Food Science for the Holidays: Staying Safe and Healthy

In this festive episode of Wildly Curious, Laura sits down with food scientist Sarah Oster to explore the science behind staying safe in the kitchen during the holidays. From understanding the microbial risks of your favorite dishes to food safety tips that can prevent holiday disasters, Sarah shares insights from her 10+ years in food science. Learn about the surprising truths of food contamination, the "danger zone," and why cross-contamination is a bigger issue than you think. Whether you’re hosting a feast or simply reheating leftovers, this episode is packed with practical advice and quirky science facts to keep you informed (and healthy!) this season. 

Perfect for anyone curious about the science of food or looking to avoid food poisoning over the holidays!

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura and Katy's not here.

It's just me and Sarah and I am delighted to have Sarah Oster on the podcast today, a long time friend and food scientist. And today we're going to talk about how you can stay healthy and not get food poisoning over the holidays, which is always a pleasant experience. To not get food poisoning. We're going to, I'm going to introduce Sarah, and then we'll get into the meat of it. And talk about, talk about food science. You can laugh. This is funny.

Sarah: That's funny. I'm funny.

Laura: That's funny. So, Sarah, , we've been friends since 9th grade in high school and, we're both scientists, we both are curious people. And I was like, we haven't had Sarah on the podcast yet and who knows more about food than my food scientist friend Sarah.

Sarah: Mean the person that you call all the time [00:01:00] whenever you have a

Laura: if I'm like, actually it's just whenever I'm feeling anxiety about my food is when it's, should I eat it? 

Sarah: Should I eat it? Probably

Laura: can okay? Yeah, yeah. The answer is just usually probably not and I just need somebody to tell me that. And make me feel less crazy. So Sarah has her background in biology from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and then some continuing ed and she has over 10 years of experience as a food scientist, including everything from a tech to managerial roles and quality control and some other stuff.

And before you're like, what even is a food scientist? Well I'm glad you asked because that's going to be one of our first questions.

Sarah: I love it. Everyone, when I tell them, I'm like, I'm a food scientist, they're like, oh, so you can cook. I'm like, no, I can't actually. I'm not very good at

Laura: yai yai. Well, right. You're like, okay, no, that's a chef

Sarah: Yeah, like that's culinary arts.

Laura: new foods. Nope. Not really

Sarah: Sometimes, but not really.

Laura: , so before we go into the food safety part, and [00:02:00] the majority of what we're going to be talking today, I want the listeners to get to know the Sarah that I know, not they won't in

Sarah: They won't get it. They won't get it.

Laura: What made you, let's go back to the beginning.

What influenced you to become a scientist and in particular a food scientist? Like of all the science you could have done what made you think food?

Sarah: That's it. I think I had a lot of different interests when I was younger on science. I kind of liked a bunch of different things. We were on Envirothon together. So I mean, we, I just, I've always had interest in science in general and critical thinking. But, basically when I was in my senior year of, college, I kind of was like, huh, Now what do I do?

Like, what, what's next for me? I did do some under, graduate internships, with the Department of, Ag at the Bureau of Labs. So, that helped me. I was in their water quality lab.

Laura: yes, yes, yes

Sarah: So, you're like, what I was like, I [00:03:00] did, , so yeah, we did water quality testing and I used to do that for, , Renfrew too, in our old

Laura: Yeah

Sarah: So that kind of was where it started with water quality stuff. And then it kind of grew into, okay, well, you I was thinking about going into med tech, but I was petrified of drawing like blood and needles,

Laura: Needles. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be a hard thing to overcome

Sarah: So, it kind of was like, , well, what about food science? And, you know, I wanted to be able to help a lot of people, and everybody eats. So,

Laura: Everybody eats and

Sarah: yeah, and, and, I mainly focused on the microbial aspect of food, And that's where my main focus was. But I still, 

Laura: the cool stuff anyway, really.

Sarah: right. , my microbiology has always been

Laura: side of food.

Sarah: it's the good side too, because, , I've done research with, probiotics too.

And probiotics are big, huge thing with healthy food too. So

Laura: we talked about in the podcast before about, like, how we are more [00:04:00] bacteria in our bodies than we are us, which is terrifying.

Sarah: it, it's terrifying but also like really good because all those like leafy greens and stuff like that, that you're supposed to be good for you, you couldn't do that if you didn't have gut bacteria. You would literally wouldn't break it down, it would just go right through you.

Laura: Right on

Sarah: through you

Laura: And just, like, how, your gut health impacts Basically everything about you.

Sarah: Yeah. It literally directly is related to a lot of your immune health, which is fascinating. That whole, the Yeah, which, it's just fascinating how these gut microbes are literally helping us to function as humans. It's just really, really interesting.

Laura: it's really crazy. We have that weird symbiotic relationship.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Laura: Alright, so that's how you got into it, but what exactly does a food scientist do? What's your typical, what might? Cause there's sure lots of different food scientists and ways you can go with that, right? But what does your typical day look like?

