Skip to main content
food for thought

It’s the season of backyard barbecues, family picnics and weekend camping trips, opportunities to enjoy eating meals outside.

If you’re not careful, though, your outdoor meal could come with unwanted guests: Campylobacter, salmonella and E. coli, to name a few.

These invisible, odourless and tasteless bacteria thrive in warm weather, which can cause food to become contaminated with illness-causing microbes.

And depending on where you are, you may be without the safety controls of your kitchen such as temperature-controlled cooking, refrigeration and washing facilities.

With much of the country experiencing higher-than-normal summer temperatures, it’s important to be extra vigilant about safe food handling practices.

Here’s a food safety primer for the warm weather months and the rest of the year, too.

Food poisoning: prevalence, symptoms, who’s at risk

According to Health Canada, more than four million Canadians get food poisoning every year.

Food poisoning, or food-borne illness, occurs when you eat food or drink water that’s been contaminated by bacteria, bacterial toxins, viruses or parasites. Most cases are caused by bacteria.

Common symptoms of food poisoning include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever and headache. Symptoms can start within hours of eating the contaminated food or several days later.

Individuals at greater risk for food-borne illness include children younger than five, adults aged 65 and older, people with weakened immune systems and those who are pregnant.

Foods can become contaminated at any point – the farm, the processing plant, during transport or at home. The most common cause of food contamination is poor food handling.

Practice the following strategies to guard against food poisoning.

Keep everything clean

Wash your hands, utensils, cutting boards and countertops with hot soapy water before and after handling foods. Bring hand soap and water with you to picnics and campsites.

Rinse and gently run fresh fruit and vegetables under cool running water to remove dirt and residue. Before cutting, use a clean vegetable brush to scrub ones that have firm skin or rind.

Every month, clean the crisper drawers in your fridge with hot, soapy water and then sanitize using a disinfectant cleaner or a mixture of bleach and water (1.5 teaspoons of bleach per 8 cups of water).

Don’t cross-contaminate

To prevent unintentionally spreading bacteria from one food to another, separate raw meat, chicken, fish and eggs from other foods in your fridge. Ditto for your grocery cart, grocery bags, and picnic cooler.

Use separate cutting boards and utensils for raw and cooked foods.

Use a digital food thermometer

To kill harmful bacteria in raw meat, it needs to be cooked to a safe internal temperature. You can’t tell if your beef burger or chicken breast is safe to eat by its colour or texture, so the reliable way is to test using a digital food thermometer.

Cook to the following safe internal temperatures: beef burgers 71°C (160°F), turkey burgers 74°C (165°F), chicken pieces 74°C (165°F), pork sausages 71°C (160°F), fish 70°C (158°F).

If you want to reuse some of the marinade used on raw meat as a sauce for the cooked food, boil it first to kill any harmful bacteria. Always marinate meat in the fridge.

The safe ways to defrost meat are in the fridge, in cold water or in the microwave. If thawing in cold water or the microwave, cook immediately after. Never defrost meat at room temperature on the kitchen counter.

Watch the clock: the one-hour rule

Illness-causing bacteria multiply rapidly in a temperature range of 4°C (40°F) and 60°C (140°F), known as the “danger zone.” In fact, bacteria can double in number in just 20 minutes.

In hot temperatures (above 32°C or 90°F), don’t leave food sitting outdoors for more than one hour. For temperatures that are less hot, don’t let food linger outside for longer than two hours.

Transport foods safely

Place cold food in a cooler with plenty of ice or frozen gel packs to maintain a constant cold temperature. Pack foods first that you’re likely to use last.

Pack drinks in one cooler and perishable foods in another so perishable foods won’t be exposed to warm air every time someone grabs a cold drink.

Transport your cooler in the back seat of an air-conditioned car, not the hot trunk. At the picnic or campsite, keep it out of the sun.

Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based private practice dietitian, is director of food and nutrition at Medcan. Follow her on Twitter @LeslieBeckRD

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe