Don't make your holiday guests sick

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, following food safety tips will help ensure a healthy and safe holiday for everyone al your table.
Always follow these steps:
Clean hands before food preparation by following these simple steps: wet hands, lather with soap, scrub for at least 20 seconds, rinse with clean warm water and dry hands with a clean towel.
Serve food on clean plates and avoid reusing plates that previously held raw meat and poultry.
Separate raw and cooked foods to avoid cross contamination, which is transferring bacteria from raw food onto ready-to-eat food. For example, when preparing a roast and raw veggies for a dip platter, keep the raw meat from coming into contact with the vegetables, or food that does not require further cooking such as sliced, cooked meat and cheese.
Cook using a food thermometer to make sure food reaches a safe minimum internal temperature. Cook all raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source. For safety and quality reasons, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming.
Cook all raw ground beef, pork, lamb, and veal to an internal temperature of 160 degrees as measured with a food thermometer. Cook all poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 as measured with a food thermometer. When transporting hot, cooked food from one location to another, keep it hot by carrying it in an insulated container. For more information about food thermometers, visit FoodSafety.gov
Chill leftovers within two hours of cooking. Keep track of how long items have been sitting on the buffet table and discard anything out longer than two hours. Never leave perishable foods, such as meat, poultry, eggs and casseroles in the “danger zone” over two hours. The danger zone is between 40 and 140 degrees, where bacteria multiply rapidly. After two hours, enough bacteria may have grown to make partygoers sick. Exceptions to the danger zone include ready-to-eat items like cookies, crackers, bread and whole fruit.
The FoodKeeper application, for both the Android and iOS smartphones, is a quick reference for safe food storage available in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Consumers can learn more about key food safety practices at Foodsafety.gov .
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture