With warm weather and sunny skies, a trip to the park for a picnic or an outdoor barbecue may be on your agenda. Safe food handling practices are important regardless of location, but they’re even more important when you’re handling food outdoors. Unsafe food handling practices can result in foodborne illness. To prepare you for upcoming food-related festivities, here are some safe food handling tips from the MSU Health e-Guide.

1. Wash your hands and prepare a clean surface for cooking
   Wash your hands before and after touching food. Soapy water can clean your hands and cooking utensils. Make sure to keep cutting boards, knives, etc., clean. Also, make sure to wash fresh fruits and vegetables.

2. Separate foods
   Keep fruits, vegetables and other foods away from raw meat. Germs can spread from raw meat to other foods. Put cooked meat on a clean surface; do not put cooked meat back on the surface that held the raw meat.

3. Cook foods thoroughly
   Make sure that meat, chicken, fish and eggs are fully cooked. Foods that are not fully cooked can result in food poisoning.

4. Refrigerate leftovers
   Refrigerate any leftovers right away. Don’t leave fruits and vegetables at room temperature for a long period of time.

5. When in doubt, throw it out.
   If you are unsure whether a food is safe to eat or not, don’t
   eat it.

To find out more information on how harmful germs get into foods or how to deal with food poisoning, check out the MSU Health e-Guide.