Or what has it looked like in the past?

Sarah: A lot of times I work, currently, in my role, [00:05:00] I am a QA supervisor, I've been a QA manager, QA techs, and stuff like that, mainly on the quality assurance side of food. 

Laura: QA meaning quality assurance.

Sarah: Quality assurance. Correct. A lot of times people that think that's just like making sure the food looks pretty.

That, and that is, when you make a product, you have specs and you want it to look a certain way. That's all well and good, but I'm always more interested in to make sure the food is safe for consumption. 

So 

it can look pretty, but, , Is it safe is the main goal. And that's the way most manufacturers are really looking into nowadays.

 Especially with, the outbreaks and stuff that have happened before. I developed food safety plans, which, FSP, , just some acronyms. So essentially we work on. Designing and using HACCP, which is Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, which is a mouthful, but essentially we look at it.

Thank you. Do you [00:06:00] remember that movie, Along Came Polly? Long time ago, that movie. And the guy was like a risk assessment person. He was like a risk adjustment for insurance companies. That's essentially what we do with a HACCP plan. We look at all the possible things that can go wrong in a food system when you're making it.

And we find, nitty gritty, , Oh, well, the sky could fall. And this would, 

Laura: How do we prevent it?

Sarah: How do we stop it? , so we essentially try to make sure that your food is safe. We mitigate you know, probable risks. We have to look in probability versus severity, and just, try to identify points where we can do more record keeping, do temperature control checks, things like that to make sure that we have multi step checks to make sure food is safe.

So that's the stuff that I mainly work on. There's also people that, literally do make the new flavors of stuff. I'm working with someone at, I work in a, Ice cream facility and he works on making new ice cream flavors and stuff like that. So 

Laura: that's so fun [00:07:00] 

Sarah: I know I already talked to him and I was like, hey, that would be fun Hey, you want to work on that?

 So yeah, there's a wide range of food scientists. There's food chemists, there's nutritionists. Nutritionists, like a lot of people who are in nutrition. That's a whole genre. There's wine makers, beer makers. Those 

Laura: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: yeah, that's all, dairy scientists. 

And then a lot of people also are using food to try to, , help improve people's lives too. There's a lot of research on like green tea and anti inflammatory effects and stuff like that.

So there's a lot of research that's going on with that too. 

Laura: So food signs can look really different. , and you specifically, your expertise are mostly in microbial presence in foods, quality assurance, making sure that it's safe for human consumption.

Sarah: Yep.

Laura: Gotcha. Okay, well, since that's your expertise, good, because that's what we're talking about today. It's like I planned this.

[00:08:00] We're talking about food safety for the holidays because it is always my goal to make it through the holiday season without barfing. And that can be risky when you're eating at a lot of different people's houses. Much less the sickness is going around, but we won't even go there.

Sarah: Yeah, don't even talk about those. Don't even mention them because then I'll inevitably get 

Laura: the 

Sarah: okay? Yeah, shh.

Laura: , at least for the food side of things, Sarah is going to lead us through how we take precautions. But first of all, if we don't take precautions with certain foods, what are the risks? Ha ha ha!

Sarah: , So, You can get, essentially what's called food poisoning. Everyone's heard of it. You get things like flu like symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea coming out both ends sometimes. Not a fun time.

Laura: Been there. Yeah. Literally thought I was going to die.

Sarah: I literally, yeah, so I had norovirus. I'm 90 percent sure, , which if anyone doesn't know what that is, , norovirus is like the cruise ship stomach [00:09:00] bug that people always talk about so that it runs rampant. It's highly contagious. , a lot, a lot of the times it's associated with seafood 

Laura: Okay. Hence the cruise thing

Sarah: And also it's goes through cruises because everyone's in close quarters and eating the same kind of buff and buffet.

Usually on cruise ships, there's buffets. So everyone's touching eating the same kind of food and it just goes rampant. 

Laura: So it's food, food, poisons, just to catch all term.

Sarah: yes, so food poisoning is like a catch all term. Essentially. I you can get shigellosis, which is Shigella based food poisoning, but most people just call it food poisoning.

Laura: Shigalosis. Sounds 

Sarah: Shigellosis. 

Laura: A 

shigalosis. No.

Yeah. [00:10:00] Shigalosis.

Sarah: I can't, you know, honestly, they shouldn't have made the term so fun if it was, you know,

Laura: Agreed. 

Agreed. 

Sarah: right? So symptoms can last for, usually, usually can start anywhere from a couple hours. I would usually say four to six for something like salmonella. Or it can take like days. , mine was, when I got norovirus, it was like about 24 hours after I'd eaten something.

Laura: Yeah, I think mine was light. eight.

We're aiming around eight. 

Sarah: yours was probably, and so that makes sense because bacteria and, bacteria and viruses, viruses, viruses take the body a little while longer to, notice, because they're better hiders than bacteria 

Laura: makes sense. Yeah, mine was probably something like Koli or Salmonella. It was like

Sarah: That's, yeah, That's, that's usually, My mom got trichinella from eating infected pork, and that's a parasitic infection.

