With Memorial Day behind us, it is officially summertime.
We spent our Memorial Day bike riding and enjoying a meal outdoors with friends (our first summer picnic).
Summer is a time to get outside, create new routines, and participate in healthy activities. It is also a time when many of us travel. I am writing a six-part summer health and safety series. This series started three weeks ago when I shared my summer plans and how we will move our bodies this summer. I’ve also written about water safety and sun safety.
Today, let’s talk about summer picnics, which to an epidemiologist translates to food safety!
July is officially National Picnic Month. But many of us will be picnicking throughout the summer. And while eating outdoors with friends and family is a wonderful way to spend a summer afternoon or evening, it is of the utmost importance that we all prepare and store our picnic foods properly to prevent foodborne illnesses.
Food can become contaminated with a handful of viruses and bacteria, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, listeria, and Hepatitis A when it is harvested, processed, prepared, or shared. Foodborne illnesses cause vomiting and diarrhea and symptoms usually last for a day or two (a rough, feeling awful day or two). Individuals who are immune compromised, the elderly, young children, and individuals who are pregnant are at greater risk for serious and potentially deadly complications from foodborne diseases.
Each year in the United States, more than 100,000 people go to the hospital and 3,000 people die because of foodborne illnesses.
Foodborne illnesses increase during the summer months.
The bacteria and viruses that cause foodborne illnesses are present throughout the environment in soil, air, water, and in the bodies of people and animals. These pathogens grow faster in the warm summer months. Most foodborne pathogens grow fastest in warmer temperatures. And those pathogens also need moisture to flourish, and summer weather is often hot and humid. Viruses and bacteria in food can increase in large numbers during the summer. When this happens, someone eating the food can get sick.
In order to prevent foodborne illnesses during the summer, please —
Wash your hands before food is prepared. Again, wash your hands before food is served. And again, wash your hands before you eat.
Wash your produce. This includes fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe. Did you know that the rind on the outside of the fruit is often a hotbed for viruses and bacteria? And if you do not wash, it is possible to slice through the rind. The virus and bacteria stick to the knife. And as the knife slices through the fruit, it will contaminate all the slices with a virus or bacteria that can make one very sick.
Do not let food sit outside for more than 2 hours. And throw away your leftovers if they’ve sat outside for more than 2 hours.
Cook meat and seafood thoroughly. And to be clear — meat needs to be heated to a proper temperature to ensure it is safe to eat. Visual inspections of meat are not enough. It is time to buy a meat thermometer and use it!
Be careful of cross-contamination. Do not place cooked hamburgers on the same plate where the raw hamburgers sat. And do not cut fruit on a cutting board that was used for cutting chicken.
Mind the mayonnaise. Mayonnaise-based foods must be kept COLD. No questions. There is no safe amount of time to leave a mayonnaise-based dish sitting outside if it is not on ice.
Consider these picnic alternatives — chips instead of potato salad. Washed whole fruit instead of cut-up fruit salad. Cookies or brownies instead of cream or fruit pies. Non-mayonnaise-based potato salads.
Happy picnicking this summer.
More questions about food safety this summer?
Be sure to share these safety tips with your friends and family, especially those who you plan to picnic with this summer.