Food safety mistakes most likely to get you sick this summer — and how to avoid them

San Francisco Chronicle​

26-05-2025

Break out your metal spatula: Summer is finally here.
It's Memorial Day, the traditional start of grilling season. As you plan your summer cookouts and picnics, food safety experts have a few tips to keep in mind.
Tips for grilling
Keep it clean. Some people believe heat from the grill burns off germs and residue. Heat does a lot of work, but not all of it, so make sure you clean the grill thoroughly. Wash it with soap and water or grill cleaner and scrub off any residue. Wire grill brushes have gotten a bad rap in recent years for leaving bristles to get picked up by foods, but as long as you inspect the grill carefully after scrubbing, that shouldn't be an issue, said Meredith Carothers, a food safety specialist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. You could give it another wipedown with a wet paper towel to make absolutely sure you've removed any wire pieces.
Wash your hands. A critical step any time you're about to handle food: Take 20 seconds to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
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Beware cross-contamination with plates and utensils. The plate you used to bring raw hamburgers to the grill should not be the plate the cooked burgers land on. Make sure you've got a separate surface ready. Tongs and spatulas are another vector for cross-contamination. Carothers said she'll use one utensil to place the raw meat and then flip it the first time, then use a second clean utensil to flip it one last time to briefly burn off any remaining bacteria and then transfer it to the new plate.
Use a food thermometer. Because grills burn so hot, food might look done before the inside is properly cooked, said Britanny Saunier, the executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education. Your safest bet is to use a food thermometer to check the temperature before declaring that perfectly grill-marked ribeye done.
Picnics and summer entertaining
Clean or cover picnic tables. Something like a wood picnic table is going to be challenging to sanitize, Saunier said. Cleaning and wiping down a public eating area is a good idea, but if you can bring a tablecloth or other barrier to put under your food, that's even better, she said.
Don't leave risky food out for hours. If it's under 90 degrees outside, perishable food like hot dogs, soft or pre-sliced cheese and sliced fruit will be safe to eat for about two hours sitting outdoors. If it's hotter than 90 degrees, that's one hour. In either case, food safety experts say putting food in a shady spot is better than in direct sunlight, though it doesn't change the safety timeline.
This rule also applies to food that's out inside your home, Carothers said, no matter how chilly your living room gets at night. So if you're putting out a charcuterie board or appetizers indoors, you still need to observe the two-hour rule. Or keep them cool with an ice-chilled serving tray.
Certain foods can stay out as long as you can: Chips, crackers, nuts, pretzels, blocks of hard cheese — 'if it's already in a box meant to be on the shelf, it's probably OK,' Saunier said.
Pack safe snacks on the go. The food in your backpack or diaper bag is subject to the same two-hour rule. If you're going to be out and about all day, don't bring things like deli meat or cut fruit. Whole fruit like bananas or blueberries, granola bars, rice cakes, trail mix, dried fruit, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and other foods that stay safe at room temperature are a safer alternative. If you want to bring something cold, pack it in a lunchbox or soft-sided cooler with an ice pack.
Avoiding foodborne illness
Fruits and vegetables can pose a serious risk. Most people associate foodborne illnesses with things like raw or undercooked beef, poultry and seafood. But produce made up just under half of foodborne illnesses in a recent CDC analysis.
Best practices include refrigerating produce as soon as you get it home from the grocery store and washing it thoroughly before cutting and eating. You don't need to buy a specific rinse or soap. Rinsing in clean running water and scrubbing the outside of hard fruit and vegetable exteriors before cutting into them is sufficient.
Foods to avoid entirely? A recent piece in The Atlantic exhorted readers to avoid pre-cut bagged lettuce. But neither Carothers nor Saunier said there were any specific foods they were avoiding right now.
'We typically don't tell people what they should and should not eat,' Saunier said. But for children under 5 and adults older than 60, she said foodborne illness poses a much more serious risk of hospitalization, so it could make sense to take extra care if you're in those groups, or feeding someone who is. She pointed to raw cookie dough as a particular risk for young children and deli meat as a potential hazard for older adults. In both cases, thorough cooking — baking the cookies or microwaving the deli meat for 30 seconds to one minute — removes the risk.