So,

Laura: [00:11:00] they always say. Is that yeah. Yeah, gross. Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross.

So, what's the most common types of food poisoning that people get? Is it usually Salmonella? Yeah,

Sarah: so normally a salmonella, I think, , or, norovirus. So bacterial, it's almost always salmonella. But e coli is ACL close, , second to that. And a lot of times we also have a lot of listeria outbreaks too. 

Laura: Yeah, if

Sarah: But yeah, I mean, not all salmonella and all E. coli are technically what's called pathogenic, which means that it's going to make you sick. So not all of them are bad. Not all of 

Laura: there different there's some And there's some E. coli strains that are worse than others, I know.

Sarah: 0157H7 is one of the main ones, which is a serotype.

for the type of E. coli. It's fascinating. That's another thing a lot of food scientists get into is epidemiology too, which they are the ones that when some outbreak comes out, they're the ones that come in and look at the [00:12:00] genetics of the organism and try to find out where exactly it came from.

And they try to trace it through where other people have been sick and stuff like that, which is really cool.

Laura: Mm hmm,

Sarah: so yeah, that's your main, most of your symptoms are though. Most of the time, as you were both talking here, food science and you getting your, food poisoning, it doesn't really, it's not something you have to go to the hospital for.

I went, had to go because I was so dehydrated that I passed out. But for the most part, it's not a, , your tummy hurts or, you're sick and throwing up and pooping all the time and for 24 hours and 

Laura: Yeah, I was gonna say, some people, it's just sometimes, , you're like, Ooh, I ate something that wasn't that great. And it's not so bad. It's literally just eh.

Sarah: Right. I had a 

real, 

Laura: I had it, I was like, I'm gonna die.

Sarah: die. Like I literally looked at my husband. I was like, you're going to have to call an ambulance. Cause I'm pa I was like passing out in the bathroom.

Laura: Yeah, I was in the bathroom and I remember thinking that [00:13:00] I absolutely understood how Elvis, like, how Elvis must have felt dying on the toilet because

Sarah: You specifically were like, I am Elvis now. This is, I get it. I get it

Elvis. 

Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in my dehydrated brain I was like, this is it! Just like Elvis. Just like Elvis. Just like

Sarah: out.

Laura: Just like Elvis.

Sarah: , again, the people that are most susceptible, pregnant ladies, but it's also, , people who are immunocompromised. That essentially means people whose immune system doesn't work as well as others. , that can be because they have, some sort of disorder, disease that causes them to be immunocompromised, such as like AIDS or things like that.

Or they can take immunosuppressing medications, like some, my, I know some people that have auto, autoimmune diseases take immunosuppressing medications. So those people are more likely at risk. Also people who are older. Their immune systems aren't as strong and robust, 

again, the babes, the [00:14:00] young, and then pregnant women are another, priority, with possibly of getting sick with food poisoning.

So those are the groups that should be looking out for it more, the most.

Laura: Gotcha. Okay, so they're the people at risk. So how do we all make sure that we stay safe? So we've gone over what is poisoning. How do we prevent food poisoning this holiday?

Sarah: So, the main thing is to keep things clean when you're making stuff. Keep it, keep it clean, people. You know?

Laura: Keep it clean.

Sarah: One of the main things that I always talk about with people is making sure you're hand, you're washing your hands. 

Laura: I feel like everybody who's listening is no crap guys,

Sarah: Yeah, like,

Laura: but also

Sarah: But

Laura: Wash your freaking hands because I've seen you all I've seen people out there making food. You're not washing them Yeah,

Sarah: did you actually do it like no Did you sing happy birthday twice? [00:15:00] Did you see happy birthday you got the 20 full 20 seconds so hot soapy water In between all your fingers and I even go like I'll take my

fingernails and I rake them.

Yeah, I rake them on my hand Yeah, just to make sure I'm getting underneath the

Laura: shove that soap under there

Sarah: Get under there!

Laura: Well, and so I instead of counting to 20 because I i'm just like i'm counting weight I think i'm

counting 

Sarah: like, 

Laura: So I just count to 30 I count to 30 to hedge my bets. 

Sarah: So yeah, that one seems pretty obvious. And a lot of these things seem pretty obvious, but like when you're, I try to remember that when you're in the thick of it, when you're cooking something, like a full meal,

Laura: the, when you're in the trenches, it's hard to remember to wash your 

Sarah: trenches of, And, , I literally do this all the time, I'll be like, get people out of my kitchen, like, if Nathan or Penny is in the kitchen with me, I'm like, just go, because I need all the space.

And, I'm moving from thing to thing, [00:16:00] and then, but I'm also constantly thinking, oh. I just touched eggs, better go wash my hands. , I am constantly washing my hands and drying them. I go through a full paper towel roll making almost everything because I am constantly stopping and washing my hands.

 The other thing is, make sure your food contact surfaces are really, really clean. So I always, always clean before and after starting, like a meal.

