Homegrown Doesn't Automatically Make Food Safe (Let's feast with care this Christmas!)
You still need food safe practices for homegrown foods
As the holiday season fast approaches, so do the opportunities to feast with family and friends. It’s a wonderful time to share your homegrown garden bounty and new-found skills like growing sprouts and microgreens.
But don’t get fooled into thinking that just because you have grown foods at home that they are automatically safe and free from bacteria that can cause food poisoning.
Even though raw meat is typically considered the biggest source of bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella in your kitchen, raw vegetables and sprouts can still carry bacteria that will make you sick.
All sources of food - homegrown, farmer’s markets, craft fairs, grocery stores, and even frozen foods - can become time bombs of food poisoning and illness if they are not properly handled, cooked, served, stored and reheated.
It’s always important to follow food safe practices, but the holidays are a great time to brush up on the principles and processes that keep food safe.
Let’s dive in.`
How to avoid food poisoning with homegrown foods
Wash it!
And I mean wash everything!
Make sure your sink and counters are properly cleaned before beginning handling foods.
Most importantly, wash your hands with soap regularly. before and after handling foods, and throughout the preparation process as your shift from raw or foods out of storage to clean and ready for the bowl or pan.
Then wash your fruits, vegetables, sprouts and microgreens properly before they move forward into the cooking process. I use running water and a brush to scrub off any veggies before I peel or prepare them for a meal.
For sprouts and microgreens, I like to soak them for a few minutes in a container of cool water, rinse thoroughly and spin them dry. (I’ll leave a list of my favorite tools at the end of the end of the post)
I grow my own meat, and I like to rinse the thawed chicken or duck with plain running water before putting it into the roasting pan for seasoning. If you handle raw meat (of any kind) in your sink, or on counters and cutting boards, then make sure to clean up thoroughly before moving on to vegetables and other types of foods.
I keep a spray bottle with diluted bleach handy in the kitchen to disinfect surfaces during this part of the meal prep process. One tsp bleach in 4 cups of water does the trick, but you can use a 50-50 mix of vinegar and water if you prefer. It’s a good idea to check what is safe to use on the type of countertop you have so you don’t ruin the finish or etch the surface.
Don’t cross-contaminate
Juices from raw meat can easily contaminate everything in the kitchen.
Keep raw meat full separate from other parts of the meal prep. Use separate cutting boards, bowls, knives and tools for raw meat and put them in warm soapy water or straight into the dishwasher after use to avoid accidently grabbing one of those for some other part of the meal prep.
This same rule of separation applies to keeping unwashed veggies away from the ones you’ve already cleaned and prepared. Garden dirt can bring in harmful bacteria and cause a problem.
Don’t grab potatoes or carrots out of the bag or bin and plunk them down beside the onion you’ve already cleaned and chopped. Separate out your work flow so unwashed vegetables stay away from the cutting and prepping area. I like to wash all the vegetables first before bringing them over to the cutting board.
Cook foods to the proper temperature
E. coli usually comes from fecal contamination. That can happen from fecal contaminated water, manure in soil, and other fecal sources like not washing your hands after playing with pets or using the bathroom. Meat may also have E. coli from contact with intestines or fecal matter during processing, and even with careful rinsing, there is still a risk.
Salmonella is more broadly found in the environment and can be carried by many animals without necessarily showing symptoms related to the bacteria. According to the USDA, Salmonella can live on a surface for up to 32 hours. That means, you can easily spread Salmonella from the kitchen to other surfaces in your home if you are not regularly washing your hands and food preparation areas.
Luckily you can kill these bacteria by cooking foods to the correct temperature. There are plenty of cooking temperature charts on Google so I won’t go into that here. The basic principle is that E. coli is heat killed at 160F and Salmonella is heat killed between 145 and 165F. Make sure your foods are reaching the correct internal temperature for safety.
Don’t leave it warm
Serve hot foods hot and cold foods cold. That means moving any leftover foods into the fridge within 2 hours.
