Don’t test your luck: food safety and pot lucks

Happy Easter!

Our church, Presley Chapel UMC.
We'd love to have you join us!

Our little church has an Easter tradition of a church pot luck after the egg hunt.  As I was making my dishes on Sunday morning, and loading them in the back of my car for the ¾-mile trip to our country church, my meat-scientist husband and I had several discussions about the safest preparation and storage plans for our dishes. That got me thinking that lots of people probably have questions about preparing, storing and traveling with food for a potluck.

Food safety is especially important at potluck dinners because you are preparing food for a wide variety of people, including vulnerable people like the elderly, or the sick, or small children. The food is more likely to sit out a while before being served, and lots of people have probably handled it. As with any food prep, be sure to remember the 4 steps of food safety Clean, Cook, Chill, and Separate. Other than that, I have a few other thoughts specific to potluck foods.

First, clean.

Be sure to wash your hands and make sure your utensils and dishes are clean. Sometimes, my casserole dishes get a little neglected in the back of the cabinet, so I washed them before I started. Deadly bacteria may live on dust and adding wet food and warm temperatures can stimulate them to grow and produce toxins that make people very sick, very fast.

Separate.

Make sure you keep foods that you plan to cook, like raw meat and eggs, separated from those that you will eat without cooking, like breads and fresh fruit and vegetables. Keep the dishes and utensils separate, too. When there’s space, I try to prepare uncooked foods in a completely separate part of the kitchen than ready-to-eat foods.

Cook.

When you are preparing a dish for a potluck, it is especially important to use a meat thermometer on meats and dishes containing eggs. Make sure you get things cooked to 160°F (165°F for poultry).  Even dishes that don’t contain meat should probably be cooked to 160°F, that should help kill any bacteria that may cause spoilage or could grow during the storage times and make people sick.

(At potluck dinners, you don’t have much control on how long the dishes are held, but you can be extra cautious about cleanliness and cookery to eliminate bacteria in the dish initially. That way, fewer bacteria are present to grow in the dish before it’s served.) 

Chill.

Picnics or potlucks,
get your leftovers in the fridge!

Knowing when to chill a dish for potluck is hard. I made three dishes on Sunday morning at 8 am. I knew that we would probably not eat until after 12:15. So, I had to decide if I wanted to keep my dishes warm for 4 hours or chill them down and heat them back up. Our church is small, and we have a brand new oven in the kitchen. I decided to put them in the fridge and warm them back up before we served lunch. The main concern is to minimize the amount of time your dishes spend in the Danger Zone of temperature (40°F to 140°F)before they are served.

Cover.

When you cook your food and it reaches 160°F or higher, most of the bacteria are killed. So, keeping it covered will keep new bacteria out during the trip to the dinner. Some of the people at church on Sunday, covered their dishes with foil when they cooked it, then covered the foil with those plastic lids that come with the casserole dishes. I thought that was a great idea, once the food was cooked, it didn’t have to be uncovered until it was served. I was not as pleased with my foil covering on my dishes, but it got the job done. 

Transport.

When you live ¾ of a mile from church, you can throw the softball stuff to one side of your trunk and transport your dishes for potluck in the back of your car (The hills didn’t cause them to spill! YAY!). Most people don’t have that luxury, so you have to think about traveling with your potluck dish.

My best advice is simply to keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.

Use a cooler with ice packs for cold dishes like coleslaw or deviled eggs. If a cooler is too bulky, you might just pack some ice in a large baggie and place your dishes on it. For warm dishes, there are some great thermal casserole carriers that you can buy or put them in a cooler to keep them warm. If you don’t have far to go, just wrapping the dishes in towels will help keep them warm.

Reheat.

If you need to reheat your dish, be sure to use a thermometer and heat it to 160°F. Take the temperature in a few places in the dish. Some ovens don’t heat evenly, especially older ones, and you want to make sure the whole dish warm.

Leftovers.

Just like at home, you don’t want those leftovers to set out at room temperature for more than 2 hours. Get them covered and in the fridge as soon as you can.

Other thoughts.

·       Preparing single-serving items, like fried chicken, green bean bundles, or deviled eggs, minimizes the number of people who handle the food, which would minimize the chances of contamination.

·        You may consider listing any allergens that your food may contain on an index card to accompany your dish. Common allergens include wheat, dairy, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, shell fish, fish and soy. If there are people with diabetes in your crowd, you may think about making dishes without sugar.

·        If you have a good distance to travel, you may consider making dishes that are less likely to spoil. For instance, you may make a savory green bean bundle rather than the classic green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup. Salty and sugary dishes are less likely to spoil that dishes that contain more cream and mayonnaise.

·        When taste-testing your dishes, be sure to use a new spoon every time. Don’t be a double dipper.

·        If you’ve been sick, just go buy something from the store for the potluck. Fried chicken, drinks, ice. Don’t try to prepare anything. You don’t want to spread your illness.

