Hot tips for barbecues
Friday 9 June 2006
Make sure your sizzling sausages are properly cooked by checking out the Agency's barbecue advert on TV this weekend.
WIth both the summer and the World Cup kicking off, the Food Standards Agency is highlighting its safety tips for barbecues. As part of its food hygiene campaign, the Agency's advert 'Sausages' will be shown during the World Cup weekends. You can also view the advert at the link below.
With temperatures rising, the odds for food poisoning own goals sharply increase. The general trend is that food poisoning cases increase over the summer because the warmer weather causes harmful food bugs to grow more easily. It's also easy to forget about good food hygiene practices, which would normally be followed in the kitchen, when barbecuing outdoors.
Survey findings
A UK survey of over 1,000 adults found that almost half (45%) of households barbecue at home, with 94% of these planning a barbecue this summer and 69% holding a barbecue to coincide with watching the World Cup. While most men are quite content to let women take responsibility for cooking indoors, in around 7 out of 10 barbecuing households, 8 out of 10 men like to take control when it comes to cooking outdoors.
Drinking alcohol when in charge of the barbecue is a very popular activity among men, with two-thirds saying they drink when cooking. Less than 1 in 10 males claimed never to drink when cooking. Despite this, 98% of men were pretty confident about their ability to barbecue food safely.
Playing safe
With the barbecue season kicking off, the FSA is again promoting simple but important food hygiene tips for barbecue and football enthusiasts to bear in mind:
- Always wash your hands thoroughly before preparing food, after touching raw meat and before eating.
- Raw meat can contain harmful bacteria and should be separated from cooked and ready-to-eat food. Do not put raw meats near salad or burger buns.
- Use separate utensils for raw and cooked meat. Never put cooked food on a plate or surface that has been used for raw meat.
- Don't add sauce or marinade to cooked food if it has already been used with raw meat.
- Barbecued food may look thoroughly cooked when it isn't. To be sure that it is safe to eat, check that it's piping hot all the way through, that none of the meat is pink and any juices run clear.
Top chef Curtis Stone is backing the Agency's campaign to help reduce food poisoning: 'British weather permitting, World Cup barbecue parties are sure to be pretty popular over the next month and it's about the only time of the year when males like to take control of the cooking! But keeping an eye on the football action and knocking back the lager while cooking the sausages might not be the best game plan for ensuring the food is safe and preventing food poisoning.
'Food poisoning is one goal you don't want to score against your friends and family. If food is not stored, prepared or cooked properly then food bugs like campylobacter, salmonella and E. coli can cause severe illness. But it can be easily avoided if you follow the Food Standards Agency's barbecue tips – some simple hygiene measures will go a long way towards cutting the risks and putting on a successful, tasty and incident-free barbecue!'