USDA shares Thanksgiving tips for a smooth holiday meal and safe food handling practices
Yakima, Wash. — Thanksgiving is a day about family, friends, football, and probably most importantly food. And the USDA has released some tips and tricks to ensure the meal goes smoothly. Their first tip is to plan your shopping trip.
“Thanksgiving is going to be a busy time, so we encourage you to get the grocery store and plan out your shopping trip. Make sure to buy all of your perishable items and especially the turkey and ham towards the end of your shopping trip, you don’t want those perishable products to be at room temperature for too long,” said Jesse Garcia, USDA, Public Affairs Specialist.
As for when it comes time to cook the turkey the USDA recommends the turkey is completely thawed before cooking and if you don’t know how long to cook the bird, they have a new tool that will help calculate the cooking time.
“The USDA actually has a calculator available on its website at fsis.usda.gov/turkey calculator. When you pull up that web page it’s going to have 2 calculators, pone that basically tells you how long to thaw your turkey safely in the refrigerator, and next another calculator that tells you how long a stuffed turkey or unstuffed turkey is going to take based on cooking a turkey at 325 degrees,” said Garcia.
They also have a tip for the best way to store leftovers from the meal and how long they can last before going bad.
“Once you put your leftovers in the refrigerator, just remember that you got 4 days. On the fourth day you get to decide if you’re going to consume, or you’re going to freeze or throw away your leftovers,” said Garcia.
And for more information or help you can visit their website.
