When it comes to food and health safety during Thanksgiving, one of the most important things to keep an eye on is of course the food itself during all stages of preparation.
“So for communal gatherings, one thing that pops up that we see a lot regarding health risks is foodborne illnesses. So things that pop up with that are going to be people not taking proper sanitation efforts by making sure they don't cross contaminate. So they'll use the same cutting board or knife for their turkey, or their chicken and they'll turn around and use that for vegetables or fruit. So that's one thing that we want to make sure that we're not doing, the second thing is not using proper hand hygiene, so make sure that you wash your hands for that 20 second to make sure everything's getting clean and off. Use soap and water, that's going to be something you're going to make sure that water is warm to hot,” said Danielle Moreno, Community Health Educator for the City of Midland.
But even once the food is done being cooked there’s still a risk of it being contaminated, so Moreno says that hot and cold food needs to be stored properly to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“Make sure that you're storing foods in the proper temperature. So you're going to want to make sure if it's hot food once you cook it, you're going to make sure that stays above 140°. If it's cold food, you're going to want to make sure it stays under 40°. That's going to help the bacteria from not growing and getting people sick,” Moreno continued.
But sometimes the risk of illness might not come from the food itself but rather from other guests.
“So, when it comes to the fun gatherings of holiday seasons, we always have a lot of people that can get sick during this time of year, right, for the cold weather, different changes in weather, our fun weather fluctuate. So crazy one day it will be 60°, the next day it will be 102°, right? So, one thing you'll want to focus on is making sure that if you're not feeling good, stay at home or stay away from those, that can be more susceptible to those viruses that can be spread around,” Moreno added.