Tamika Sims, senior director of food technology communications at the International Food Information Council, recently had a chat with HuffPost in which she explained why you should wash bananas and other fruits and veggies with thick, removable skin. According to Sims, there is dirt and microbes on their skin that could find their way to the consumable part of the fruit or a vegetable.

“You should be washing produce that has a peel with clean running water, even if you plan to discard it,” Sims said. “This is a best practice in safe food handling to minimize the transfer of dirt or microbes that may be on the skin to the fruit on the inside that you plan to consume.”

It is also recommended to wash any produce that you intend to cut or prepare in another way. This is because the knife can push any microbes or dirt to the inside during cutting.

Experts agree that washing isn’t a perfect method that will keep you safe at all times, but that it minimizes the risk greatly.

The post Here’s Why You Should Wash Bananas Before Peeling Them appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Check out these three meats that you must fully cook, and discover why.

Chicken

Chicken should be fully cooked to an internal temperature of 165 F before being served. Why? Well, this meat has a low density, which allows plenty of bacteria to penetrate into the center of the meat. Serving undercooked chicken could lead to severe illnesses such as salmonella.

Pork

Pork is much more dense than chicken, but there’s another reason that you should avoid serving this meat without fully cooking it. Trichinosis, a parasitic intestinal disease commonly acquired by eating undercooked pork that causes severe problems in your GI tract, is the main reason why this meat should always be cooked to 145 F.

Duck

Duck meat, especially popular in Chinese cooking, is a meat with a similar composition to fish. The low density of its cells allows for bacteria to get in easily, making it necessary to elevate the center of the meat to at least 160 F for safe serving.

The post Never Serve These Meats Rare appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Tamika Sims, senior director of food technology communications at the International Food Information Council, recently had a chat with HuffPost in which she explained why you should wash bananas and other fruits and veggies with thick, removable skin. According to Sims, there is dirt and microbes on their skin that could find their way to the consumable part of the fruit or a vegetable.

“You should be washing produce that has a peel with clean running water, even if you plan to discard it,” Sims said. “This is a best practice in safe food handling to minimize the transfer of dirt or microbes that may be on the skin to the fruit on the inside that you plan to consume.”

It is also recommended to wash any produce that you intend to cut or prepare in another way. This is because the knife can push any microbes or dirt to the inside during cutting.

Experts agree that washing isn’t a perfect method that will keep you safe at all times, but that it minimizes the risk greatly.

The post Here’s Why You Should Wash Bananas Before Peeling Them appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Check out these three meats that you must fully cook, and discover why.

Chicken

Chicken should be fully cooked to an internal temperature of 165 F before being served. Why? Well, this meat has a low density, which allows plenty of bacteria to penetrate into the center of the meat. Serving undercooked chicken could lead to severe illnesses such as salmonella.

Pork

Pork is much more dense than chicken, but there’s another reason that you should avoid serving this meat without fully cooking it. Trichinosis, a parasitic intestinal disease commonly acquired by eating undercooked pork that causes severe problems in your GI tract, is the main reason why this meat should always be cooked to 145 F.

Duck

Duck meat, especially popular in Chinese cooking, is a meat with a similar composition to fish. The low density of its cells allows for bacteria to get in easily, making it necessary to elevate the center of the meat to at least 160 F for safe serving.

The post Never Serve These Meats Rare appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.