Food safety and leftover tips 101

Read time: 3 minutes

Foods to be on the lookout for when you’re preparing meals and eating leftovers …

That casserole you made two days ago looks so tasty when you arrive home famished and take a peek in the fridge. Should you dig in and enjoy?

Hold it!! W-a-a-i-t. Food science has come a long way in the last decades, especially when you consider the miracles of refrigeration and preservatives. But modern science can only keep food safe for so long before it goes bad. Take a moment to read up on some foods and ingredients that cause problems for leftovers — and you.

🥚 Eggs

Eggs can contain salmonella. To reduce your chance of getting sick from eggs, keep them refrigerated at 40°F or colder; cook until both the white and yolk are firm; and cook egg dishes to a safe internal temperature (160°F for dishes with no meat or poultry, 165°F for those that have meat or poultry). Use pasteurized eggs. Eat or refrigerate eggs and food containing eggs immediately after cooking.

🍚 Rice

It’s a food staple for more than half of the world’s population, so, yes, rice is a common leftover! But rice harbors bacillus cereus, a bacterium that quickly multiplies at room temperature. These spores also live in dry conditions such as in the uncooked bag of rice in your pantry. No need to toss all your uneaten rice, just make sure you stash it in the fridge quickly.

👉 Food safety guidelines recommend keeping foods hot — over 140°F — or cold — 40°F or under — if you’re not eating it within two hours.

🍤 Seafood

Nothing says “food poisoning risk” like bad seafood. Fish that has not been stored at the correct temperature has a high risk of being contaminated with histamine, a toxin produced by bacteria in fish. Histamine is not destroyed by normal cooking temps and results in food poisoning causing symptoms like nausea, wheezing and swelling of the face and tongue.

Shellfish such as clams, mussels, oysters and scallops also carry a risk of food poisoning. To lessen your risk, always use store-bought seafood and ensure you keep it chilled before cooking. Then, make sure the fish is cooked through at 145° and cook shellfish until the shells open. Toss the shells that don’t open!

🥬 Veggies and leafy greens

Raw, and unwashed veggies and leafy greens can become contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and listeria through various steps in the supply chain. Dirty water and runoff can leach into the soil where they are grown, and greens can be tainted by dirty processing equipment and unclean food prep practices. Leafy greens are especially risky because they are eaten raw.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy your favorite leafy greens — just be sure they are washed thoroughly before eating.

🍗 Poultry

Coming in as no surprise is poultry. But given how much of it we eat and the risk, it’s worth mentioning. Raw and undercooked poultry such as chicken, duck and turkey have a high risk of causing food poisoning.

This is mainly due to the two bacteria — campylobacter and salmonella — which live in the guts and feathers of these birds and easily contaminate the meat during the slaughtering process. The good news is the bacteria are eliminated when the meat is cooked thoroughly. The USDA recommends a minimum of 165°F for poultry.

These are risks when poultry is first cooked. Improperly cooking and storing as leftovers and you can imagine how the risk increases!

3 tips to be safe with leftovers

Reheat properly. According to the USDA, leftovers should be reheated to 165°F to kill bacteria.
Refrigerate quickly. Bacteria grow fastest at temperatures from 40° to 140°F, so don’t let leftovers sit out too long.
Practice good hygiene. A simple, yet often overlooked, thing people can do when prepping foods or leftovers is wash their hands. Wash up!

When in doubt … toss it out!

Above all — when in doubt, toss it out! Bacteria can easily lurk in leftovers. Don’t sample iffy leftovers — you often can’t taste or smell dangerous bacteria. Better to be safe than to risk it!