FDA Safety Recommendations for Take-Out and Restaurant Food

Do you enjoy take-out and restaurant food? If so, you’re like millions of Americans. Take-out and restaurant food is the new “home-cooked” meal of choice due to increasingly busy lifestyles. It’s a way for working moms and dads to ease their household load. However, the question remains, “how safe is it?”

Because of stringent laws laid down by the Department of Health, the food safety in American restaurants and take-out joints is generally high. However, once it gets into the hands of the consumer, the safety level can change. Why? The average consumer is unaware of the food safety rules as it pertains to take-out joints and restaurants.

To address the general lack of knowledge regarding food safety about take-out and restaurant food, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has created a fact sheet to answer basic questions. Its purpose is to increase public safety. Below are a few rules they recommend to consumers.

When in doubt, throw it out. (This statement is verbatim from the FDA fact sheet.) If you look at your take-out or restaurant doggie bag and get a funny feeling, toss it. Your instincts are telling you that something is wrong with the food and you need to follow them.

Follow the 2-hour rule. If your take-out or restaurant food has been sitting out for more than 2 hours, toss it. High or low temperatures will affect foods differently and can lead to germs. So play it safe, throw it out.

Store foods at the proper temperature. Use common sense when storing food. Keep cold foods cool (40 degrees F or lower). Keep hot foods hot (145 degrees F or higher). Proper storage will reduce the chances of germs growing on take-out and restaurant foods.

Reheat hot foods until it is steaming or hot. Do you feel like eating that left-over fried rice and wonton soup you got at that snazzy Chinese restaurant for breakfast? If so, make sure you re-heat it until it’s hot in order to kill any potential germs. For gravy, heat it until it forms a boiling roll. When using the microwave, heat it once, stir and heat it again.

Don’t leave take-out or restaurant food in the car. If you have a lot of errands to run and one of them is picking up dinner, leave it for last. Due to the warm temperature in most cars, it can damage food. As a result, its best not to leave restaurant or take out food in the car for too long. Make your trip short and take it in the house as soon as you get home.

If you follow these basic rules, you should avoid eating bad food which will keep you healthy and in severe cases possibly save your life.

SOURCE:
http://www.fda.gov/womens/getthefacts/restaurants.html