Summer is here which means outdoor cooking and grilling is back. 

Washington County Environmental Health gives tips on how to prepare your food safely and properly so everyone can have a great summer experience. When preparing your food, make sure you know where it is coming from. If it is frozen, you will need to take time to thaw it out. This can be done by running the food under warm water, putting it from the freezer into the refrigerator, putting it in a microwave, or thawing out while it’s being cooked. County Public Health Inspector Cindy Chaves explains one common method that shouldn’t be used. “A lot of people sometimes think that thawing out food at room temperature is safe but that can actually introduce bacteria.” 

Use a separate cutting board for raw food and marinate it below 41 degrees to avoid the spread of bacteria. Chaves says the “party room temperature,” a temperature range from 42 to 134 degrees is where bacteria is most likely to grow.  

When cooking meat, use a thin point thermometer to check the inside temperature. Different meats require different temperatures to be reached for the inside to be cooked. Any poultry should be cooked to 165 degrees, ground meat to 155 with the thermometer inserted for 17 seconds, whole cut meat at 145 degrees with the thermometer in for 15 seconds and hot dogs brought up to 135 degrees. Throughout this process, make sure to wash your hands to prevent cross contamination.