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Poultry Classifications Get a 21st Century Upgrade

When cooking poultry, chefs know choosing the right bird will affect the outcome of a final dish. That’s why most recipes call for a fryer, roaster, or other class—terms based on the age and sex of the bird and printed on poultry labels.  While breeding and raising practices have improved over the years, the definitions for these terms have remained roughly the same since the 1970’s.

Disfrute los Días Festivos: Prepare Comidas Inocuas y Saludables

Serie especial para los días festivos- 2do blog de 5

¡Ya comenzó el conteo regresivo para el día del pavo! Para facilitarles a todos ustedes que estarán bien ocupados cocinando en este día, la Dra. Hagen del Servicio de Inocuidad e Inspección de Alimentos del USDA y yo les proveemos recetas para comidas festivas, de bajo costo, con consejos sencillos para manejar los alimentos adecuadamente que les ayudará a preparar una comida saludable e inocua durante los días festivos. Ayer publicamos la receta para el pavo con sugerencias de gran ayuda para prepararlo adecuadamente. Aquí hay una receta deliciosa para el relleno. Asegúrese de  ver nuestro próximo blog, que se publicará mañana, el cual contiene otra receta, también de bajo costo, para preparar un plato de manzanas y camotes (batatas). ¡Disfrútenlas!

Enjoy the Holidays: Preparing Healthy and Safe Meals!

Special holiday series – Blog 2 of 5

The countdown to turkey day is underway! To help soon-to-be busy cooks prepare healthy and safe holiday meals, USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen and I are providing low-cost holiday recipes with simple food safety tips. Yesterday we posted a turkey recipe with helpful suggestions on handling raw poultry. Below is a delicious recipe for stuffing.  Make sure you check out our next blog tomorrow which will feature another low-cost, easy to prepare –recipe—Baked Apples and Sweet Potatoes.  Happy cooking!!

Grandma’s Stuffing

Disfrute los Días Festivos: Prepare Comidas Inocuas y Saludables

Serie especial para los días festivos- 1er blog de 5

Mientras esperamos con ansias el compartir con amigos y familiares, e iniciar nuevas memorias al preparar juntos los platos festivos, todos anhelamos servir una buena comida y hacerlo de una manera sana. Definitivamente queremos evitar el riesgo tan peligroso de enfermarnos por bacterias en los alimentos. Durante los próximos días, la Dra. Thornton y yo estaremos compartiendo consejos para ayudarle a preparar comidas inocuas y saludables. La primera receta es para preparar y cocinar adecuadamente el pavo. Las próximas recetas incluyen: la preparación del relleno, salteado de ejoles, manzanas y camotes (batatas), y un pastel de calabaza.

¡Les deseamos salud y felicidad durante esta época festiva!

Enjoy the Holidays: Preparing Healthy and Safe Meals!

Special holiday series – Blog 1 of 5

As we look forward to spending the holidays with friends and family and making meals and memories together, we all want to put good food on the table and do it safely.  We especially want to keep the threat of food poisoning at bay.  Over the next few days, we will share some delicious low-cost holiday recipes with some simple food safety tips to help you prepare healthy and safe holiday meals. The first recipe below talks about preparing and cooking a turkey safely. Recipes to follow will include Grandma’s Stuffing, Baked Apples and Sweet Potatoes, Green Bean Sauté, and Crunchy Pumpkin Pie.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season!

The Food Safety Discovery Zone Reaches 2,000 Visitors at USDA’s 2011 Harvest Festival

It was a chilly but beautiful Friday when the Food Safety Discovery Zone joined vendors at the USDA Harvest Festival to celebrate the end of a successful growing season for the People’s Garden. Even among the jazz band, petting zoo, and the smell of kettle corn in the air, the giant yellow Food Safety Discovery Zone was impossible to miss. Designed to make food safety education fun for kids, the 40-foot long mobile exhibit attracted masses of visitors of all ages who wanted to know how to safely prepare the food they were buying at the festival or for the upcoming holidays.

Turkey FUNdamentals: Top Questions for Cooking a Turkey

The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline has been answering consumer questions related to Holiday meals for over 25 years. Of course, we get the usual questions about buying, thawing and roasting a turkey. But we also get some of the same not-so-typical questions each year. You may have had these questions yourself.

Meet Face of Food Safety Nisha Antoine: Lieutenant, Biologist, Volunteer, and Mother

Nisha Antoine has always understood the relationship between personal health and public health. As a child with asthma, she spent a lot of time in the emergency room, and she was inspired by her doctors and nurses to want to take care of other children as an adult. From elementary school through college, Nisha enjoyed studying biology, a path she knew would eventually lead to a career of caring for others.

Turkey FUNdamentals: Planning for Thanksgiving

Cross posted from the FoodSafety.gov blog:

Okay, so it’s your turn to host the annual Thanksgiving feast. Aunt Sara has been cooking turkeys for 40 years, and Cousin Rachel is a gourmet cook. Can you tackle a turkey without being traumatized?

Yes you can!  Believe it or not, taking care of “Tom” isn’t that tough, and it can actually be FUN!  Just follow USDA’s “Turkey FUNdamentals” and your bird will turn out fine. The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline says that each November, both novice and experienced cooks have the same basic questions on preparing turkey. Here they are:

FSDZ Kicks Off the Season by Visiting Lake Anne Elementary School in Virginia

The USDA’s Food Safety Discovery Zone (FSDZ) kicked off the 2011-2012 season on Thursday, October 13, 2011, by wheeling in to Lake Anne Elementary School in Reston, Va., and educating 280 students about food safety!

Throughout the day, the FSDZ staff gave students an exciting tour of the Food Safety Mobile and educated them about the four basic steps of preventing foodborne illness: Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill.

The students were especially fascinated by the “Germs that Glow in the Dark” station, because they were able to see how many germs were present on hands that weren’t properly washed under the ultraviolet light. “As you can see, it is really important to wash your hands properly!” Public Affairs Specialist Mary Harris told the group.