Bacteria can grow in temperatures as low as 4C (40F). Which means bacteria can develop in foods in the fridge before they fully chill, or in warmer parts of the fridge like the door.
If you are serving leftovers the next day, make sure you reheat foods to 74C (165F) to kill any bacteria that has had time to grow in the interim.
Safety tips for sprouts
Homegrown sprouts are a special case that requires care to ensure they remain safe.
Seeds need a moist warm environment to germinate and start growing. That is the perfect place for bacteria and molds to grow too. Because we are eating the whole tiny plant, there is a risk that any harmful bacteria will be eaten as well.
Always wash your hands before handling sprout containers and sprouts.
Make sure you are rinsing your sprouts daily to flush away materials that allow bacterial and mold build up.
Discard any sprouts that start to smell sour or off, of that are wilted, droopy, soggy or off-colored. If in doubt, through out the whole jarful rather than risk eating contaminated foods.
Healthy people can eat raw sprouts, but if you have immune issues or compromised health then cooking sprouts is advisable. Follow food safe recommendations for cooking temperatures and times. If you want to read more about food safety and sprouts, this is the link to the Health Canada guide.
Safety tips for microgreens
Unlike sprouts, microgreens are tiny plants grown in a small amount of soil or rooting substrate. It’s best to use a clean soil source, like seed-starting potting mix, to reduce the risk of bacterial contaminants. If you missed it last week, I put out my list of the 12 best microgreens to grow at home. You can read that here.
As with sprouts, microgreens grow in warm moist conditions that increase the risk of bacteria growth. However, unlike sprouts, microgreens are usually cut above the ground, leaving their roots and the growing medium behind.
Even with careful cutting, it’s still a good idea to rinse microgreens thoroughly before using them in a meal.
And while sprouts must be rinsed once or twice a day to reduce bacterial contamination and maintain growing conditions, microgreens only need to be rinsed once they are harvested. Otherwise you simply maintain soil moisture as you would in a garden or with a house plant.
Since I regularly use both methods to produce winter food, I feel like microgreens are best suited for foods that I intend to eat raw. I tend to save sprouting for plants like bean sprouts which I will cook.
Keeping it Safe
Most of us who grow our food (or aspire to) do so because we want to be eating the highest quality foods possible. We want the rich flavors and nutrient density that comes from growing in living soil, free of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.
That’s why it’s even more important to make sure you prepare those foods with the highest safety practices. Soil is soil. No matter how careful you think you’ve been, the environment in the garden, in your fridge, in your storage racks and bins, and most of all in your kitchen, can introduce harmful bacteria that can lead to food poisoning.
It only takes a few minutes. lots of hand washing, and some cross-checks of temperature to keep everyone food safe this holiday season.
I hope your holidays stay merry and bright, and that your feasts are simply magnificent!
Here’s a list of my favorite tools for microgreen, sprouts and kitchen prep for that special someone on your shopping list or as a well-deserved treat for yourself (these are amazon affiliate links):
Full spectrum grow lights - work great for microgreens and growing winter vegetables indoors.
Biosta Sprouter - I’ve had my Biosta sprouter for more than 15 years and it is still going strong. I prefer the flat sprouting tray and easy rinsing compared to the crowded conditions using jars (although both methods work to produce sprouts).
Single serve salad spinner - I simply love this little spinner that is just the right size for washing and spinning microgreens. I fill it up with cuttings and water. Let them soak. Drain off the water and then spin all in the same container.
Kitchen Aid mini-food processor - great for chopping up microgreens and mixing with olive oil for a pesto like result, for doing a fast chop for onions, carrots and celery for sofrito.
Vitamix E310 - for bigger kitchen blending and processing jobs, I prefer this basic Vitamix model, but there are some seriously fancy versions if you want more.
Silicon storage cubes - for freezing leftovers quickly and easily in portion controlled sizes. I have these 2 cup ones and also a different brand for the 1 cup version. They make freezing and using leftovers so easy.
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We also have a spray bottle with diluted bleach to wash the cutting boards and counters.
I found the information about sprouts and micro greens really interesting. We’ve never grown our own.