Thanksgiving Safety Tips to Keep You Feeling Grateful

You’ve got a lot to worry about this holiday season. The last thing you need is a burnt to a crisp turkey, or house for that matter! So to keep that bird and your humble abode looking just as you intend here’s some safety tips to keep in mind while you do your holiday cooking.

Kitchen and Grill

• When frying, grilling, or broiling food stay with it at all times. If you have to leave the kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove.
• If simmering, baking, boiling, or roasting your soon to be feast, check it regularly, don’t run off to go to the store or go over to the neighbors while your food is cooking, and be sure to use a timer to remind you that the stove or oven is on.
• Clean counter tops regularly and keep them as clutter free as possible; you’ll be more productive, less stressed, and reduce your risk for incident drastically.
• Keep your pot holders, oven mitts, wooden utensils, paper or plastic bags, food packaging, towels or anything else that may catch fire away from your stove top and oven or any other appliance in the kitchen that generates heat.
• If you don’t currently already have smoke alarms installed near the kitchen then do it and make sure to always be on top of checking them and replacing batteries. Add to your calender to change batteries every 5 – 8 months. There are plenty of apps these days to manage your time with as well that will alert you.
• Try to avoid large portions of red meats, put as many vegetables (especially leafy greens) on the table as you can, and try to cut back on sugars in your sweet potato casserole or whatever your family’s favorite thanksgiving desserts happen to be. Cardiovascular diseases remain the number one killer in the world since 1910 when they overtook Tuberculosis on the World Health Organizations (WHO) leading causes of death list.¹ There could not be a more important safety tip I could give than to eat healthy and to spread the wealth of good health to your friends and family.

Turkey Fryers

_{If you plan to use a turkey fryer read the manufacturers instructions.}

• Turkey fryers should be used outdoors a safe distance away from buildings and other flammable materials.
• Use very well insulated pot holders when dealing with pot or lid handles. Goggles are also suggested.
• Make sure the fryer cannot tip over. The safety certification company, UL, who does not certify turkey fryers because they consider them to be dangerous, reports that many units tip over easily spilling the flammable hot oils from the pot.
• Do not overfill pot with oil. When the turkey is placed in the pot the oil can spill over and engulf the entire fryer in flames when the oil contacts the burner or flames below the pot.
• Never introduce a frozen turkey to a turkey fryer; the National Turkey Federation (NTF) recommends thawing the turkey in a refrigerator for approximately 24 hours for every five pounds in weight.
• Be careful with marinades on turkey. Water and oil do not mix and will cause a spill over or possibly even an explosion.

With these tips in mind I hope that the below statistics are not apart of your Holidays.

• _{Home fires are the most common disaster across the United States.
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• _{Every two and a half hours someone is killed in a home fire, and every year an average of 20,000 people are injured in home fires.
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• _{Cooking is the leading cause of home fires on Thanksgiving Day, occurring more than twice as often than on any other day of the year.
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