Keeping your house stocked with groceries is key in maintaing a healthy lifestyle and because fresh real food tends to spoil quickly, as nature intended I'm always looking for ways to keep things longer. It's important to store groceries strategically in order to ensure freshness and prevent food borne illness. Also good hand washing and food preparation techniques are just as important to keep in mind. Here's a couple tips to help you with storage, placement and cleanliness in order to ensure deliciousness and to keep away food borne bacteria.
Cleanliness guidelines
1. Hand washing-before food preparation, before eating, after handling uncooked poultry, eggs, seafood and raw meat and after eating.
Wet your hands with warm water, lather up, scrub including nails, rinse under the hottest water you can stand and dry with a clean unused towel or air dry.
2. Wash cutting boards and utensils with hot soapy water after preparing each food item and before you move on to the next.
3. Designate cutting boards for certain foods- meat, produce, seafood.
Refrigerator guidelines
1. Be sure your refrigerator is set at 40*F or lower in order to prevent growth of harmful bacteria
2. Clean your fridge before your grocery trip , wipe down messes and spills as soon as they happen, toss spoiled food ASAP as it will spread to other foods.
3. Store leftovers in glass containers for up to 4 days so that you see what you have and can eat.
4. Don't mix fruits and vegetables with meat, this is a surefire way for contamination. Meat and produce are not friends
5. Store dairy on the middle shelf, when stored on the door temps tend to fluctuate which can increase spoilage.
6. Store raw meat and seafood on the BOTTOM SHELF on it's own and wrap properly.
7. Sliced and washed produce spoils faster, don't wash or slice until you're ready to use it.
Food guidelines
1. Don't store onions with potatoes, apples are the best to keep potatoes from sprouting, keep in a dark cool place.
2. One rotten apple can spoil the bunch
3. Freeze and preserve fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano) in olive oil, place in ice tray, pop and use.
4. Wrap the crown of bananas in plastic wrap to keep them from spoiling faster
5. Wrap cheese in cheese paper or wax paper and place in plastic baggie NOT on the door of the fridge but on the middle shelf.
6. Wrap Celery, broccoli and lettuce in foil before storing in fridge, this will ensure freshness.
7. Store unripe tomatoes w/fruit stem down in a paper bag. Store ripe tomatoes on the counter away from sunlight not touching one another. Store overly ripe tomatoes in the fridge and let them come to room temp before consuming them.
8. Keep fresh ginger in the freezer, it's easily grated while frozen peel and all.
9. Put mushrooms in a paper bag in the fridge or a cool dry place
10. Cut away damaged/ bruised areas from produce, rinse under cold running water, dry with paper towel or clean cloth towel. Pre-Washed produce is ok to use without rinsing
11. DO NOT wash poultry, raw meat, eggs. This is how countertops and sinks are contaminated with bacteria.
I hope this helps while you're in the kitchen cooking up a wonderful meal and if you're not, get to it! =)
Cheers to Health and Moderation!
Trish
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