Laura: I need to clean up more after, the counters. , the splash, just in case. I'm really good about, wiping down if I did the meat there, but I feel like I'm not as good about, if something splashed in the sink. What if it splashed out of the sink? And, , cleaning out the sink.

Sarah: right, so I, I try to make sure that, And that's why I do a before and after cleaning. So that way I do it, I've wiped down everything before to make sure that nothing since the last time I cooked has gotten it on the surface at all. However, that is, then I also make sure I wipe down I, Clorox wipes, [00:17:00] 409, anything like that'll be, , perfect to use with this type of situation.

 And then just make sure you're, When I say food contact surfaces, that's not just your counters. That's also making sure your knives are clean and your cutting boards. I know when, and this is my food science nerdy, when I was putting on my wedding registry, there was one item that I wanted. the most and it was a set of cutting boards were separated and had little pictures on them of this one's for beef, this one is for fish, this one is for ready to eat items, and this one is for vegetables.

So you know that I like loved having that because it

Laura: And what kind of cutting boards are they, material wise? 

Sarah: Like plastic personally. Wood makes me nervous.

Laura: Mm hmm.

Sarah: Because it's very porous, doesn't mean you can't use them. It's just, , this is all about risk reward kind of thing. This is all about [00:18:00] mitigating as much risk as you can, to decrease the probability number.

So how, like your likeliness to get sick. So, I

Laura: Yeah. 

Sarah: I would definitely have at least two types of cutting boards in your house. At least have a 

Laura: one for me and one for

Sarah: I would do a ra like a ra meat, raw meat one, specifically, and then one for other things. , I prefer having a li I like having three because I like my ready to eat items. , if I'm gonna cut, pizza, I always take pizza out and put it on a cutting board and then slice it.

I don't want that to be on raw produce or raw meat. Cause , ready to eat, or RTE, is your highest risk because there's no processing done to it before you eat it.

Laura: right. You're not washing. You're not cooking it.

Sarah: you're not washing it, you're not cooking it, you're not, baking it, boiling it, steaming it, and you're not doing anything to it that possibly would mitigate your risk by, , reducing your pathogens.

, and [00:19:00] then the other thing, to look into is, when you're, even your fruits and vegetables, I always rinse them under, water, cool water and, , brush some of the dirt off if I see dirt, and to make sure they're dried before I use them, , just in case to get some of that cleaning step.

I they're already technically washed most of the time in a processing facility, but, , make sure they get cleaned. , the things you don't want to rinse before you make them are your raw meats. Don't wash, tom the turkey doesn't need a bath before you get him ready for, for baking.

Because you're more likely to do more harm than good. What I mean by that is like when you were talking about earlier about, oh, I'm not sure if my sink's clean or, , what around my sink, splashes. That's the thing, is if you put Tom in for a dip, it's gonna splash, regardless of, and, , I don't know about you, but I have a lot of my clean dishes right beside my sink, kind of drying.

, so every [00:20:00] time I also think of this, I also think of monsters Inc. When he's we have a 2319. That's every time I like, we have an issue. 

Just don't, don't bathe your turkey. There's no need for it. 

Laura: Oh, Yeah. 

Sarah: is, all you're gonna, or even chicken or anything, all you're gonna do is just Cross contaminate something else, which cross contaminate means you put something that was raw meat wise, usually, and now have made, now your bowl that you're gonna eat your salad in.

It's got turkey juice in it. No one wants that.

Laura: Eww. Well, and then so this brings us into, so what you've gone grocery shopping, you get your stuff, you get home. How do you prevent cross contamination once you're in your kitchen? Besides just obviously don't chop stuff on the same board. You know what I mean? 

Sarah: Correct. , I try to prep myself. Things on separate surfaces if you can do that, but also just be mindful like I if I'm chopping my vegetables I usually keep my meat completely segregated [00:21:00] and if I if I touch my vegetables and Then go to meat. It's not a big deal But if I go for meat or eggs or things like more high risk items I don't go right back to my raw ingredients in That's a no no.

Laura: Unless I know I'm cooking, unless I know I'm I will touch the raw vegetables with my meat hands if they're going in with the meat kind of thing, right? Like 

Sarah: right. right. If you're going to cook it all together and stuff like that's fine. Even if you're going to, you can stress less if you're going to, steam the vegetables then. Because the steaming and the cooking and the processing like that should help and 

mitigate all that risk. and the steaming, the cooking, , the prepping.

 But once you do all that kind of stuff, that should mitigate that risk. Now, if you are taking your raw meat and then you're going to prep your salad, that's not a good idea. And you know, some things that we're still learning about food science, a lot of people didn't realize it, but flour.

Is

Laura: Oh yeah, right? Like [00:22:00] I, now I can't stop thinking about that. Now that, like,

there's been these, like, all of a sudden flowers started getting crap in it.

