contaminated meat.

Also, while cooking the turkey itself, it would be a good idea to go and buy yourself a meat thermometer. The traditional pop-up thermometer is not reliable when it comes to measuring the bird’s temperature, because the pop-up only measures the overall temperature of the bird. The only method to make sure that your thanksgiving turkey is perfectly cooked is to measure its temperature in several places.

According to the USDA, the turkey must reach 160 degrees before it can be consumed. So, regarding the so-called Thanksgiving safety etiquette, what must we do in order to ensure that the turkey is cooked to perfection and we keep our loved ones out of harm’s way? Well, as we mentioned, buy a food thermometer. It’s easier to use and will not play tricks on you when it comes to measuring temperature. Take the thermometer and stick it in several parts of the bird. A specialist from the USDA said that the best parts to probe with the thermometer are situated near the breast, thighs and wings.

First stick the thermometer in the thickest part of the breast and take a measurement. Then, repeat the procedure, only this time stick it in inner-most portion of the thigh and the inner-most section of the wing. If the temperature check-up in all three places, then it mean that the turkey is ready to be popped out of the oven.

When the feast itself ends, don’t forget to cool down all the leftover to ensure that the bacteria won’t have time to settle.

The doctors and health specialists have taken the time to prepare us in Thanksgiving safety etiquette because, each year, 48 million people come down with food intoxication. Approximately 128.000 of them will be hospitalized due to complication. Unfortunately, food poisoning isn’t victimless. Almost 3000 people die each year due to ingesting contaminated food.

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