22-05-2025
Memorial Day cookouts mark the unofficial starts of summer. Here's how you can keep everyone safe and healthy
This weekend, friends and families will gather for the annual Memorial Day cookouts, and the last thing you want to do if you're hosting is send your family and friends home sick.
Of course, you don't know you're making them sick at the time, and you don't want everyone realizing later that they got sick at your cookout.
Food is part of the gathering and enjoying one another's company, but that food can easily enter the danger zone.
What are safe temperatures for my cookout food?
"We want to make sure that cold foods are kept below 40 degrees and hot foods are kept above 140 degrees," said Mary Alice Gettings, a food safety expert at Penn State.
Gettings said, once food enters the danger zone, bacteria that are naturally in the food or not can double every 20 minutes, meaning that there is a limit to the time in the zone.
"Once you hit the two-hour time frame, you need to get them into the refrigerator and cool them to 40 degrees," she explained. "You can take a serving container and put it in ice to keep it below 40 degrees, or you can take some type of container and put it in a deep dish of ice."
When it comes to getting hot foods hot enough to kill the bacteria, Gettings said do not trust your eye, use a meat thermometer.
"You have to cook hamburgers to 160 degrees, chicken to 165 [degrees], fish to 145 [degrees], and hot dogs, you can cook them to 140, but they say it's best if you cook them to 150-160 [degrees] for the flavor," she said.
For best temperature protection, cook to order or for immediate need, but you can also wrap hot foods and put them in an insulated container because the bacteria is nothing to mess with.
What can happen if I don't cook my food properly?
While it might be obvious, the health risks that come with undercooked food can leave you in the bathroom at best and in the hospital at worst.
"You can get vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and chills," Gettings said. "You might get one or two of the symptoms, you might get all of them, you could be hospitalized."
To avoid a lot of that, make sure to plan ahead. If your meats are frozen, thaw it in the refrigerator, but if you have to cook it with some more urgency, use the microwave.
When it comes to leftovers, the clock is ticking. Two hours in the "danger zone" max, so if you refrigerate them, just know when you get them out of the refrigerator, eat them immediately.
