Additional Food Safety Tips
By, Peggy A. Wickwire, M.S., R.D.
SPECIAL NOTE: This advice about keeping food
and cookware safe and clean is meant to protect
you from the germs that they carry. HIV cannot
be spread by food or water. Feel free to have
friends in your kitchen and to cook and share
meals with them.
You have to be careful with food when you are
infected with HIV. It can easily give you
infections and make you very sick. There are
germs on all the food we bring home from the
grocery store. You need to handle the food right,
cook it right and store it right to keep those
germs from getting to you.
- Wash all fresh fruits and vegetables
thoroughly. Use a vegetable brush designed
for this purpose.
- Throw away any fruit or vegetable
which has a rotten or moldy spot on it.
- Cook meat thoroughly. You might want
to buy a meat thermometer to help you know
for sure that it is done. Put the thermometer in
the
thickest part of the meat and not touching a
bone. Cook the meat till it reaches 165 to
212 degrees on your thermometer.
- Do not eat raw meats or fish, even in
small
amounts. No sushi or rare steak.
- Thaw frozen meats and other frozen
foods In the refrigerator or in a microwave
oven set to defrost. Never thaw foods at room
temperature.
Germs that grow at room temperature can
make
you very sick.
- Don't eat raw eggs. If you wish to add a
an egg to a milkshake or make egg nog, use a
frozen product called "Eggbeaters"
instead.
- Don't use cracked eggs. Look for cracks
in the shells before you buy them.
- Use different cutting boards for raw
foods and cooked foods.
- Throw away moldy cheese. It is not
good enough to just cut off the moldy
part.
- Don't let hot foods cool down at room
temperature. Put them in the refrigerator right
away. If it is a large amount of food, put it in 2
or 3 containers so the refrigerator can cool it
all quickly.
- Keep your refrigerator cold. You might
wish to
get a refrigerator thermometer. Keep it set no higher than 40 degrees. Your freezer should be at 0
degrees.
- Use hot, sudsy water to wash your dishes.
Let it out of the sink when it gets dirty and
replace it with new. Any food germs left on your
plate can make you sick the next time you eat
from it.
- Keep everything clean. Clean your
counters often and clean them well. Wash your
hands with soap and water a lot during
cooking.
- Don't use foods past the recommended
date on the label. Even though this never made
you sick in
the past, it may now.
- Don't taste anything that you think might
be spoiled. If in doubt, throw it out.
- Use pasteurized milk only. This means it
has been treated with heat to destroy harmful
germs. Look for the word "pasteurized" on the
label. Do not drink milk fresh from the
cow.
- If you have old dishes, cups or plastic
containers with a lot of scratches in them,
throw t hem out. Germs love to hide in scratches
and they
are very difficult to clean out of there.
- Wear rubber gloves when handling raw
meat.
This will prevent germs from entering any
open cuts or sores on your hands.
- Hurry home from the grocery store! If the
cold
or frozen foods you buy warm in your car,
germs can grow that may make you sick
later.
Some AIDS experts feel that people with HIV
disease should eliminate all fresh fruits and
vegetables from their diet. They feel that even with
careful washing there is still some risk of soil-based
type infection. Consult your infectious disease
specialist regarding his/her recommendation on
this matter.
