Turkey safety tips
Cooks should be extra cautious to ensure your family stays safe this holiday season
Millions of Americans are preparing to sit down with family and friends this Thursday for Thanksgiving — and many will carve into a Turkey as part of this annual tradition.
Unfortunately, since last year, a strain of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in raw turkey products has infected at least 164 people across 35 states. 63 individuals have been hospitalized and one has died. Despite the wide-ranging outbreak of this drug-resistant contamination, The Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), a part of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), has only released information on one company (Jennie-O Turkey ground turkey) with contaminated turkey, despite a note that the outbreak is widespread. This means you may not know if the turkey you buy for Thanksgiving is contaminated with a pathogen that can cause serious illnesses and death.
Without additional information about which turkey products are contaminated, cooks should be extra cautious to ensure your family stays safe this holiday season.
Preventing direct-contamination
Cooking: Germs and bacteria can be present in all raw turkey — whole turkeys, ground turkey, turkey breasts and even turkey burgers and sausages.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends cooking all turkey products to an internal temperature of 165°F to kill harmful germs. Use a meat thermometer to ensure appropriate temperature and check a few sections of the turkey to avoid “cold spots.”
Reminder: Be sure that leftovers are also reheated to 165°F to make sure the turkey is still safe to eat.
Raw pet food: Be sure to wash your hands carefully after handling raw pet food. Salmonella in raw pet food can not only get your furry friends sick, but can also infect those handling those foods.
Preventing cross-contamination
It is not enough to just cook your turkey properly, the risk of cross-contamination can mean that drug-resistant Salmonella can still cause infections even if the meat is handled almost perfectly. In fact, according to the World Health Organization cross-contamination causes more food-borne illness than undercooking.
Wash your hands: Salmonella infection can be spread from one person to another. Make sure to wash your hands before and after preparing food and eating.
Don’t wash raw poultry before cooking: Germs and bacteria can spread easily to other foods and areas of the kitchen.
Clean all surfaces: Make sure to thoroughly wash counters, cutting boards and utensils that touch poultry with warm, soapy water. Additionally, make sure that you use different cutting boards for poultry than other foods.
Thawing: Thawing turkey by leaving it out can contaminate the whole kitchen. Make sure to thaw your turkey in the fridge, or in the sink with cold water that is changed every thirty minutes.
More action necessary to safeguard Thanksgiving turkey
While each of us can take steps to ensure a happy Thanksgiving, it should not be up to the public to guess whether they are eating Salmonella-contaminated turkey. U.S. PIRG will continue to urge food safety regulators to release information on which turkey products were contaminated so people can avoid these products altogether.
