Whether you’re making a small or large meal for holiday guests,  food safety should always be a priority.

Washington County Environmental Health Specialist Jason Taylor says before you start preparing your food, it’s best to first sanitize your kitchen, “For my own kitchen, I usually mix up a bleach solution of 50 to 100 parts per million, which usually, to a gallon of water, is less than a quarter cap full of concentrated bleach and then you would wipe down all the surfaces in your kitchen.”

Taylor says clean surfaces can help reduce the possibility of cross-contamination of bacteria from one food to another.  He says when the time comes to cook your main entree, be sure that it’s cooked through thoroughly, “Your poultry, that would be your turkey, chickens, anything like that, the internal temperature needs to be 165 degrees in one of the thickest parts of the bird. If you’re doing beef roast or into your prime ribs, if you want prime rib fully cooked, you cook it to 145 degrees. And if you’re into preparing any type of ground product, then you want [it] to be 155 degrees.”

Taylor says too many people guess when their meats are done cooking and that can lead to foodborne illnesses. He recommends using a digital meat thermometer to get the most accurate internal temperature reading. 

He also recommends to stem the spread of COVID-19, sanitizing your door handles and other often-touched surfaces in your home prior to guests arriving, making hand sanitizer available, and asking guests to wear masks when they’re not eating.