COLLEGE STATION – In 1999, the National Restaurant Association reported that almost 50 billion meals are eaten in restaurants, schools and work cafeterias each year. Eating out can be a real treat. People can get what they want, when they want it – and there’s no cleaning up afterward!
The problem with eating in someone else’s kitchen, though, is that you never know how clean it is or how the food is prepared.
Michelle Ledoux, food safety expert with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, offers these tips for eating out.
“First, don’t be afraid to send something back. It’s your health you need to think about. If you order something that should be served hot, make sure it’s steaming. If you order a dish that is supposed to be cold, make sure it is. Otherwise, there may be something wrong with it,” she advises.
If the main dish is chicken, make sure the meat is white and that juices run clear. The same is true for pork. If ground beef is ordered, make sure none of the meat is pink.
“For other beef products, like steak or roast, make sure they’re served hot,” adds Ledoux.
Vegetable side dishes aren’t foods that typically contain organisms that cause food-borne illness, she says.
Anticipating a crisp salad at meal time? Though germs can’t be seen with the naked eye, look the salad bar over carefully before digging in.
“One of the first clues is whether they maintain the salad bar,” explains Ledoux. “Are there spills? Are the plates clean? Is everything cold?
“If not, you can’t really rely on the salad being something you want to eat.”
Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration has advised that people not eat raw sprouts, a salad bar staple. Raw sprouts have been connected to outbreaks of Salmonella and E. coli 0157, states a news release from FDA.
“Most importantly, use common sense. If an eating establishment has dirty bathrooms, floors, tables, then chances are the kitchen is dirty also. Don’t be embarrassed to leave. That is not a place you want to eat at,” Ledoux concludes.
-30-