Have you ever hosted a holiday or celebration at your place, and the guest list keeps growing and growing? With that comes a lot of planning…and a lot of food prep. To keep everyone at your party happy and healthy, including for the days to follow, you’ll also need to budget time for proper food handling.

But whether you’re feeding 20 or 2, it’s important to make sure your food is clean and safe before everyone can dig in and enjoy the fruits (and veggies and proteins) of your hard labor.

So let’s get started with some fundamentals of food safety… 

Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill

The Be Food Safe campaign was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the Partnership for Food Safety Education, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to raise awareness of the importance of safe food handling in American households. The campaign recommends just four simple steps: clean, separate, cook and chill.

Wash Your Hands, Wash Your Utensils

• Wash your hands with water and soap for at least 20 seconds before and after handling food. Wash between your fingers and fingernails as well.
• Use gloves to handle food if you have a cut or infection.
• Wash your cutting boards, dishes, utensils, and countertops with hot soapy water after preparing each food item, especially after using them for cutting raw meat, poultry, and seafood.
• Consider using paper towels to clean up kitchen surfaces. If you use cloth towels, launder them often in the hot cycle. Put sponges in the microwave for sixty seconds or more to kill bacteria

Which foods should you clean before eating?

MEAT: DO NOT WASH
Washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb, or veal before cooking it is NOT recommended by the FDA, USDA, and food safety experts. When meat is washed, water may splash harmful bacteria present on the raw meat spreading them to surrounding surfaces, including the clothes of the person washing the meat. Since cooking meat to the appropriate temperature kills disease-causing bacteria, washing meats prior to cooking is not necessary.

EGGS: DO NOT WASH
Eggs contain a natural coating that prevents bacteria from permeating the shell.  And during commercial egg production, eggs are washed and sprayed with edible mineral oil to protect them from bacterial contamination. Washing eggs at home will remove these protective coatings and makes the eggs more susceptible to contamination.

FRUITS & VEGGIES: WASH
Raw fruits and vegetables can carry harmful bacteria, be sure to wash them under running tap water to remove any lingering dirt. When preparing fruits and vegetables, remove any damaged or bruised areas. These are prime spots for bacteria to thrive. In some cases, like with berries, it is best to not wash the produce until you are ready to eat them so they so they stay fresh.

Cook: Use a thermometer— even on your hamburger on the grill! Cooking food to a high enough temperature destroys harmful bacteria. To make sure food is heated to the appropriate internal temperature, the use of a food thermometer is highly recommended. You cannot see, smell, or taste bacteria that cause foodborne illness so it is imperative that you use a thermometer to determine when food is safe to eat.

Chill: Refrigeration is essential. The “danger zone,” where bacteria grow most rapidly, is the range of temperatures between 40 °F and 140°F.  Within this temperature range, bacteria can double in number in as little as 20 minutes. Keeping your food out of the “danger zone” is imperative to food safety in the kitchen.

Storage: USDA has developed guidelines recommending safe time limits for keeping refrigerated foods from becoming dangerous to eat. (Maximum freezing times are recommended for quality purposes only.)

For additional information on safely shopping for food, transporting food and serving food, check out the USDA’s Kitchen Companion: Your Safe Food Handbook.