Food Safety Fundamentals For Safe And Festive Holiday Meals- Big Y® World Class Market™

COOKING FOR GROUPS. Holiday festivities often require preparing meals for larger groups of people. People who are otherwise great cooks for their families don’t necessarily know how to safely prepare, store, and handle large quantities of food for large gatherings. FSIS published Cooking for Groups: A Volunteer's Guide to Food Safety. It provides recommendations for safely preparing, transporting, and serving food at a large gathering. The Guide can be printed from the Cooking for Groups Web page at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/oa/pubs/cfg/cfg.htm.

TRAVELING WITH PERISHABLE FOODS. To transport cold food, wrap it and then place in an ice chest that contains ice cubes or freezer packs. If you are transporting hot food, keep them hot by wrapping them first in clean kitchen towels and then with newspapers packed in a corrugated box or insulated cooler. Serve or reheat within 2 hours.

FOODS IN THE MAIL. When sending cold or frozen food in the mail, use an insulated cooler or heavy corrugated box packed with a frozen gel-pack or dry ice. Label the package "Perishable--Keep Refrigerated" on the outside of the box. Ship the package by overnight delivery and alert the recipient to arrange for a mutually-agreeable delivery date. Perishable mail order food should arrive still frozen or cold-to-the-touch--if not, don't consume the food. Don’t even taste it. Always check the label on the item for storage instructions. If the food is to be kept cold, refrigerate or freeze it immediately.

HANDLING PRECOOKED DINNERS AND LEFTOVERS. Some cooks forego cooking holiday foods at home altogether and choose to purchase precooked dinners. There are also basic safety measures for the safe handling of these holiday meals. If the dinners are to be picked up hot, keep the food hot. Keeping food warm is not enough. Harmful bacteria multiply fastest in the "danger zone"--the temperatures between 40 and 140 °F. Set the oven temperature high enough to keep the internal temperature of meat and side dishes at 140 °F or above. Eat the food within 2 hours of pickup. When picking up cold dinners, refrigerate them as soon as possible, always within 2 hours. Serve the meal within 1 to 2 days.

For more information: Food Safety and Inspection Service
United States Department of Agriculture
Washington, D.C. 20250-3700
FSIS Food Safety Education and Communications Staff

Meat and Poultry Hotline
Phone: 1-800-535-4555 or (202) 720-3333 (voice); 1-800-256-7072 (TTY)

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