Jennifer Jackson of Anne Arundel County Maryland, Department of Aging and Disabilities, shares a BAC Fighter success story from the Older Americans Month Health and Wellness Fair they attended.
Her department set up a table on food safety which included Chelsea the Chicken, a cantaloupe cleaning demonstration, and their Food Safety Trivia Wheel.
An older couple approached their display and spun the Food Safety Trivia Wheel. Jennifer read their trivia question: “During a summer picnic, how long can food be left out before it needs to be refrigerated or thrown away?” The husband answered and said that he thought food could be left out for six hours!
After explaining the correct answer (found on The Partnership for Food Safety Education’s “Chill” handout), he exclaimed, “So, that’s why we all got sick during that trip to the amusement park!”
It turns out that he and his family planned a trip to an amusement park and packed a cooler of barbecue chicken to eat for lunch. The chicken was left in the cooler all day and no one checked to make sure that the temperature was kept out of the danger zone. After eating the chicken for lunch, everyone in his group suffered a bout of food poisoning. He and his wife told me that they would make sure they packed food safely in the future!
Jennifer Jackson
Assisted Living Program
Anne Arundel County Department of Aging and Disabilities
Annapolis, Maryland