Food Protection
Don’t Let Tainted Food Spoil Your Tailgating Fun
For many South Carolinians, college football just wouldn’t be the same without tailgating.
Make sure your day at the stadium is a winner – follow DHEC’s food safety game plan.
Never Underestimate Your Opponent
Bacteria don’t wear brightly colored jerseys. You can’t see them or smell them and much of the time, you even can’t taste them.
But they’re everywhere…and they’d love to take you down. Each year, about 76 million people become ill from tainted food. Some foodborne illnesses are relatively mild, causing nausea and upset stomach. Other cases are severe, with vomiting, diarrhea and fever. About 325,000 people are hospitalized and 5,000 people die each year because of foodborne illness.
Bacteria thrive in warm weather and on food of animal origin. They multiply the fastest in the “danger” zone — between temperatures of 40° F and 140° F.
DHEC’s Food Safety Strategy
When preparing foods for tailgating or picnics:
- Prepare as much food as you can at home, where you have access to good refrigeration. When packing for the stadium, bring along only the foods you think you will need.
- As you prepare the food, wash your hands often with warm to hot soapy water for at least 20 seconds before and after handling food (especially raw foods), using the bathroom, smoking, or blowing your nose. Use single-service paper towels to dry your hands.
- Always marinate food in the refrigerator. Don’t ever use sauce that was used to marinate raw meat or poultry on cooked food.
- When grilling, whether at home or at the stadium, separate: don’t cross-contaminate:
- Separate raw and cooked/ready-to-eat foods.
- Separate utensils, platters and cutting boards used for raw foods (chicken, beef, pork) and cooked/ready-to-eat foods.
- Separate unlike raw foods such as chicken and beef from one another.
- Do not use the same cooler for raw and cooked items or ready-to-eat products in storage.
- Do not use ice for beverages from a cooler used to store raw meats or other foods.
- Carry plenty of extra utensils and plates if you’re grilling at the stadium.
- Pack plenty of extra ice or freezer packs. A full cooler will maintain its cold temperatures longer than one that is partially filled.
- Use a separate cooler to hold hot foods such as fried chicken. Heat a brick in the oven to 350° F, wrap it in a towel (to protect the cooler) and put it in the bottom of the cooler. Your cooler is now a hot holding unit.
- Keep the cooler out of direct sunlight. Proper cold storage prevents potential illness-causing bacteria from growing.
- When transporting food to the stadium or storing it, either keep your hot food hot (130° F or above) or keep it really cool (40° F or below) along with your cold dishes like coleslaw and potato salad.
- Before transporting or storing cooked food in tightly closed containers, cool it down to 40° F in an ice bath or the fridge. If the food is bulky or in a deep pan or casserole dish and you don’t have a lot of time, break the food down into smaller portions to reduce the amount of time it takes to chill it.
- Use a thermometer to monitor refrigerator and food temperatures.
Cook meat properly! - Use a metal-stem food thermometer with a range of 0° F to 220° F (available at most retail stores) to make sure cooked food reaches a safe internal temperature.
- Fully cook hamburgers to an internal temperature of 155° F, until all traces of pink are gone and any juices from the meat are clear.
- Cook veal or pork to an internal temperature of at least 155° F.
- Cook large cuts of beef such as roasts and steaks to 145° F for medium rare or 160° F for medium. It is safe to eat steaks rare provided the exterior is seared to an external temperature of 155° F on a hot grill.
- Cook ground poultry (chicken or turkey) and whole poultry to an internal temperature of at least 165° F.
- Cook whole fish fillets to a minimum internal temperature of 145° F. Cooked fish should look opaque and flake easily
- Cook whole eggs and egg products (including liquid, frozen and dry eggs, and any food containing eggs or egg products) so that all parts of the food are heated to 145° F. If you combine eggs with meat or poultry, make sure to cook the food to the higher temperatures required for meat and poultry.
- When taking foods off the grill, do not put cooked food items back on the same plate that held raw food, unless it has been washed with hot, soapy water first.
- Serve hot foods right off the grill if possible.
- In hot weather, never let food sit out for more than one hour — put it back in on ice or in the refrigerator.
- If you take leftovers home, properly wrap and freeze deli meats that won't be eaten within two to four days.
- If in doubt, throw it out!
Enjoy the game!