Sarah: Salmonella. Yep. They've realized that salmonella when it's under stress can survive dry environments. Which flour is very dry. People thought there's no way anything can survive in flour. It's not really, doesn't have a lot of nutrients. Really dry. But yeah. Salmonella has been found in it. So that's another thing, even in your baking, if you've got flour dust everywhere.

Like you have to remember, okay, I'm going to put this in the oven now. Now don't take your pie out that you've just cooked and put it on a flowery countertop because you could have possibly cross contaminated it.

Laura: Aye. And is that, and that's because of the facilities the flower is made in?

Sarah: And. The, , and that were, it could have come from the mills themselves in a processing [00:23:00] situation, or they're, just, these are things that are found in the environment everywhere. 

Laura: that's true. That's true. Salmonella's in soil sometimes, right?

Sarah: yeah, soil, the, everyone's oh, how did you bring it in here? It's just that, technically it's everywhere.

And these organisms have been living here way before us. They're just surviving. They're doing their own little thing. It's just the fact that. They got somewhere that they weren't supposed to, we didn't have enough cleaning mitigations and ways to stop it from enumerating or growing to a volume that we can't now pass on to ourselves.

Because, that's the other thing too. It's not even that there's salmonella present, because there's no salmonella. It doesn't mean you're going to get sick. It's all about the number of cells that you ingest to certain. Shigella, when we talked shigellosis, that's only like a hundred cells or something like that, that you can get, , it's a really low inoculation number.

That will, once you have those certain, I think it's like a hundred cells or something like that. It's [00:24:00] donezo. You're going to get sick. But salmonella, like you said, you're like, I'm constantly eating salmonella. Because you probably didn't get a high enough enumeration of them or colony numbers in your colon to really mess stuff up.

So yeah, that's the main thing is to, as you're prepping your food, try to keep it separate, keep it clean.

The other things are to make sure you're cooking it properly. If you're going to cook a turkey, you want to make sure your internal temperature is 165. And everyone's do I need a meat thermometer?

Ye I would suggest yes. I honestly 

Laura: The 

answer is 

Sarah: one Yes, the answer is yes, unless you, I know most of the, a lot of these turkeys now come up with those little indicators. 

Laura: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listeners, I just wanted to tell you that at one point, I was like, Sarah is this safe, and Sarah said, Just poke it with your finger in all, in several different places, and if your finger burns, then it's done. I proceeded to do that and then [00:25:00] burned my fingers. Cause I didn't have a thermometer.

Sarah was like, poke it. If it hurts, it's probably cooked. My own little meat thermometer, which was my finger.

Sarah: well, cause you were desperate. You called me and you're like, Sarah, I just made this and I don't know if it's done.

Laura: You're like, poke your finger in. I come back with like third degree burns.

Sarah: It was done. Wasn't it? It was done.

Laura: And I didn't get sick.

Sarah: Sick. Sick. Sick. That is not my scientific

Laura: Don't do that listeners. Just tell your best friend that.

Sarah: Honestly, thermometer is where you want it. Where it's at, especially 

Laura: , that makes sense. I, I used to have one and then that broke and then I never got a, but I need to get a new one. They're like on sale everywhere these days.

Sarah: right. At the very least, if you're going to do a turkey, get the ones with the little poppers on them. So when that pops up, that's usually in the thickest part [00:26:00] of the bird, where she's real thick, that it pops.

Laura: Two C's.

Sarah: Toosies everyone, toosies. It'll pop, and then that'll tell you that it's reached the internal temperature that is suggested by the FDA at 165.

 You want to do a couple different places, which is what I told you about making sure it was in a couple different places. You want to make sure you at least get your, innermost part of the thigh, cause thigh meat, Has a hard time cooking with that. And the wing, because that's thick. 

And then, you 

Laura: Just jam it 

Sarah: really 

Laura: Yeah.

Sarah: cautionary for your stuffing. If you're going to stuff that bird, you're, and you want to eat that stuffing, 165 as well. , Because I know when we were having Thanksgiving, my, they pulled it out and we're [00:27:00] like, Oh, it's at 163.

I'm like, is that 165?

Laura: Put it back

Sarah: I was like, put it back in. It's not done.

So that they really do suggest not to prepare your stuffing in the bird. But. if it's like, well, we've always done it that way. 

Laura: Fine. Just make it get hot enough.

Sarah: try, yeah, really want to heat that sucker up. 

Laura: And what are these temperature goals accomplishing for

Sarah: so they're, they're essentially killing off most of that bacteria that's going to make you sick. Salmonella can survive drying, but heat, it's not its friend, especially, you're cooking a turkey for four hours.

 That's a long time. And That's excessive drying, 165 is the suggested that should kill off everything that's going to make you sick. 

Laura: Can you mess around more with certain, , let's say, for those of us that do eat meat, I obviously, weighing risk and cost [00:28:00] benefit, of like, if I want red meat, like I like my steak medium rare, obviously it might have risks to it, but is there meat that is more risky than others to not cook properly?

