Barbecue Safety

Do's and Don'ts at Summer Barbecues - Your guide to eating safely this summer.

Preparing your food

• Don't prepare food too far in advance.
• Touch the food as little as possible.
• Wash raw fruit and vegetables in water from the mains supply - pesticides residues, soil microbes and microbes passed on from handlers could be present in the food.
• Ensure any frozen food is properly thawed, preferably in a fridge. If food is thawed in the kitchen make sure it is covered.
• Never defrost food by placing it next to a radiator or by using a hair dryer.
• At the other extreme don't attempt to cool food too quickly by placing it straight in the fridge - it will warm the fridge up and put other foods at risk.
• Don't guess cooking and standing times when using a microwave.
• Microwaves cook from the inside out - so if food is not allowed to stand for the recommended time the heat will not be able to conduct through the food to produce an even temperature.

Transporting food

• Keep raw and cooked food separate.
• Store high risk foods in a cool bag or ice box.

At the site

• Prepare high risk foods (sausages, beefburgers and poultry) last and low risk (salads) first. If possible cook meat in the kitchen and finish on the barbecue.
• Don't let hot foods cool slowly - keep hot or keep cold or don't keep at all.
• When reheating food make sure that you do so thoroughly. Food that is only partially heated may contain harmful bacteria.
• When picnicing, if possible used tinned or canned meat and open on site. Similarly pressurised cans of cream are much safer than cartons of cream.
• Don't pour hot gravy on cold platters of meat before serving - it'll warm up the meat sufficiently to allow bacteria to multiply. Always serve very hot and separately.
• Never keep left-over gravy or milk sauces - they form ripe breeding grounds for bacteria.

Common scenarios for food poisoning

It is a baking hot day and the family decides to have a barbecue. The freezer is raided for anything that can be cooked - sausages, beefburgers, chicken quarters, chops and steaks which have been in the bottom of the freezer for as long as anyone can remember are all found. The food is left on the kitchen side - by the window - so that it can defrost quickly.

When defrosted it looks too much to cook, so some of the food is placed back in the freezer for another time. The rest is placed on the barbecue. The sausages appear to be cooked first, they're a little bit pink in the middle but no-one notices, and besides everyone is really hungry! After the food is just about ready at the same time, the barbecue is put out and the family enjoys the warm summer evening. The food is allowed to cool slowly on the barbecue, ready for sausage and chicken sandwiches later.

Danger Areas

• Defrosting by the window.
• Not checking use by dates or how long the food has been in the freezer.
• Freezing food which has already defrosted - it would be okay to freeze the barbecued food as long as it was properly cooked.
• Not cooking the food on the barbecue thoroughly.
• Allowing food to cool slowly on the barbecue (more than one and a half hours). 1,000 bacteria can grow to 1,000,000 bacteria in one hour forty minutes.

Suggestions

• Plan in advance and defrost slowly in the bottom of the fridge or in a microwave.
• Cook indoors and finish on the barbecue.

A garden party

Forty people arrive at a house for a party. The house is small but luckily it's a hot afternoon and everything can be set up in the garden. Trestle tables are set out for the food - coronation chicken, salad, fresh mayonnaise, quiches, cream cakes and trifle. All are set out in the garden in advance of the guests arriving. The white wine is kept in the fridge so that it remains cold.

Danger areas

• Leaving food containing cream or cheese and high-risk foods in the sun, while low-risk goods, such as the wine, are in the fridge.

Suggestions

• Leave high-risk foods in the fridge until the guests are ready to eat.
• Store the bottles of wine in buckets of cold water or use ice packs.

Picnics

Sandwiches, chicken drumsticks, slices of cold meats, cakes, cream and fruit are all hurriedly thrown into the bag and placed in the back of the car, where the dog usually sits. The bag falls over, but luckily only the fruit falls out. It's a hot day so the family decides to leave the food in the car while they go for a walk, having travelled an hour or so to the site.

Danger areas

• Low-risk and high risk food not properly covered, thrown into one bag and allowed to warm up together slowly.
• Apples and pears allowed to roll around on unclean surfaces and then not washed before being eaten.

Suggestions

• Use canned meats and aerosol cream.
• Pack foods in separate containers and place in a cool box or bag.

Quiz time

Now, in order to see how much you've learnt try the fun quizzes on the Food Standards Agency website.