Nutrition and weight maintenance

November 2004     View PDF     En español

Guidelines for “safer” food preparation

Properly handling food is one area that can greatly impact your ability to keep up with your nutrition and exercise. Carefully handling and preparing your food while avoiding certain other foods that can easily cause disease may help prevent infections, which can tax your ability to maintain weight. For a complete discussion of safe food handling, read Food Safety. Meanwhile, some basic guidelines include the following.

• Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly to remove organisms, such as Mycobacterium avium intracellulare (MAI, the cause of MAC), which are found in soil. Use a vegetable brush to remove soil and chemicals. Avoid eating fresh vegetables and salads at restaurants or any place where you can’t be certain that the products are washed adequately to meet your needs.
• Avoid eating raw eggs and food containing raw eggs. Each year, thousands of cases of salmonella poisoning come from eating Caesar salads made with raw eggs. If you eat salads at restaurants, ask if raw eggs are used in salad dressings and other foods—avoiding raw eggs whenever possible.
• Cook meat thoroughly. Avoid “pink” meat, including rare steaks or burgers and uncooked meat or fish, including sushi. Diseases like salmonella, toxoplasmosis and parasites are found in raw and undercooked meats.
• Avoid raw shellfish like oysters and clams. They may contain organisms like hepatitis A virus and parasites.
• Use different cutting boards for cooked foods and for raw foods. For example, salads prepared on a cutting board that was just used for preparing meat can become contaminated by organisms in the meat.
• Wash hands, kitchen utensils and cutting boards frequently and thoroughly during food preparation. This will help avoid meat juices from contaminating cheese, vegetables and other foods.
• Keep kitchen appliances, shelves, countertops, refrigerators, freezers and utensils clean. Wash sponges and towels frequently. Properly storing and cooking food can help reduce the risk of food-borne diseases.
• Wash all utensils and your hands with soap and water between handling one food and handling another. This helps prevent cross contamination.
• Boil drinking water between one to five minutes to avoid cryptosporidiosis. Some water filters can remove contaminants from tap water, but read your filter’s information booklet to be sure. For more information, read the publications, Cryptosporidiosis and Food Safety, available from Project Inform.
• Thaw meats in the refrigerator or microwave rather than in open air. Keep the refrigerator temperature at 40° Fahrenheit or lower.

Other guides to safer food preparation are available in bookstores that carry materials on nutrition and HIV.