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Home Tips > Useful > Tips For Fresh Fruits And Vegetables To Avoid Becoming One Of The 76 Million People Who Will Get Sick From Food Poisoning Each Year, What Can We Do? Aside from backyard gardens and growing everything we eat to eliminate contamination of produce and fresh squeezed juices, here are 12 tips to reduce the risk of raw food produce, fresh fruits and vegetable juice contamination.
- Look for fresh produce without breaks in the skin, bruising or other damage.
- Do not pack fresh fruit and vegetables in the same grocery bags with poultry, seafood and raw meat packages.
- Once you get your produce home, store in refrigerator with a temperature of 40 degrees or below. Bananas, oranges, apples and other non-perishable fruit do not need to be kept cold unless you want to delay ripening.
- Before preparing food, wash your hands with warm soap and water at least 20 seconds -- about as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday.
- Again, check fruits and vegetables for breaks in the skin, bruising or other damage. Discard produce that does not look fresh.
- Remove outer leaves of leafy vegetables. Produce sold in a bag marked prewashed needs to be tossed in a colander and washed again.
- Even if you will be peeling the fruit or vegetable, wash produce skin under cold running water before peeling. For fruits and vegetables with a firm surface, scrub with a produce brush. After washing, use a clean cloth to dry rub your fruits and vegetables. Be aware that some bacteria on the outer peel can be difficult to remove. Wash, rinse, scrub and dry thoroughly before consuming raw fruits and vegetables.
- Refrigerate fruits and vegetables after they have been peeled, sliced, chopped or diced if not consumed within a few hours.
- When preparing food, do not allow fruits and vegetables to come in contact with raw meats.
- Using soap and hot water, clean cutting boards, containers, counter tops and any utensils used in the preparation of meat before using them again to prepare fruits and vegetables.
- If possible, have separate kitchen utensils and cutting boards for produce and meat. At the end of preparation of your meal, non-porous cutting boards can be washed and sanitized in the dishwasher.
- When purchasing fresh squeezed fruit or vegetable juice, look to see if the label indicates it has been pasteurized. Pasteurization kills bacteria. If purchasing non-pasteurized fruit or vegetable juices, be aware the juice might have been made with contaminated produce.
We cannot be completely safe about the produce we purchase from the store, as we have no control over the processing conditions of the fruits and vegetables from field to grocery store produce bin. Most of the fruit and vegetable food recalls have occurred as a result of less than sanitary conditions where grown, at processing plants or during shipping.
Although it might not be realistic to grow a garden large enough to feed a family year-round, growing some fruits and vegetables is a safeguard against food contamination, as is purchasing fruits and vegetables from trusted local farmers in your area whenever possible. Following these 12 food safety tips will help reduce your danger of getting sick due to food contamination. With an option to sign up for free Food and Drug Administration (FDA) email updates, the FDA Recalls website publishes the latest information on product recalls and safety alerts.
Source: www.greendaily.com
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