September is National Food Safety Education Month and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging people to be aware of food borne illnesses and ways to avoid contracting those.

ISU Extension Human Sciences – Health and Food Specialist Tom Keinert says cross contamination is one of the leading causes for food borne illnesses. He offers reminders to prevent cross contamination by making sure to wash hands before handling raw protein and when done, cleaning the food prep surface, cleaning the knife and washing hands again. Keinert suggests wearing single use plastic gloves as an added barrier and protection against cross contamination when preparing food. However, he urges people to use caution and common sense if you do wear gloves for food prep.

“I have seen, certainly working in restaurants for a long time, some people put on gloves and then think they’re bulletproof. And that, ‘As long as I’m wearing gloves, I can touch anything as much as I want to.’ Not true. If I’m wearing gloves and I pick up some garbage, I’ve still got garbage juice on those gloves. So just because you’re wearing gloves doesn’t mean you’re bulletproof, you still need to follow good procedures.”   

Keinert points out that half of food borne illnesses come from improperly handling vegetables. 

“Because if you think about it, these vegetables are coming from the farm and a lot of them, they might be using fertilizer that is made from animal manure, they might have some dirt on them, or they might have something that they picked up on the farm. So it’s very important that we wash our vegetables.”

Finally, Keinert reminds people to make sure to cook proteins to their proper internal temperatures to ensure food borne illnesses are prevented. The list of the appropriate temperatures for proteins are listed below.

 

Chicken and leftovers 165 degrees

Ground beef or ground pork 155-160 degrees

Steak, pork chop, fish, shellfish 145 degrees