Food poisoning can be preventable if you are preparing and storing food the proper way in your home.

September is National Food Safety Education Month and one of the four key steps to prevent foodborne illness is cooking to the right temperature. Washington County Food Safety Specialist Jason Taylor shares the recommended temperatures for cooking a variety of raw meat, “For your ground beef, ground pork, any type of ground product that’s not poultry products they are 155 [degrees]. In your poultry products of ground turkey, ground chicken, all that kind of thing you’d want 165 [degrees] on that. And then if you have whole muscle cuts, like getting into the fall you’ll start having roasts and different things like that, it’s 145 [degrees] and if you’re grilling your steaks and chops would be 145 [degrees] also to make sure that they’re properly cooked.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state the only way to tell if food is safely cooked is to use a food thermometer. The next important step in food safety is to refrigerate promptly. Perishable food should be refrigerated within two hours. Frozen food should be thawed in the refrigerator, in cold water, or in the microwave. Foods should never be thawed on the counter as bacteria multiply quickly in the parts of the food that reach room temperature.