I love potluck dinners, but they can be dangerous if people are not careful about food safety. I hope that you can feel a little more confident about preparing food for them in the future. Please ask me any questions you may have in the comments.

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Don’t judge cooked meat by its color.

Just… don’t.

Everyone, myself included, does it. We look at the color of the inside of a burger or chicken to determine if it’s cooked. Is it pink? Nope. Chomp chomp!

Here’s the problem: Color is not a good indicator of safe cooking temperatures. You have to use a meat thermometer to be sure meat is cooked to safe temperatures.

Meat turns from pink to brown because the protein that makes meat red (myoglobin) is denatured as it is cooked. The protein is damaged and doesn’t reflect light in the same manner anymore, so the meat appears brown.

Lots of factors can affect how quickly or slowly the protein is denatured as it is heated. Meat color changes can vary due to the pH (acidity) of the meat, the age and gender of the animal, how long it was stored, the way it was packaged, whether it was frozen, even the feed and water of the animals can affect cooked meat color.

Sometimes meat turns brown too soon!

Meat scientists call this phenomenon Premature Browning. It can be really dangerous because meat looks done, but it hasn't been cooked to a safe temperature.

This photo is from a great fact sheet about beef color from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Both of these patties were cooked to an unsafe temperature (55°C or 131°F). Patty A looks very undercooked, but patty B looks done.

I have a previous blog post about fresh meat color. Remember that we talked about meat being oxygenated (red), deoxygenated (purple), or oxidized (brown)? Researchers at Kansas State found that when patties were cooked in the oxidized (brown) state, their cooked color was brown, even at temperatures that were too low to kill deadly bacteria like E. coliand Salmonella. Other research has found that the packaging can cause meat to brown faster, too.

Regardless of why the meat turns brown at too low of a temperature, sometimes it happens. The best way to insure that your meat is cooked properly is to use a meat thermometer.

Ground beef should be cooked to 160°F and poultry should be cooked to 165°F.

Sometimes meat stays pink too long!

Meat scientists call this phenomenon Persistent Pinking. It is not as much a food safety issue as it is a perception and eating quality issue. When meat looks pink, even if it’s been thoroughly cooked, people will think it’s undercooked and will keep cooking it until its way overcooked. When it’s overcooked, it tastes terrible.

I am conducting research on persistent pinking in ground beef this summer. 

These patties were all cooked to exactly 160°F.
You can see how some of them are still pink in the middle.

Research has shown that a high pH (more basic) can protect the proteins at greater temperatures and keep them from turning brown. They may also stay pink because of a higher concentration of the myoglobin protein. Right now our research is creating more questions than answers, but it sure is interesting.

Persistent pinking can also be caused by outside substances interacting with the meat and creating the pink color.

Nitrites are a good example of one of these outside substances. Sometimes we want this pink color to appear, like in the case of ham, sausages, or bacon. However, very small amounts of nitrites can get into the meat (especially poultry) and create a pink color that kind of looks like ham. If you don’t expect the meat to be pink and it is, you may think it’s undercooked.

These pictures were sent to me by Dr. Jim Claus at the University of Wisconsin. He is one of the leading researchers in persistent pinking in processed meats. These are a pair of turkey slices and some tuna chunks with persistent pinking problems. All of these were cooked to a safe temperature, but some clearly have some color issues.

This is a pork chop that was cooked wrapped in bacon. Looks like the nitrites in the bacon seeped into the pork chop and created a pink color.

Sometimes the ovens that cook the meat can introduce gasses that react with the muscle and cause it to turn pink. We like it when this happens in smoked meats, but when you don’t expect it, you may be concerned it hasn’t been cooked enough.

This is a smoked sausage from an awesome BBQ restaurant in south Texas. See how the smoke has created the ring of pink around the edge of the sausage?

When you see pink color in meat, look to see where the off-color is within the pieces. Undercooked meat will be pink in the middle, but persistent pinking issues are more likely to occur on the surface.

Even what the animals (especially birds) eat or drink can introduce substances that can change the cooked color of their meat. Nitrates and nitrites that occur naturally in the feed and water can remain in the birds and create some color problems, especially around the bone.

This is another picture of some cooked chicken pieces from Dr. Claus. You can see some really severe pinking problems in them.

If you are served something that you think looks underdone, it’s OK to ask what temperature it was cooked to. Sometimes meat is just stubbornly pink, but sometimes it may actually be underdone. When it comes to my kids, if I think a piece of meat they've been served may be underdone, you bet I'll ask the waiter about it. 

The best way to know is to use a meat thermometer.

Cook it to a temperaturenot a color.

The USDA has a great fact sheet about meat color that gives more detail about persistent pinking and premature browning.

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Getting the kitchen ready for the holidays

Now that we’ve switched back to the ancient, standard time, and we all get home after dark; we seem to be stuck in the house for endless hours every night. (I really don’t see much point in switching back to standard time every year; except that it makes us all appreciate day-light savings time when it comes around again in the spring.)

So, what to do with all those extra hours trapped in your house with your family?