Sarah: Yes. Poultry is going to be pretty high risk. That is just because of the way it's processed in facilities. Also anything ground. So if you've got your ground meat, that is your number one risk because When you are cutting and slicing your meat from the carcass, , there's a knife that goes through and slices.

So, when that slice comes through, if it's like a steak piece, imagine it, it's your two surfaces that are going to be the parts that, because they're the main contamination points. But, so that way, that's how you can have your rare, like medium rare steaks, is because you're searing. those outside edges to a high enough temperature to kill the contamination points.

[00:29:00] Now if you ground that meat, take that steak and you put it through a grinder, the outsides are all mushing in with the insides, creating this ground beef. Now the whole thing has been contaminated with whatever was on the outside. So that's the one you, do not 

Laura: So eating a pink burger 

Okay, yeah, yeah. So

Sarah: I would never suggest to do such a thing like that.

That, that's probably your most high risk item is ground, ground turkey, ground beef,

Laura: Like

sausage. 

Sarah: So those are your main, your more at risk items. , and then your lower risk items would be stuff that's already been pre heated. 

Ham. 

Or like hot dogs if you think about it technically have been processed to some point 

Laura: Yeah, like whenever you buy things that say pre cooked,

Sarah: pre cooked those are gonna be less risky because they've already undergone some sort of thermal treatment Some sort of way that makes sure that they are less at risk So those are [00:30:00] and you're ready to eat foods are gonna be obviously way less risk than stuff that provides preparation.

Laura: Alrighty, and then anything else to make sure that we can stay safe? We did clean, separate,

cook, 

Sarah: cook, chill. How you take care of your foods after. The, what we're talking about those four steps, which are, you make sure your things are clean. Make sure you keep things separate. Make sure you cook them through and make sure you have a chill or refrigeration step. Those are all suggested by the FDA.

 If , you want to make sure that once you've cooked your food, that's great, but it doesn't mean it's completely safe then unless you get it back into a place where you can control, growth, if anything is present.

So say you have something and you've cooked it and you bring it out. , there's air molecules coming through, there's people walking by, there's someone who sneezed before they got to the turkey. There's all these things that are, while it's sitting out can. [00:31:00] Become contaminated at some point with something, oh, I went and dug my fork in to get this one piece or, I picked off the skin off the turkey before anyone came through, whatever your family does, or, , it just existing in the outside air with no cover can have a possible risk.

Laura: So when does the clock start? The clock starts when it comes out of the oven.

Sarah: correct. One of my favorite things the FDA calls it, it's called the danger zone. You want to keep food out of the danger zone. So that's essentially like room temperature is danger zone. So you don't want to keep it in the danger zone for too long.

 If you keep it in there, I would say you got about, Two to four hours is usually what they suggest. So on the safe side, I would say two hours. So that includes like your pumpkin pie. So like you get a pie, you made it, you bring it out and sit it out or whatever like that, . Doesn't mean you have to put your pie completely back in the fridge, but I would cover it and make sure it's, properly maintained.

These are things you want [00:32:00] to make sure that, and you make sure that your refrigerator is set at 40. Or 

less why it's called the danger zone is that's when the organisms are happy. They have food because they're on food.

They have water because the food has water in it. The air temperature is now warm. They're happy. Yeah, they're like, mm, you got me a snack,

Laura: Danger zone is also the cozy zone.

Sarah: everyone watch out, it's a cozy zone.

So, oh, oh, what's a 

Laura: no, no, no, no, no, no, 

Sarah: want one. No, no, no. No, it's not the hugs. No hugs for them. So, essentially, you want to make sure that your organisms are Not happy. You put them in states where they're not happy, aka the extreme heat or the cold. There's an acronym that's ridiculous.

It's called FAT TOM. I'm not, I'm not kidding [00:33:00] you. Yeah, it's called Fat Tom. I can't remember what all the letters mean, but it's all about the stuff that makes organisms happy. It's like, you know, moisture, the acidity, the, the temperature, the time, things like that. Things that make, an organism grow and make more, more organisms, cause when you're happy, you get down to business and you make more of them.

Laura: you get cozy.

Sarah: When you get in that cozy zone, you never, you know, 

Laura: ha ha ha ha!

Sarah: we get enumeration, baby. That's what you get. You get 

Laura: Ha ha ha ha!

Sarah: If that's why you want to try to take one of the things that make the organism happy essentially or grow is you want to take those out so you try to pluck out you can't change how like that it has food because it is food.

Yeah, it's the food you've already prepared can't change the [00:34:00] acidity can't really change the moisture of it anymore. You've already baked it, you're not changing those items, but you can change how long it sits out in the open and at what temperature it's at. So that's why they say get it back in the fridge.

Organisms are going to be cold. They're not going to want to grow. They're kind of like,

Laura: And I feel like that is, , at both ends of this, so you get, let's say you get your turkey, you get it out of the oven, and your clock starts ticking because the temperature is slowly reaching room temperature.

Sarah: right, which it won't start instantly necessarily because it's still hot. So it'll plateau for a little bit and then it'll start going down.

