Do you wash your bananas and oranges before you peel and eat them? Maybe it's time to review your food safety habits.
Government rules are intended to ensure food safety begins with farmers, and continues with food suppliers and retailers. But consumers must be vigilant, too.
A lot of safety practices involve washing — washing hands, washing produce, washing cutting boards, knives, countertops and coolers.
Be careful about handling raw meat, poultry and seafood items. Always keep them separate from everything else — in the grocery cart, grocery bags, cooler, refrigerator and on preparation surfaces. Wash your hands, knives, cutting boards, plates and anything else that touches those raw items.
One often-overlooked chore is cleaning reusable shopping bags, according to Chris Wicker, a public health adviser at the Defense Commissary Agency.
For example, if juices from raw meat, chicken or seafood seep into the bag, those germs can contaminate other items. Put those raw items in plastic disposable bags found in the grocery store before placing them into the cart and then a reusable shopping bag. Wash cloth reusable bags in a washing machine and make sure they are completely dry before storing. Scrub plastic-lined reusable bags with soap and hot water and air-dry.
Those who live a distance from the commissary should bring coolers with chill packs to store perishable foods on the way home. Wash your cooler, too. If it's hot outside, put the items in the air-conditioned car, rather than in the hot trunk of the car. Perishable foods must be refrigerated within two hours — and within one hour if the outside temperature is over 90 degrees.
Check food packages for tears or openings, and for signs that frozen foods have thawed. Check for signs of tampering on jars with lids. Avoid buying cans that have deep dents, rust, bulges, or dents on either the top or side seam.
Wash your hands in warm, soapy water for at least 20 seconds before food preparation, and before and after you handle raw meat, poultry or seafood.
Wash all produce under running water before eating or cooking it — even produce with thick skins like bananas and oranges. For citrus, potatoes and things with bumpy textures, use a produce brush. If any part of the produce is damaged or bruised, cut it away. But if the produce package says "ready to eat," and "pre-washed," there's no need to wash again, says foodsafety.gov.
Do not wash meat, poultry and eggs, according to foodsafety.gov. The raw juices could splash onto and contaminate you, your sink and countertops. Commercial eggs are washed before they're sold. Any extra handling could increase the chance of cross-contamination, especially if you crack the shell.
When you prepare and chill food properly, you save money by not wasting food, and you keep you and your family safe from food-borne illness. For more information, including a link to the latest food recalls from the Food and Drug Administration, visit www.commissaries.com, click on "News & Info" and then "Food Safety."
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
