It is important to be careful when cooking and eating outdoors, as well as storing food on warm days.
Keep things clean
- Clean your hands before and after handling food.
- Wash utensils used for cooking prior to using them to serve food.
- Wash fruits and vegetables before serving raw.
Watch the temperature
- Thaw and marinate meat in the fridge (don't thaw food on kitchen bench or reuse marinades that have touched raw meat)
- Handle raw meat with clean tools (wash utensils, cutting boards and crockery carefully afterwards)
- Cook meat thoroughly (use a food thermometer to check the temperature reaches 74 degrees for chicken, 72 degrees for red meat and 63 degrees for fish and pork)
- Don't let food sit out (food should be left out of the fridge no longer than one hour on hot days or two hours on cooler days).
- Be aware of outdoor temperatures (use a cooler bag when shopping and refrigerate food as soon as possible).
Don't cross-contaminate
- Keep cooked and uncooked food separate (including transporting food to picnics and barbecues).
