Let's talk turkey

By Jayne Spencer

That bird you are going to serve your family. Well, it's er, ahem, germy. Nearly 100 percent of turkeys, regardless of the brand or where they are purchased, are contaminated with bacteria, including Salmonella spp. and Campylobacter jejuni.

McSwane

The good news is these germs are very common in the environment, and they are easily destroyed by heat. Therefore, if the turkey is cooked properly, it will be safe to eat.

Home Pages asked food safety researcher David McSwane, a professor of public and environmental affairs at IUPUI, to give some advice on safe food handling. For starters, he said, don't forget to remove the neck, giblets, gizzard and liver from the body cavity of the bird before cooking. If not properly removed, these items and their packaging can impart a bad taste and cause a fire in the oven.

Here's the rest of McSwane's list; cut it out and put it next to your basting bulb.

McSwane is co-author of Essentials of Food Safety and Sanitation, a book that has become the authoritative source on food protection among professionals in environmental health. It's due out in a second edition later this year.

• Thaw the frozen turkey in the refrigerator. It takes longer to do, but the bird will not get into the temperature danger zone (all temperatures between 40° and 140°F) where the bacteria that are known to cause foodborne illness grow best and fastest. Do not thaw products at room temperature.
  
• Cook the turkey to at least 165°F. The United States Department of Agriculture recommends that the turkey breast be cooked to 170°F and the inner thigh to 180°F. Always check the temperature of the bird with a meat thermometer. Do not rely on the accuracy of the time temperature indicator (i.e. the pop-up gizmo) that is provided with your turkey. The higher temperatures are especially important if members of the family fall within the high-risk category for foodborne illness. These include young children, elderly persons, pregnant or lactating women, and people who are ill or have weakened immune systems.
  
• Never brown or partially cook turkey to refrigerate and finish cooking later. It is safe to partially cook or microwave a turkey if it is immediately transferred to a hot grill, fryer or oven to finish cooking.
  
• For optimum safety, it is recommended to cook stuffing outside the turkey. However, if you choose to cook the stuffing inside the bird, the center of the stuffing must reach at least 165°F.
  
• Cross contamination is the transfer of germs from raw to cooked or ready-to-eat foods. Cross contamination can occur when a person touches the raw turkey and then salad ingredients without washing their hands first. Wash hands frequently (especially after touching raw products). Anti bacterial soaps work well and are very safe to use. Hand sanitizers work well when used in addition to handwashing. However, they must never be used as a replacement for handwashing.
  
• Cross contamination can also occur when equipment and utensils (cutting boards, knife blades, etc.) are not properly washed and sanitized between working with raw products, and cooked and ready-to-eat foods. Be sure to clean equipment and utensils with hot soapy water and then sanitize them using a mild chlorine bleach solution (50ppm). Wash and sanitize surfaces whenever you are finished working with raw foods and before you start working with cooked and ready-to-eat foods.
  
• After the meal, cool all leftovers to 40°F within four hours or less. This may require putting foods into shallow containers or breaking up large food masses (e.g. the turkey) into smaller pieces or slices.
  
• When reheating leftovers, cook them to 165°F as quickly as possible. Any leftovers that are not eaten after one reheating should be discarded.
  
• If at all possible, avoid preparing the meal several hours or days before it will be eaten. If you must prepare the meal in advance, be sure that foods are stored at proper temperature and adequately reheated prior to serving.
  
• Thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables, especially those that will not be peeled, with clean water to remove soil and pesticide residues.
  

Two good sources of information about cooking turkey are:

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/focustky.htm

http://www.butterball.com

More general information about food safety is available at:

http://www.fsis.usda.gov

http://www.fda.gov

http://www.fightbac.org

http://hydra.uits.iu.edu/~abilene/noc-new/index.cgi

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