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Hi, friends!  I’m excited to partner with America’s most beloved soap brand of 70 years, Dial®, today to share with you my number one priority in the kitchen, which is keeping food safe!  Dial has launched a breakthrough new line-up Dial Complete® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Beauty Bar and Foaming Hand Wash. There’s antibacterial. There’s moisturizing. And now, there’s 2 in 1. Helping us all stay a little cleaner without dried-out skin, woohoo!

As many of you know, during the school year I am an adjunct professor at a local community college where I teach a nutrition lab class.  At the end of every semester, I ask my students which lab was their favorite, and many of them respond that the food safety lab is their favorite.  Many of them say they learned a lot of information they didn’t know before.

My theory on this is that traditions, now considered unsafe, such as letting meat defrost on the countertop are often passed down when someone is learning to cook from their parents.  Or, if you are self-taught like me, you never know otherwise.  Unless you receive formal training in food safety, such as Serve Safe (required as part of food service training for RDs) or other food safety class you might never know certain things.

Poor food safety practices can lead to illness in anyone, but those illnesses are more severe for immune-compromised populations. Specific groups such as pregnant women, small children, elderly, transplant patients, cancer patients, or other immune-compromised individuals may become very ill or even die from foodborne illness.

Personally, food safety has always been a top priority for me (I got the flu and food poisoning at the same time in college, that’s enough to scare anyone for life.) But also, I cook a ton between cooking for my house and also for the blog.  Often when I make treat related recipes or large quantity of recipes, I give them away.

It just so happens that the people I give them away often fall in those special considerations category like Mr. Hungry’s Grandma or our friends down the street who are expecting their third child and have two small children at home.  I would die if I ever were responsible for getting any of them sick, so I pay attention to food safety any time I’m cooking.   And now that we are expecting our first baby, I’m even more vigilant.

So, today I’m thrilled to be teaming up withDial® to share with you my top food safety tips for the kitchen!

Food Safety Tips

Hand Washing

Handwashing is by far the most critical food safety tactic you could use. For instance, Dial Complete® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Foaming Hand Wash kills 99.9% of bacteria encountered in common households settings.   There are, however, a few considerations, make sure to:

• Wash for 20 seconds or more
• Pay particular attention to jewelry, watches, and nail beds
• Use warm to hot water
• Use anti-microbial hand soap

Worried about dry hands, cracked skin with all that hand washing? Dial® contains 2x moisturizing ingredients, giving you soft hands even after repeated washing.

I should know I washed my hands probably ten times in a row to get that shot you see above, and it did not dry out my hands.  Plus I’ve been usingDial Complete® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Foaming Hand Wash all week, and I can say that my hands are not as dry as they usually are when I’m doing a ton of recipe photo shoots.

Prevent Cross Contamination

Cross contamination is another common reason for food born illness, pay attention to these factors:

• Have separate cooking boards for poultry, fish, meat, and veggies. Color-coded ones are very nice.
• Do not return cooked meat to a dish that previously had raw meat on it.
• Do not use a utensil for cooked meat that was used to handle raw meat.
• Arrange fruits and vegetables on the top shelf of the refrigerator, dairy on the second shelf, and meats on the bottom shelf in case they leak.
• Do not wash your meat or poultry in the sink.  Research shows this furthers the spread of bacteria, especially salmonella.  Cooking your poultry sufficiently should be enough to kill the bacteria, there is no need to wash it.
• Pay attention to allergen cross-contamination.  Since I give away a lot of my food, I’m vigilant about this.  If I’m working on multiple recipes at the same time, I don’t use the same spoon to stir something that contained potential allergens such as peanuts or tree nuts.

Defrost Food Correctly

There are three ways to correctly defrost food, none of them include letting your food set on the countertop:

1. Defrost it in the refrigerator; this ensures your meat stays under 40 degrees at all times.
2. Defrost under COLD running water.
3. Defrost in the microwave and cook immediately.

These techniques minimize the amount of time food is in the danger zone, around 40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature at which bacteria multiply like crazy.

Heat to the Correct Temperature

Use this chart to ensure you are heating your food the correct temperature, providing you’ve killed all potential pathogens.

General Tips

• Make sure it is stored in the refrigerator within 2 hours, I’m looking at you, Thanksgiving.
• Reheat all food to 165F or hotter.
• Do not eat canned or jarred food with the seal that has been broken before getting it home from the store.
• Watch out for dented cans or airtight packaging; this is a sign of botulism.

Pregnancy Food Safety Tips

See every single tip above plus these: 

• Heat lunch meats and smoked seafood, including hot dogs to 165F or hotter before consuming them.
• Only consume pasteurized dairy products, skip the brie.
• Consume only pasteurized juice products such as orange juice and cider.
• Use pasteurized eggs when possible and only consume them fully cooked.
• Avoid premade meat or seafood salad – like chicken salad, tuna salad, or egg salad.  You can eat them at home but avoid them out.
• Do not eat raw sprouts of any kind, if you want to eat them make sure they are cooked to 165F.
• Eat only canned versions of meat spreads and pates.
• Eat only canned versions of olives, skip the olive bar.

I’m so happy I got to try out the Dial Complete® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Foaming Hand Wash and Beauty Bar.  While supplies last you can get the following on-pack in-store coupons:

• Buy the Dial® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Foaming Hand Wash and receive $0.75 off
• Buy the 3 pack of Dial® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Beauty Bars and get $0.75 off
• Buy the 6 pack of Dial® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Beauty Bars and get $1.00 off

For more information on Dial, ® products find them on facebook, twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!

I shopped at CVS, and I found the Dial Complete® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Beauty Bar and Dial Complete® 2 in 1 Moisturizing & Antibacterial Foaming Hand Wash in the body wash section.