As families gear up to gather around the dinner table, KCII news spoke with Washington County Environmental Health Director Jason Taylor, about holiday food safety, “Another thing is, a lot of people think they should wash the turkey before they cook it. And they should not, all they are doing is spreading salmonella and bacteria all over your kitchen, so, definitely don’t wash the bird. It’s been pre washed at the meat packing plant and should not have any other issues. And then once you get ready to cook it, throw it into your pan, and you will want to cook it until it’s one hundred and sixty-five degrees. It will take you know four or five hours to get to that temperature. And one hundred and sixty-five is not going to come off the bone very well, so a lot of people, like myself, I will cook ours to over two hundred degrees to make sure that the meat is more tender and falls off the bone also.” For more food safety guidelines this holiday season you can visit foodsafety.gov.