Food safety tips for summer

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It’s a scorcher of a day, everyone's in the kitchen, your partner’s beside you preparing a seafood platter as you check the roast chook in the oven. The kids are opening and shutting the fridge door and your sister’s just arrived with a cheesecake and can’t find any space in the fridge. Happy Christmas!

While it’s great to share meals with family and friends over summer, bacteria grow more rapidly in warmer temperatures, so food left out of the fridge in Christmas and New Year celebrations, summer barbecues and picnics can spoil quickly.

Infants and young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are more vulnerable to food poisoning or serious illness from spoiled and contaminated food.

Tips to keep your food safe this summer

  • Check the temperature of your fridge (3 deg C) and freezer (-18 deg C) regularly over summer. Stack your fridge carefully so that meat juices, for example, do not spoil other foods, and remember to take an insulated cooler bag when shopping to safely transport perishable goods.

  • Source your food from reputable suppliers and pay close attention to use by dates. If you have been sick recently or show any signs of illness, leave the food preparation and serving to others.

  • Wash your hands thoroughly before preparing or serving food and continue to wash and dry your hands to avoid cross contamination. Ensure all preparation and serving surfaces are clean and remember to give the barbecue a good scrub with soapy water ahead of time.

  • Keep cold food refrigerated until serving time and consider serving cold seafood on platters sitting on ice or cold packs

  • Keep it cool: Allow food to cool slightly (until there's no steam) before refrigerating. Food platters can look great on the table, but don’t leave food out for longer than two hours. In hot conditions you may need to refrigerate food within one hour, especially if cooking and eating outdoors.

  • Don’t take risks: Take special care with high-risk foods such as soft cheeses, dips, seafood, poultry, ham, salads, and desserts or sauces that may contain cream or raw egg, such as tiramisu or homemade aioli. To avoid waste, serve these item as required in smaller portions , keeping the rest in the refrigerator, and discard once they have been sitting out.

  • Leftovers: They’re delicious, but if in doubt throw them out. Putting date stickers on leftovers can help you remember when it’s time to bin them.