One great idea is to clean out the fridge! Yay!


With all the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the holiday season, it’s easy for your fridge to get packed in just a few short, crazy weeks. So, the week or two before Thanksgiving (right after we fall back) is the best time to clean out the fridge and get it ready.

I always try to clean out my fridge on the night before the trash man comes, because room-temperature, out-of-date fridge contents can get pretty stinky sitting in the trash can. Check the dates (sell-by, freeze-by, or use-by dates) on all your deli meats, hot dogs, and cheeses. This is also a good chance to double-check your mayonnaise, salad dressings, and salsa, pretty much anything that’s perishable.

I know that the dates are sometimes hard to find, so I took some pictures to give examples of where dates may be found. I can’t tell you when or where I took these pictures (for my own protection).

Dates may be found on the back of the package or the bottom of the label. Sometimes they are on the lids of jars or the bottoms of cans. Sometimes they are not on the label at all and are printed directly on the plastic of the jar, bottle, or package.

Mustard, barbeque sauce, frozen foods, pickled things. These all have a ‘best-by’ date. Notice that some of my examples are out-of date and some have dates that go almost two years into the future. These dates are mostly to help insure the quality of the product. If you eat them after this date, they may not taste great, but they won’t make you sick. Now, remember that this is dependent on how the food has been handled. If it has been allowed to reach room temperature after it was opened, it may not be safe, regardless of the date.

 

The next set of pictures represents use-by dates, and I thought they were some good examples of where to look for dates. Again, they probably won’t make you sick if you consume them after the date expires, but it probably won’t taste very good at all. Cool whip and margarine are usually used in other dishes, so you want to make sure that their ingredients are in the best condition. If you use them after the use-by date, your final dish may not be as good. The oil in ketchup will separate out as it gets older. The artificial sweeteners in diet drinks lose their sweet flavor after a few months, so that Diet Coke may taste like bitter, fizzy water. Salsa and picante sauce may fall in this category, too. I have found that they are prone to mold growth, even in the fridge. Ick….

 

In this last group of pictures, some of the dates say “best-by” and some just have a printed date. These pictures are meats or foods largely made with milk and egg products which are good places for bacteria to grow. So, for meats, mayonnaise, yogurt, cheese sauce, and those types of products, I would stick with the dates. Throw out anything that is past the date on the package. I would put ranch dressing in this category, too.

Ok… back to cleaning out the fridge.

Toss out any left-over’s older than 3-days old. I am guilty of keeping leftovers until they would make good science projects, but we never eat them. We just make funny faces as they go in the trash.

Remember that you are trying to make more room. Sometimes I find two opened packages of the same food and condense them. Empty the shelves all the way to the back. Check the date on everything in the door.

This is a good chance to wash the refrigerator shelves and the drawers with hot, soapy water. You might also want to put in a fresh box of baking soda.

Are you planning to thaw some large meat items in your fridge on Turkey day? (You know… a turkey.) Get a big space cleaned out so you can put it on the bottom shelf. Make sure you have a tray or plate big enough to put it in to catch the juices while it’s thawing. Also, double check that the shelf above is not too low and that your turkey won’t be touching it. Most refrigerators today have adjustable shelves, so you can make the space above the bottom shelf as big as you need it.

You will need to allow 1 day of thawing for every 5 lbs of frozen turkey. So, be ready to share your fridge with a large bird for three or four days before Thanksgiving.
Remember that you may have to store large casserole dishes in your fridge for a while, so make sure there is room for those too. Also, they are not very tall, so you can adjust the upper shelves closer together to save room.

Double check that your refrigerator is cold. (Remember that the temperature will rise if you have the door open, so be sure to check the temperature after the door has been closed for 20 or 30 minutes.) I like to keep mine as cold as possible without freezing my milk, but it should be set no warmer than 38°-40°F. You want to make sure that it is 40°F or cooler in every area of the fridge, so setting it lower may be necessary.

This is a good chance to look over your shopping list for Turkey Day. Figure out the things that you need and the things that you already have. Make sure you have a meat thermometer! Food costs are going to be high this year, so you don’t want to buy ingredients that are already in the fridge or the cabinet. For example, I think I have enough salt for thirty years because I mistakenly thought I needed salt when I was planning a big meal … maybe it wasn’t me…

I don’t have much counter space in my kitchen, so I have to spend a little time clearing off my counters before I take on a big cooking job. You also want to wash your countertops with warm soapy water. Double check that your roasting pan and casserole dishes are clean. Sometimes, if they aren’t used for several months, they can collect dust. Make sure you have at least two good cutting boards, one for food that is going to be cooked and one for food that will be eaten without being cooked. I like to use different colored cutting boards for ready-to-eat and pre-cooked foods. I also want to remind you to keep the knives and other utensils separate for ready-to-eat and pre-cooked foods.

Or… you could spend your evenings watching TV and go to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving. Let your Mom (and, in my case, Dad) do the cooking. That’s my plan, but I still need to clean out my fridge. ;)

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