With Thanksgiving ahead of us, there are some important considerations for keeping your family’s dinner safe to eat. In this Chew on This podcast, Dr. Dustan Clark, Extension Poultry Veterinarian, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, a nd the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, discusses ways to keep your food safe this Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving -- we hope you all have safe one!

Listen to the Thanksgiving Food Safety podcast.

Burgers? Check. Perfect weather? Check. Awesome new grilling utensils? Double check. Sounds like you’re ready to fire up the grill and enjoy one of our favorite summer activities. So you bring the potato salad, and your friends here at Keep Our Food Safe will bring the safe grilling tips.

Safe barbecues start on…the farm? That’s right. Food animal veterinarians work day in and day out to make sure our nation’s livestock and poultry are healthy, disease free and safe for consumption before they ever make it to the supermarket shelves.

Speaking of the supermarket – your visit there is the next ingredient for a safe, healthy barbecue. The USDA recommends purchasing your meat and poultry right before you check out. This minimizes the time the meat is unrefrigerated. And while you’re at the grocery store, make sure you separate those frozen burgers from other foods in the cart. This protects your groceries from cross contamination.

Make sure you go directly home, so you can refrigerate your food immediately. The USDA suggests you refrigerate within two hours. And on those hot days when the merc ury soars past 90 degrees? You probably should be refrigerating your food within one hour.

Before you start grilling, it’s important to make sure you properly, and thoroughly, thaw your food. Doing so will allow your food to cook more evenly. The best way is to let it thaw is in the refrigerator, or you can soak sealed packages in cold water. But if you’re in a hurry, defrost it in the microwave and make sure you immediately place it on the grill.

It’s important to remember to keep your meat and poultry refrigerated until you are ready to start grilling, and only remove it from the refrigerator if you’re going to grill right away. If you’re keeping you food in a cooler, make sure it’s in the shade and not directly underneath the sun. Similarly, keep your burgers warm until serving them. The USDA recommends at least 140 degrees or warmer.

Thoroughly cooking your food is one of the best ways to kill harmful bacteria. But don’t depend on your eyes. Looks can be deceiving. You can’t really tell if your food is finished cooking just by looking at the color and texture. In fact, according to the USDA, one out of four burgers turns brown before it reaches a safe internal temperature. That’s why they recommend using a food thermometer to make sure your food has reached the proper internal temperature and is safe to eat.

But what about those ready to eat foods, like brats, hotdogs or veggie burgers that are labeled “pre-cooked?” They still need to be treated like any other item you cook on your grill. The USDA recommends using a food thermometer to make sure they’re cooked to at least 165 degrees. This not only destroys the harmful bacteria that may already be in the food, but also any bacteria that may have been transferred from cross-contamination.

And, as always, thoroughly cleaning surfaces, utensils and your hands will kill harmful bacteria and reduce cross contamination. Wash with warm, soapy water for about 20 seconds before and after handling food. But don’t forget to rinse off your fruits and veggies with cold water too.

Just remember, keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot, and thoroughly clean and cook your food. Follow this recipe for a safe and tasty barbecue. Please pass the potato salad.

First peanuts and now pistachios? With all the recent headlines about contaminated food you start to wonder if anything is safe to eat. But consumers can learn a lot from these food safety issues.

Take the salmonella contamination in peanuts, for example. The CDC had quite a few cases of salmonella last fall. After months of investigation, they were able to connect the salmonella outbreak to products containing contaminated peanut butter paste that was eventually linked to the Peanut Corporation of America. In fact, Nestlé USA inspected the plant and declined to do business with the company because of the filthy conditions. Products containing PCA peanuts are still being identified and recalled, and the outbreak sickened hundreds and claimed nine lives.

In this case, the CDC had to work backwards to figure out the cause, which consumed months.

On the other hand, Kraft foods notified the FDA immediately of contaminated pistachios at a distributor’s facilities after they voluntarily recalled their own product. By giving the FDA a heads up and because they were able to identify the source of contamination, the agency was able to act proactively and quickly issued a warning to consumers to avoid pistachios until further information was available. Many private companies, like Nestlé USA and Kraft Foods, have quality control measures in place and follow strict government protocols to monitor their factories, suppliers and vendors in order to prevent bacterial contamination and help ensure their products are safe to eat.

But while self-policing has opened the door for the FDA to assume a more proactive role in notifying the public about potential contamination, many still believe more government regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of our food.

Lawmakers have offered a variety of proposals to address the safety of our food, including the establishment of a single agency monitoring food safety, improving the government’s ability to track food during all stages of the process, and giving the FDA the authority to put into effect mandatory recalls on contaminated food. Typically, recalls are voluntary, and the manufacturer or the distributor initiates this action. In the case of meat or poultry, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), a division of the USDA, inspects those facilities. If the facility doesn’t follow proper procedures, the FSIS has the authority to refuse to inspect the facility. Without a passing inspection from the FSIS, a manufacturer cannot sell their product, keeping unsafe meats off the grocery shelves.

But any changes made to the food inspection system are likely to be costly, and may take time to implement. In the meantime, it’s important to remember there are a few things you can do to protect yourself from foodborne pathogens like Salmonella and E. Coli.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends sticking to four, easy to live by rules to help prevent contamination. Thoroughly clean your hands, utensils and kitchen surfaces with hot, soapy water to kill any bacteria before AND after handling food. It’s a good idea to use different, clean utensils for cutting raw meat and anything else, like veggies. Make sure you cook to the recommended internal temperatures, and keep hot foods hot. A rare steak may sound delicious, but it’s a pretty risky dish. Keep raw meat, poultry and fish separate from other foods, like fruits and veggies. This prevents cross-contamination from occurring. Put your groceries away immediately!  Especially foods that belong in the refrigerator.

The CDC also encourages consumers to report possible outbreaks to their local health department. Self reporting to local health departments is often the way that outbreaks are detected by state and federal food safety and public health officials.

The responsibility for being proactive about the safety of our food lies not only in the hands of government and private companies, but with consumers like you. Rapid reporting and response from the government and private companies, partnered with consumers practicing smart food hygiene, are little things that can have a big impact on the safety of our food.

Have you ever asked yourself, “What in the world is raw milk?” Or perhaps you’ve debated whether or not it’s safe to give your puppy a leftover turkey drumstick – or safe for you to eat food from a cloned animal.

Well, now we have the answers you’ve been looking for. In audio form! Today we’re launching our new podcast series, “Chew on This,” dedicated to bringing you clarity on issues related to food safety and protecting our nation’s food supply.

The first installment of “Chew on This” is a special Thanksgiving-themed roundup of vital info and precautions for cooking and serving holiday dinners that are safe for the family to enjoy. Listen to the inaugural “Chew on This” now.

Future “Chew on This” podcasts will be delivered every two weeks right here, on Keep Our Food Safe. So check back to listen in. We’ve got a lot of hot topics lined up and a lot of renowned food safety experts in the queue for the podcasts. If you want to know where your food comes from, how it gets to our tables and why it’s important to keep our food safe, abundant and affordable: Tune in! Some of these hot topics include cloned animals, organic foods, pasteurization, animal and product identification, and food importation.

Just remember as you’re listening to the podcasts: America’s veterinarians play key roles in food safety – from farm to fork, as we like to say. These podcasts will let the rest of us in on the key areas of science and research on food topics that they’re involved with on a daily basis.

So without further delay, we proudly present to you the first “Chew on This” podcast, Thanksgiving Food Safety. Listen now!

P.S. – If you have suggestions or ideas about food safety topics you’d like to hear explored in future “Chew on This” installments, just drop us a line in the comment box below.