BBQ blunders

Summer time for a lot of people means grilling time! Letting the summer sun wash over you while you cook should not distract you from a few important points about food safety.

The biggest issues with grilling is something called "cross-contamination". Translation: raw food (and its juices) touching cooked food. This can happen when raw food touches cooked foods directly or in a variety of indirect ways: putting cooked foods on a plate that was also used for raw food, using the same tongs to flip raw and cooked meats, even double dipping the bbq sauce brush! Don't let food poisoning ruin your backyard bbq or your reputation as a master griller. Follow these guidelines for an food-poisoning free summer:

1. WASH YOUR HANDS. Its the easiest way to avoid contamination- if people did it more often, it could eliminate nearly half of all cases of food borne illnesses. Wash your hands before preparing food and after handling raw meat.

2. Wash the plates and utensils used to handle raw foods OR use separate ones for raw and cooked foods. The juices of raw foods can contain bacteria that is easily transferred to the cooked foods.

3. Clean your grill with soap and water between uses. Sounds crazy, I know, but a few minutes of washing can help to save you time stuck in bed sick from food poisoning.

4. Use a thermometer to check temperatures of cooked meat. Relying on color is not a reliable way to check if the internal temperature has reached a high enough temperature to kill the bacteria. PLUS, it a perfect host/hostess gadget to buy for your next bbq party! Here are some guidelines:

-Hamburgers, Pork (chops, ribs, roast), venison = 160F.

-Hotdogs, Bratwurst, Turkey/Chicken sausages, Chicken & turkey (breast, drumstick, thigh, wing), leftovers = 165F.

-Roast beef / prime rib: medium rare: 145, medium: 160, well done: 170F.
-Shrimp/lobster/crab (red shell, flesh pearly opaque), fish(until opaque and flakes easily): 145F

5. Don't reuse the bbq sauce you used to marinate raw meats unless the sauce is to be cooked. If you use a brush to apply sauce to your meat, don't forget to clean it with soapy water (or use a different brush) to touch up that sauce before serving. Better yet, divide out the sauce into 2 bowls: one to be used on raw meat and the other onto cooked meat. I prefer to use a spoon to apply sauce to my raw meats because it can be washed easily compared to a brush.

6. Leftover are to be kept for a maximum of 3-4 days. The longer they sit in the fridge, the more bacteria can grown on them. Its also a good idea to reheat leftovers up to an internal temperature of 165oF.

7. Marinate and defrost meats in the fridge. Leaving them out on the counter at room temperature to thaw is the perfect condition for harmful bacteria to grow.

8. If you are hosting a party and know that foods will be sitting out more then an hour, portion food out into smaller bowls. Food sitting out for over an hour on a hot day is at a high risk for having bacteria develop. Refill the smaller bowls only when needed and refrigerate foods asap.

Reading the rainbow

I am frequently asked about food labels and nutrition fact tables and learning often follows a process that started long before I was asked to help. If you have ever tried to read a food label or nutrition fact table, you may be familiar with this route:
-the inquirer usually starts reading labels to compare one or two nutrients on the labels that they have developed interested in (ex. sodium or fibre) usually in response to a diagnosis (ex. high blood pressure) or decision to change ones diet (ex. to lose weight).
-the after a few trips to the grocery store and practicing comparing these nutrient values, they start to wonder what is a high amount and a low amount of these nutrients. Is 1g of fibre a lot? Is 2g of saturated fat too much? Of course, you cannot expect to find the same amount of nutrients in different products. For example, the healthy amount of fibre expected in a slice of bread is different than that found in a breakfast cereal.
-naturally the next big question is what are these % I see on the left hand side of the table?
-its usually around this time that one will realize they need help interpret these values and require guidelines for the values and percentages. Hopefully they turn to a dietitian who can dish out some professional advice.

Reading labels is an invaluable tool to help you purchase healthy foods but it does take practice and some patience and time. After all the above questions are answered, my clients often then ask "but can the values on the nutrition fact table be trusted?". My simple response is "yes but... but there may be some discrepancies". I am preparing myself for a barrage of questions and concerns in the coming weeks due to a recent Montreal Gazette article highlighted the fact that the CFIA has found that some food labels do not provide accurate information. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency allows for 20% difference between what the label states and what is really found in the product. Even with this allowance, some labels tested provide an inaccurate picture of their food. The CFIA cannot test all the products on the shelves so issues of problems can be alarming since there are likely products slipping through the cracks. Obviously, the scary stories are those about under reporting the unhealthy ingredients such as sodium, saturated and trans fats.

There are other ways to evaluate a food other than its nutrition fact table- the ingredient list is one example. Reading the ingredient list is useful to ensure that less healthy ingredients are not among the most included ingredients as well as to verify if the ingredients used are processed or not (ex. whole grain). However, its impossible to translate that information into calories or grams of saturated fat so people will often refer to the nutrition fact table.

After hearing about these problems with nutrition fact tables, my advice is to continue to use them to identify healthy products because they are the easiest and most straightforward way to understanding what you are eating. Unfortunately, the nutrition fact table is all we got. You may stumble upon a few products provide inaccurate information but chances are, unless you eat the same foods all the time, variety in your diet will help you avoid any problems.
If we start to question all food labels then whats the point in reading them at all. If we can't trust the table, what about the ingredient lists? In fact, whats the point in trying to eat healthy when everywhere you turn you hear a conflicting advice (soy is good, soy is bad, butter is good, then bad, then good again, eggs are bad turned good....etc). This spiral downwards pulls you away from your goal of being more aware if what you are eating, using your head when choosing products and chances are the products you buy will give you accurate values on the labels.

For someone who is just starting out reading labels and becoming more aware of what they are eating, don't despair. There is a point in reading labels, even if they all aren't 100% accurate. Nutrition fact tables are a tool, and like all things in life, they are not perfect. Learning how to interpret them (regardless of if they are within 20% of the stated amounts) will open your mind to a whole new way of judging food and taking control of your health.