Laura: yeah, so you might

Sarah: And then when you, so then it'll start like, , okay, so say You're you've Your organisms are here as you're cooking, and then it drops, right?

You get a low number. Get a low, low number. And then, okay, now I've taken it out of the oven and it's starting to cool, cool, and I get a higher number, and it starts getting higher. As soon as you put it in that fridge, it kind of pauses it. It doesn't kill it.

Laura: go away.[00:35:00] 

Sarah: It doesn't, It doesn't, instantly kill it.

It just stops it, stops the clock at wherever you are. Now what's important is then you take it out and you reheat it. That'll go back down then for enumeration numbers. So that'll take your organisms back down to after you've essentially cooked it, as long as , you cook it long enough and get it to hopefully around 165 again.

Laura: Yeah, so what and the same with the fridge like let's say you have something a trifle whatever and something with Dairy, 

it's cold. You bring it out of the fridge

You've got two 

hours. 

Sarah: Yeah.

Laura: Okay

and then what was the other question that I had

Sarah: Oh yeah, make sure your thaw, when you thaw your stuff, please do not just lay him on the counter and thaw him.

There's basically three methods of thawing that are deemed acceptable. In the fridge. Microwaving it, which is why your microwaves have that little defrost section on there.

Laura: Thank the Lord, because Laura can never remember to pull it out a [00:36:00] day or two ahead of time.

Sarah: Or you can, what I usually do is, if I've forgotten to pull it out and it's something that's not going to be too bad, I'll take running cool water.

Laura: Right, like shrimp. Like if it's like frozen shrimp, I'll do that with.

Sarah: Right, you don't want to put it on hot water and start cooking it because that's going to affect your flavor profiles and everything. Also, if it has organisms in it, you're already starting your cooking process and then you might put it in that danger zone then because it was frozen, now you're warming it to warm, and not reaching that high point.

So yeah, I would say that the, those are your three methods, thawing in the fridge, thawing it under cool running water, not hot, cool running water, or using your microwave settings.

Laura: So chill chill thaw wise and then chill once

things Preparing.

or refrigeration, like either or, it's got to be, you put it away. And then how long, like how you put it in, you put it in, is there a [00:37:00] specific way to store the food that's better than another way? I

Sarah: put it in like sealable containers. That would be your best bet. Covering it to like aluminum foil, , plastic wrap, those I would say are your like, again, it's a, it's a 

spectrum. So, you know, your 

best would be a airtight seal container, then I would say, it's covered with Aluminum foil and plastic wrap around and then would be I threw the plate in there like That would be my least suggested Method, but I mean at least it's in there and not on the counter.

So I mean that's one step up It depends on the food. I would I usually save three three to four days I would say three max, so three to four. It depends on the food, if it's a higher risk, it's just, the same [00:38:00] thing with what's your high risk foods in general, I would say meat, I'm a little bit more wary of keeping four, five, Five days like I wouldn't mess around with meat.

 Just because it's a high risk item Also, I wouldn't really keep out. I wouldn't really keep if I made scrambled eggs Why would I keep scrambled eggs? I wouldn't But if you say you made scrambled eggs and you wanted to keep them, that's one I wouldn't let sit around for a while either And , that's a great thing place to, , jump on the FDA's website.

They have, your high risk food items on there in general. So they'll tell you what meat, dairy, I would say eggs, meat, dairy are your, main ones.

I think we talked about all the, oh yeah, and also it, when in doubt, main thing, when in doubt, throw it out. 

Laura: That 

I've thrown out 

because it smelled funky. Yeah, there's 

Sarah: there's a 

lot of great FDA things. If you are just curious about food, you can call 1 888 SAFE FOOD, which is the [00:39:00] FDA's, but there's also a USDA meat and poultry hotline that you can also call, which is 1 88, 1 888 MP

Laura: how many phone calls they're 

Sarah: HOTLINE. 

Laura: Over the holidays. I think my turkey is not done. How do I know? Just the amount of phone calls that people must.

Sarah: Right.

Laura: They're just the Sarah. They're, thank goodness I have you. Otherwise, I'd be calling the hotline. I just bought these yogurts and I forgot about it.

And I think it's been out for an hour, but it could have been three. 

, so with all the precautions we just talked about, what, if you don't follow them, we talked about you get food poisoning and you vomit and you poop your guts out. Is that is it the worst of the worst?

Because some people are like, I mean if you're hedging your bets, if you're like,

Sarah: eh,

Laura: I have played the gamble of how much did this time, did this take me to cook versus how bad do I think the repercussions will be?

Sarah: absolutely. And that's, that's the whole, people used to call it the raw cookie dough test. So [00:40:00] raw cookie dough tastes amazing. 

And back in our day, back in our day, it didn't have, it had raw eggs in it. And it was like, do I eat it still? And there's a lot of people that are like, absolutely.

Yeah. I eat raw cookie dough. Worth it. Right. It comes down to, , a risk thing. Okay, so most, you're most likely going, the most likely scenario, if you're going to get sick, is going to be, you're not going to feel good for 24 hours, 48 hours. I think my, norovirus was like 72 hours.

