Using the Same Cutting Board for Everything
Your kitchen cutting board might be harboring more bacteria than your toilet seat. Using separate cutting boards for raw meat and ready-to-eat foods is crucial to prevent cross-contamination, yet countless home cooks still slice vegetables on the same surface they just used for chicken. If you cut up a raw chicken, and then use the same cutting board to slice a tomato for your salad, you run the risk of cross-contamination – with bacteria from the chicken being transferred to the tomato. Professional food handlers know that different colored cutting boards make it easy to remember which one is for raw meat and which is for ready-to-eat foods. The bacteria from that raw steak doesn’t magically disappear just because you think you wiped the board clean. Even microscopic traces can multiply rapidly and cause serious illness.
Trusting Your Eyes Instead of a Thermometer
That golden-brown burger patty might look perfectly cooked, but appearances can literally kill. In a USDA study, 21% of participants relied on visual cues such as color and grill marks to determine if their hamburger patties were fully cooked. Color and grill marks are not indicators that food is safe to eat. Professional kitchens understand something home cooks often ignore: using a food thermometer is the only reliable way to ensure that foods have been cooked to a safe minimum internal temperature to destroy any harmful microorganisms. Ground beef may turn brown on the outside when cooking before they reach a safe internal temperature that destroys foodborne illness causing bacteria. A hamburger cooked to 160 degrees F, as measured with a food thermometer, regardless of color, is safe. Your instincts might tell you the meat is done, but bacteria don’t care about your confidence level.
Using Infrared Thermometers for Internal Temperature Checks
That fancy infrared thermometer gun might make you feel like a professional chef, but you’re actually putting everyone at risk. Infrared thermometers are convenient and easy to use. However, they are not designed to test the internal temperature of food or liquids. They strictly measure the surface temperature of a food or liquid – not the temperature inside. Infrared thermometers measure the infrared energy bouncing off the surface of an object to determine its surface temperature, never coming close to the thermal center of the food. The surface of the food is almost always cooler than the center. If you use an infrared thermometer to check the doneness of a hamburger, you may get a reading that suggests that you should continue to cook it longer. In reality, though, it has already reached the right internal temperature and is now ruined. Professional food safety inspectors would fail any operation relying on surface temperature readings for internal safety standards.
Placing Your Thermometer in the Wrong Spot
Shoving a thermometer anywhere into your meat and calling it good enough is amateur hour. If not inserted correctly, or if the food thermometer is placed in the wrong area, the reading will not accurately reflect the internal temperature of the food. The food thermometer should be placed in the thickest part of the food, away from bone, fat or gristle. Sticking the meat probe into the wrong part of the meat can give you a false reading. Placing it too close to the bone, fat, or gristle may skew the temperature. Always insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat, away from bones and fat. For poultry, that’s usually the inner thigh area. Think of it like taking someone’s temperature in their armpit instead of under their tongue – you’ll get a reading, but it won’t tell you what you actually need to know. Whether heating or cooling solid food, the centre of the thickest portion will be the slowest to change in temperature. This is the area you will need to measure to ensure it has fully cooked or cooled.
Rushing Temperature Readings
Your impatience might literally poison someone. If you rush to read the temperature before the sensor settles, you might get a lower (or higher) reading than the actual internal temp. Wait until the temperature reading stops rising and holds steady for a few seconds before removing the probe. Most home cooks pull out their thermometer the moment they see any number appear on the display, but that’s like checking your watch while it’s still counting up. When it comes to safely and properly prepare a variety of foods, using accurate and useful food thermometer is an absolute must. A properly working food thermometer is essential. Merely owning a food thermometer isn’t enough; you must also know how to use a food thermometer correctly. Any measurements that you take may be inaccurate. Professional kitchens train their staff to wait for temperature stabilization because lives literally depend on accuracy, not speed.
Failing to Check Multiple Spots in Large Cuts
Testing just one spot on a large roast is like checking the weather by sticking your hand out the window once. Always check each piece of food to ensure they have reached the safe internal temperature. Size, quantity and distribution of food when cooking causes the pieces of food to reach a safe internal temperature at different times. When the food being cooked is large or irregularly shaped, such as with a beef roast, check the temperature in several places. For whole birds, the thickest part is usually between the breast and the thigh. Meat like this will usually vary in temperature considerably throughout, providing very different readings in the legs to the breast. It’s a good idea to spot check large pieces of meat to ensure they have come to temperature all over. Professional food safety protocols require multiple temperature checks because bacteria don’t distribute themselves evenly throughout your roast. One perfectly cooked section doesn’t guarantee the entire piece is safe to eat.
Not Calibrating Your Thermometer
When was the last time you actually tested whether your thermometer tells the truth? Even the best meat thermometers can lose calibration over time. If it’s not reading correctly, your food could be over- or undercooked without you realizing it. As a conscientious cook, you probably already know that owning even a high-quality food thermometer isn’t enough. From time to time, it’s essential to test the thermometer to ensure that it is still delivering accurate readings. The most common mistakes we see with ice-bath calibration checks include improper ice-to-water ratio, not sticking the probe far enough into the cup, neglecting to stir, and using the wrong type of ice. Small errors like these make a big difference. If the ice in your ice bath is floating at the top of a cup of water, the difference between the temperature of the water at the top of the glass and the water at the bottom of the glass can be as extreme as 20 degrees. With a proper ice bath, the water is within 0.01 degrees Celsius of the ice point. Professional kitchens calibrate their thermometers regularly because a few degrees off can mean the difference between safe food and a foodborne illness outbreak.
Leaving Raw Meat on the Wrong Refrigerator Shelf
Gravity doesn’t care about your meal prep plans, but bacteria absolutely love when you ignore it. Chicken juice has a tendency to leak and drip outside of its container. This can be bad news (contamination) if it comes into contact with your produce. Place chicken on a plate, then cover and store on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator. In the refrigerator, store raw foods below ready-to-eat foods to prevent drips from contaminating them. Think about it like this: would you hang your freshly laundered white shirts directly under a leaky pen? That raw chicken sitting above your salad greens is essentially the same scenario, except the consequences involve emergency room visits instead of laundry bills. Keep fruits and vegetables separate from raw meat, poultry, and seafood in your shopping cart, bags, and refrigerator. Professional food safety inspectors check refrigerator organization first because proper storage prevents cross-contamination before it starts.
Skipping the Hand Washing Between Tasks
Your hands are basically bacteria taxis, and you keep forgetting to kick out the passengers. Bacteria can quickly spread between your hands and meat. Always wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after handling meat, whether it’s raw or cooked. Harmful bacteria in food sickens 1 in 6 Americans and kills thousands each year, yet most home cooks treat hand washing like an optional suggestion rather than a life-saving necessity. Wash your hands with soap and water before and after handling fresh produce. Professional kitchens have hand-washing stations strategically placed throughout the workspace because they understand that clean hands are the first line of defense against foodborne illness. You wouldn’t perform surgery with dirty hands, so why would you handle food that way? Every time you touch raw meat and then grab a seasoning container, utensil, or your phone, you’re creating a contamination highway that leads straight to someone’s plate.
