Summer Food Safety Tips

Make your stop for food the last stop on your list of chores. The sooner you can get home with your groceries, the better. If you have room in the back seat, it might be cooler, after your air conditioner kicks in, than keeping the groceries in the trunk of your car.
If it takes a while for you to get home from the grocery store, get one of those cooler bags for your frozen items, or bring a full size cooler with freezer packs and put your ice cream, dairy items, meat, eggs, and other perishables in the cooler for the trip home.
If your kids (or the adults) snack in the car, make them nonperishable snacks, like nuts and crackers or dried fruit. Cheese sticks left in a hot car are pretty ugly.
If you are on a road trip and you are taking beverages, stay away from cans of carbonated beverages that could explode in the car. Yuk. Stick with plastic bottled, non-carbonated drinks or juice boxes.
If you are going on a day trip (or even across town) freeze a couple of bottles of water or sports drinks or lemonade for the trip. If you keep them in a cooler, they'll still be cool for the trip home. We keep a variety of about ten different frozen drinks in the freezer at all times!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008