You can be sick with a food-borne illness for as short as a few hours to as long as several months. How long does it take to prevent a food-borne illness? Sometimes only 30 seconds!

Here are 11 food safety practices you can do about in 30 seconds or less:

Read This Article to Learn About Food Safety!
   

Recipe directions often say to cook a food until "done." What is "done?"

While we worry about a food being done enough for safety, we also should be concerned about a food being too done for quality. You can assure 100 percent safety if food is overcooked until it tastes and looks like cardboard, a piece of shoe leather or a hockey puck -- no one will eat it!

Shopping is very much easier if you have worked out your menu in advance, and know exactly what to buy.

Keep a pad or slate near the kitchen cupboard or refrigerator and make a note when supplies are running low. This list should help you to reduce the number of shopping trips to the minimum. It should not be necessary to buy non-perishable foods more than once a week.

Do not buy more food at a time than can be used up while it is in first class condition.

Avoid shopping during hours when stores may be the most crowded.

To cut down the amount of grease splattering, Sprinkle a bit of salt in the wok before adding meat.
Chill chicken for 1 hour after coating it. The coating will stick better when cooking.
When a recipe calls for adding oil, garlic, and onions to wok, always add garlic last. This keeps it from burning and tasting bitter.
To be able to pour out honey easily from the measuring cup just dust your measuring cup with flour or cooking spray.
While cooking rice add a few drops of lemon juice. The color of the grains become bright white.
When a recipe calls for soy sauce, use light soy sauce and not dark soy sauce or it will spoil the dish.

Do you know the most important thing you can do to keep from getting sick?


Clean hands -- and clean cooking utensils and surfaces -- are your first defense against food-borne illness.

Like washing your hands, most of the things you can do to help prevent a food-borne illness are really easy. Here are 10 simple food safety tips, that together spell F-O-O-D S-A-F-E-T-Y.

Fight bacteria by washing your hands often. Wash for about 20 seconds with hot, soapy water BEFORE fixing or eating foods and AFTER using the bathroom, changing diapers, handling pets, coughing or blowing your nose.