I 

was 

not 

good. 

Laura: least two days. 

Sarah: Yeah. So that, but that's because we were younger, healthier, , We were not immunocompromised. People die from this. Like people do die. , I was just hearing today that someone was saying that, one of the operators at where I work, Salmonella, and he was in the hospital for four days.

 [00:41:00] So it, it just depends. And it's, , you're rolling the dice, technically. , it's kind of with the car scenario, if I'm driving a car if I keep swerving lanes, I'm more likely to get hit by a car. And if I get in a car accident, Is it going to be a fatal one?

Laura: Right. And then too, like I, this is such like a modern, it's not just a modern day problem, right? But I feel like there are differences between, before, back in the day. Of course these problems were really scary because we didn't know as much about them. But now, even though we know as much about them, our food goes through so many more hands than it did before.

Which has so many more points of contamination. Like

all those hazards, there's just so many more points.

Sarah: right. 

Laura: there's 

Sarah: But a lot more people are doing right. A lot of more, there's a lot more regulation. And in fact, a lot of the most common like recalls and FDA, Investigations that [00:42:00] are going on right now are not from necessarily like outbreaks. They're like, I feel five, 10 years ago, we were talking about every major, every time we got a recall event or, an investigation done by the FDA, it was almost always a salmonella or E.

coli or listeria. Like it blew up.

Laura: Yeah, it's like 

Sarah: it's a, 

Laura: Yeah.

Sarah: the cantaloupes with listeria. They were, it was everywhere. And then, the past couple of years, it's been all about undeclared allergens. That's where we're getting a lot more focus, which is just suggesting that our food safety plans that are in place in a lot of our facilities and a lot of our, , businesses are actually working.

We are identifying risk, we are mitigating it, I actually was talking to someone today, everyone's on this, , train about, we must buy local, and I'm like, I'm all for that, but also you have to remember that, [00:43:00] yes, you're buying local and it's less hands, like you're looking at it, but I'm also looking at it, that there are less hands, there's less people to check on it, too.

There's less, there's less rules. There's even, there's actually even less rules and regulations for farmers market foods. Things that are not produced to a certain quantity or sell a certain amount don't fall under certain jurisdictions of the 

FDA. 

Laura: So you'd have to like really do your

homework on is it a farmer? Or you just have to mitigate yourself as much as possible rather than relying on the manufacturer.

Sarah: And you really, and you have to trust your farmers and stuff like that. Make sure that, they're not literally dealing with cow manure and then going and milking the 

cow. 

yeah, or butchering stuff, that these are, there are reasons certain things are in place to protect us, 

it's, again, it's all about balance. It's all about, same thing with diet, same thing with almost everything is all, everything boils down 

to balance. I feel like, 

Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I know, 

you [00:44:00] want to hear,

I 

Laura: what I want to hear for the holidays. Excess. Capitalism. That's what the holidays are. Nothing in balance. Are you kidding me? I'm gonna

barf 

till I, I'm gonna eat till I barf.

Sarah: and I'm 

Laura: But 

Sarah: joy, balance. 

Laura: poisoning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Right. Just because you're full and your brain didn't tell you to stop eating,

Laura: Yeah, yeah, 

Sarah: not because you're going to get sick.

Laura: I think that covers it. I had one final question I didn't put on your, your your questions, but 

Sarah: surprise er, 

Laura: a surprise question. My surprise question is what is your favorite holiday food at this time of year to eat?

Cause we've been talking 

about all this food. You're like cookies.

Sarah: It's cookies. A hundred percent. It 

Laura: Give me those cookies. Any specific cookie, like sugar cookie.

Sarah: No, 

Laura: just saying.

Cause some people are like, oh, Christmas cookies, you mean like the decorated cookies. I'm, I, it doesn't matter about me, I'm talking [00:45:00] about for our listeners.

Sarah: I'm say, well, you know what my favorite cookie is, don't you? It's the one I make every year. My chocolate, chocolate, 

chip that has, yeah, my famous chocolate chip ones that my grandmother taught me to make. Yeah. Man, a good Christmas cookie. Although, listeners, Sarah made some really, really good wet nuts. Which, they were, I actually can't stop thinking about them.

I'm going to try, I'm going to try to make them again for, our New Year's get together though, or the one in January where we're doing, , and I'm going to try to make them less wet this time

Laura: They were pretty good wet. Alright. Well, on that note,

Sarah: on wet nuts.

Laura: on the wet nuts note, , everybody who's listening, this, it, , happy holidays, cause those of you who celebrate Christmas, it's Christmas Eve. Be prepared for the holidays. Happy Hanukkah, , happy Kwanzaa, happy holidays to everybody, and tune in next week cause we're gonna have more of Katie and I's bog banter. If you want to find out cool stuff for bogs, tis the season for bogs as well. Thanks so much. [00:46:00] Thanks so much for joining me, Sarah.