Food Preparation Safety Tips

• Always wash your hands before and after food preparation.
• Use separate cutting boards if possible, for example, one for meat and the other for vegetables.
• Always wash and sanitize your countertops, knives, cutting boards and equipment when switching tasks, for example, when you switch from cutting raw meats or poultry to working with vegetables.
• Set your refrigerator’s thermostat below 40ºF to help prevent bacteria from growing to dangerous levels in your food.
• If food has been sitting at room temperature for more than two hours, throw it away!
• After cleaning spills (especially raw meat juices) from kitchen surfaces, sanitize the surface with diluted bleach or another chemical sanitizer to reduce bacteria to safe levels.
• Keep cold foods cold, keep hot foods hot!
• Always cook meats, fish, poultry and eggs to a safe internal temperature.
• Do not let raw meats touch or drip into ready-to-eat foods.
• If preparing ahead, cool cooked foods down as quickly as possible.

Lead Safety Tips

• If your house was painted before 1978 and the paint is stripping or peeling, test it to make sure it is not lead based.
• Every morning, let your water run in your
  faucets for about five minutes to help discard possible residual lead, as many pipes are
  lead based.
• Parents and caregivers who use formula to feed their infants should only use filtered water to prepare it.
• Lead can also be found in soil. Make sure
  children thoroughly wash their hands after
  playtime outdoors.
• Many batteries contain lead. Keep loose batteries out of the reach of children.